Giants shut Tigers out for 2nd straight game, win 2-0

But that was it. In six months, the Tigers failed to score twice.

Saturday night in Detroit, the Tigers lost Game 3 of the World Series, 2-0; just 48 hours earlier, they’d lost Game 2 by the same score. And so the Tigers are the first team since 1966 to get blanked in two straight World Series games.*

The runner was on an error, mind you.

One of the stories of the postseason has been Tim Lincecum, confusing disappointment, turning into Tim Lincecum, old-school relief ace. And in the middle of Game 3, Bruce Bochy went to the Lincecum well in the sixth inning, hoping he could bridge the gap between Ryan Vogelsong and the late-inning relievers.

It’s pretty odious to pick apart individual decisions of an at-bat, really. As in, “He should have/have not (swung)(taken) that pitch.” It’s impossible to get that dogmatic without knowing what the hitter was looking for, and what the pitch looked like coming to the plate.

But on the 3-1 pitch, Avila swung, chopping it right back to Lincecum, who ran it to first unassisted for the first out of the inning.

With Vogelsong getting credit for 5⅔ scoreless innings, San Francisco’s starting pitchers now haven’t given up a run since Game 6 of the NLCS, when Vogelsong gave up one run in seven innings. Oh, and it’s Vogelsong’s seventh straight start, dating back to September, in which he gave up one run or none. Meanwhile, Lincecum is reinventing himself before our very eyes, on baseball’s biggest stage.

There aren’t a lot of balls hit in baseball that make people say, “That might have been out of AT&T Park,” but in the top of the fifth, Angel Pagan hit one. He took a high fastball out to dead center, but Austin Jackson ranged back and calmly collected it just in front of the warning track. It’s 420 to dead center in Comerica. Maybe Juan Gonzalez was right not to sign that mega-deal the Tigers offered him!

Anibal Sanchez has settled down nicely after his rough second inning, and set the side down in order on 13 pitches in the fifth.

Meanwhile, just one shaky inning has undone Anibal Sanchez. He faced only four Tigers in the first inning, three in the third, and four in the fourth; the only two debits in those innings were harmless singles. But of course there was that tough second inning, when his control deserted him and he gave up a couple of runs. Otherwise, though, Sánchez has been outstanding. He’s thrown 74 pitches in those four innings, though, and can’t be expected to pitch much beyond the sixth.

It had to be a tailored double play to get the speedy Berry, and it was. The crowd was into the game for about 30 seconds. It was a loud 30 seconds.

... for an RBI triple.

We’re on to the bottom of the second inning, the Giants are ahead 2-0 ... and the Tigers still haven’t led the Giants for a single minute of this World Series.

It is 47 degrees or so in Detroit, which I’d guess would make it pretty hard to hit. Everyone just wants to get back to the dugout as quickly as possible so they can start a pine-tar fire.

The Giants obliged in the top of the first inning, going down quickly. Angel Pagan grounded out on the second pitch he saw from Anibal Sanchez, and Marco Scutaro grounded to short after running the count full. Pablo Sandoval dunked a single in front of Austin Jackson -- Sandoval’s sixth hit in eight at-bats -- but he was stranded when Buster Posey waved through a Sanchez fastball.

With the first pitch in Game 3 of the World Series just a few minutes away, here’s a bit of music from 1968 to stir the passions of Detroit Tigers fans, wherever they are. Go get ‘em, Tigers!

I noticed, anyway. I keep waiting for Bochy’s lineup to bite him on the butt, but of course it hasn’t happened yet. Maybe tonight’s the night?

Detroit is down two games to none and has looked mighty impotent in the first two games in San Francisco. But that doesn’t mean they can’t come back. It’s been done many times. Let’s have a look, shall we?

Including 1955, the first time a team had come back to win a best-of-seven World Series after being down two games to none*, it’s been done 10 times. That seems like a lot, doesn’t it? 10 times in the last 56 World Series?

Saturday, October 27, 2012, 8:00 p.m. EDT on FOX

The Tigers limp back to Detroit licking their wounds after the Giants outscored them by a combined score of 10-3 in Games 1 and 2. The Tigers were an impressive 50-31 at Comerica Park this year, so they will be hoping the home cooking can help them turn it around.

“The only reason we’re here is because you guys are here,” one Tigers player said to me, jokingly, but also underscoring the fact he’d rather be at home recovering than at the yard.

And he’s right. The genesis of workout days began during of the 1997 World Series. That year, on an off day with no access to players or coaches, the media largely focused on the dismal television ratings. Since then, MLB has instituted workout days for the sole purpose of giving the media access, and therefore providing a channel to report varying story angles.