It took four games, but the World Series finally produced a high-caliber baseball game on both sides, as San Francisco and Detroit traded jousts for ten innings. In the end, the result was a familiar one though—the Giants got the key hits, and with a 4-3 win San Francisco completes a four-game sweep and secures its second World Series title in three years.
The Detroit Tigers had three legitimate cracks at breaking through against San Francisco Giants’ starter Ryan Vogelsong in the first five innings. All three chances went by the boards and the Giants’ pitching dominance of this World Series continued, as a second straight 2-0 shutout win gave them a commanding 3-0 lead in games and a chance to lock up their second title in three years in Game 4 tonight (8 PM ET, Fox).
The San Francisco Giants have done this before. When they won the World Series in 2010, they took on a favored American League team that was fresh off ousting the Yankees and sending a renowned and feared ace to the mound in Game 1. Back in ’10, Frisco hit Cliff Lee hard and set themselves on the path to a decisive Series win over Texas. Now they’ve done it to Detroit and Justin Verlander, as the Giants grabbed an easy 8-3 win to open the World Series this time around.
The higher-ups at Fox Sports are probably weeping, with the prospect of the San Francisco Giants and Detroit Tigers matching up. The TV ratings won’t be huge, but the baseball promises to be good. These are two evenly matched teams, and TheSportsNotebook will break down each team by their ability to put runners on base, hit for power, get starting pitching and close games out in relief. We’ll also look at the 2012 World Series in a little historical context, along with seeing how the smart money in Las Vegas sees things.