Giants Take Game 1 of 2012 World Series

Going into the World Series, almost every analyst, former players, and their mamas said that Justin Verlander was in a zone that no hitter could solve. Curt Schilling said he was on another planet. It seems that Pablo Sandoval and the Giants brought him back down to earth.

Game 1 of the World Series took place earlier tonight with the Detroit Tigers coming into San Francisco to face the Giants. Despite having nearly a week off, the Tigers still felt pretty good seeing that Justin Verlander was starting game 1 for them and he was going against Barry Zito who has been a down player since joining the Giants in 2007. Who did better in Game 1? Surprisingly Zito. Barry went 5 2/3 innings allowing only one run in the 6th inning. After that, Timmy came in for a solid 2 1/3 innings out of the pen.

What happened to Justin Verlander? He got shook up to say the least. Pablo Sandoval hit a solo shot off of him in the 1st inning to start the scoring for the Giants. Then in the 3rd, Marco Scutaro hits in Angel Pagan to tack on another. Pablo then hits a 2 run home run after that. All that 3rd inning scoring with 2 outs and off of Verlander. Even Zito got into the hitting with an RBI single to score in Brandon Belt in the 4th inning... WITH VERLANDER STILL ON THE MOUND!!! Verlander allowed 5 earned runs in 4 innings of work, including two home runs by the Panda. Sandoval would hit another home run in the 5th off of Al Alburquerque. Pablo finished 4-4 on the day with 3 HRs and 4 RBIs.

Giants take the first game 8-3 with Barry Zito getting the win the and Justin Verlander getting the loss.

A stunner across the baseball world as Justin Verlander, who was 3-0 with a .74 ERA in this postseason, gets lit up by Pablo Sandoval and the Giants. The Kung Fu Panda becomes the 4th player in history to hit 3 Home Runs in a World Series game, joining Babe Ruth, Reggie Jackson, and Albert Pujols. Perhaps a bigger shocker was that Verlander wasn't up to par as he has now lost his first 3 World Series starts.

Game 2 of World Series is tomorrow night with Doug Fister of the Tigers facing Madison Bumgarner of the Giants.

P.S. Keep going, Giants. One at a time.

Ryan Vogelsong and the Giants Force Game 7 in NLCS

The Giants so far have not taken the easy road in this postseason.

In the NLDS vs. the Reds, they fell behind two games and were facing elimination going into Cincy for 3 games. They some how won all three of them and moved on to the next round. They then fell behind the Cardinals 3-1 in the NLCS. They won game 5 in St. Louis with Barry Zito pitching spectacularly. Now in Game 6 it was up to Ryan Vogelsong.

Vogelsong went out there and pitched the game of his career. He pitched 7 innings , striking out 9 (career high), allowing 4 hits, one run, and one walk. Meanwhile, the Giants score 5 runs in the first two innings off Chris Carpenter with Marco Scutaro blowing it open with a 2 run double in the 2nd inning to make it a four run lead. The bullpen for the Giants took over in the 8th inning and closed out the Cardinals to win it 6-1. The series is tied at 3-3 with game 7 tomorrow night.

An absolutely great performance by Ryan Vogelsong who had a quite a journey up to this point. A trip to the World Series is now on the line tomorrow night as Kyle Lohse goes out there for the Cards while the Giants send out Matt Cain.