The opening game of this year’s World Series was supposed to be a pitching duel, but batters ruled supreme as the San Francisco Giants beat the Texas Rangers 11-7 to take an early lead in the best-of-seven series.
The Wednesday matchup of aces Cliff Lee of Texas and San Francisco’s Tim Lincecum left a final linescore that totaled 18 runs and 25 hits, including 10 doubles.
“We faced a great pitcher tonight and he wasn’t quite on top of his game and Timmy wasn’t quite as sharp either,” Giants manager Bruce Bochy said. “It’s not quite the game we thought it would be, but certainly a huge game for us.”
PHOTO: AFP
San Francisco made a shaky start and trailed 2-0 before denting Lee’s aura of invincibility with two runs in the third inning followed by a six-run outburst in the fifth.
Freddy Sanchez had three doubles among his four hits, while Juan Uribe hit a three-run homer off reliever Darren O’Day that capped the scoring in the fifth and made a winner of Lincecum.
The Giants scored three more runs in the eighth for extra breathing room, which came in handy as Texas rallied for three runs in the ninth before closer Brian Wilson made Ian Kinsler fly out to right to end the game.
PHOTO: AFP
Lee had posted a 3-0 record this postseason with a microscopic 0.75 earned run average after going 4-0 for the Philadelphia Phillies in last year’s playoffs.
CRAFTY
But the crafty left-hander failed to hold down the Giants despite being handed a 2-0 lead after two innings.
An RBI-double to left by Sanchez in the third inning sliced the lead in half and Buster Posey’s single tied the game.
The Giants sent 11 batters to the plate in the game-breaking sixth inning that chased Lee from the mound.
Back-to-back doubles by Andres Torres and Sanchez, who became the first player to double in his first three World Series at-bats, scored one run.
TWO-OUT WALK
After a two-out walk to Pat Burrell, Cody Ross singled sharply to center to score Sanchez and Aubrey Huff stroked another RBI single through the middle to knock Lee out.
O’Day took over and Uribe, whose eighth-inning homer clinched the National League Championship Series triumph over Philadelphia, belted a 2-0 pitch into the seats to make it 8-2 for the Giants, who are seeking a first Series crown since 1954.
The result, however, had looked unlikely after the Giants early jitters.
Lincecum gave up a run in the first inning on Dominican Vladimir Guerrero’s grounder up the middle and narrowly escaped further trouble.
With men on first and third and one out, Lincecum gloved a slow roller and had Michael Young trapped between third base and home.
Lincecum ran at Young and herded him back toward third but losing track of the baserunners he failed to go for a tag out and allowed him to reclaim third base to load the bases.
“A little bit of a brain fart there, not really knowing the situation,” Lincecum conceded.
DOUBLE PLAY
However, the pitcher dodged further damage by forcing Kinsler to ground to third baseman Uribe, who stepped on the bag and gunned a throw to first for an inning-ending double play.
The Giants showed more bad judgment in the first when Sanchez, after his first two-base hit, was doubled off second when Kinsler made a running catch of a pop up that looked like it might fall safely in short right field.
However, after multi-award winning singer Tony Bennett calmed the 43,601 capacity crowd at AT&T Park with a sweet rendition of I Left My Heart in San Francisco at the end of the first inning, the Giants got back on track to claim the Fall Classic opener.
Matt Cain, who has yet to yield an earned run in the postseason, will start for the Giants against C.J. Wilson of the Rangers in Game Two, in San Francisco.
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