SAN FRANCISCO — It is brief and illustrious, the list of baseball
players who have hit three home runs during a World Series game: Albert
Pujols, Reggie Jackson and Babe Ruth, who achieved the feat twice.
Correction: October 25, 2012
Due to an error by the wire service, an earlier version of the slide show on the home page had a photo that incorrectly named the player throwing the ball as Barry Zito. The player was Brandon Crawford.
Multimedia
Major League Baseball
Yankees
Mets
Now add to it Pablo Sandoval, the San Francisco Giants’ smiling, rotund third baseman, who slammed homers in his first three at-bats Wednesday to power his team to an 8-3 victory over the Detroit Tigers in Game 1 of the World Series.
Sandoval’s home runs came in the first, third and fifth innings,
inciting hysterics from the announced crowd of 42,855 at AT&T Park
and providing a surplus of support to Barry Zito, who pitched five and
two-thirds innings to earn the victory. Sandoval’s was only the ninth
three-homer performance in postseason history.
“I still can’t believe it,” Sandoval said after the game. “When you’re a
little kid, you dream about being in the World Series. But I wasn’t
thinking about being in this situation, three homers in one game, you
know?”
Almost as surprising as Sandoval’s outburst at the plate were the
struggles of Justin Verlander, the Tigers’ strapping ace, considered by
many to be baseball’s best pitcher. Verlander, who was 7-0 with a 0.69
earned run average in his previous seven starts, cast a long shadow upon
the series well before it began, but it disappeared Wednesday afternoon
as the sun set behind the ballpark.
Leading into the game, a popular train of thought ran that the Giants
only had five winnable games at their disposable, so automatic was
Verlander — a five-time All-Star, a former winner of the Cy Young and
Most Valuable Player awards, and perennial strikeout champion — who
would start twice for the Tigers.
But Sandoval and the Giants exploded such notions, pestering Verlander
through a stunningly mediocre outing. He lasted just four innings, while
giving up six hits, five runs and one walk, and striking out four.
“I think you start with giving the Giant hitters credit,” Tigers Manager
Jim Leyland said. “They’re very pesky, and obviously the big guy had
one of those unbelievable nights that happen once in a while in a World
Series.”
The Tigers had last played on Oct. 18, when they finished their
four-game sweep of the Yankees in the American League Championship
Series, and both Verlander and Leyland conceded that the pitcher, who
threw to live hitters to stay sharp during his seven days of rest, may
have been out of sync.
“I’m a creature of habit,” Verlander said. “You get a little bit out of
your routine, but who cares? It’s the World Series.”
The Giants spent that time turning their home field into a feel-good
outdoor festival site. And the collective love on display late Monday
night, when the Giants and their fans celebrated the team’s World Series
berth under a sudden, surreal downpour, was revived quickly on
Wednesday.
In the first inning, Sandoval, who hit a three-run triple off Verlander
during the All-Star Game, fell behind to him, 0-2. But Verlander left a
fastball high and flat, and Sandoval crushed it into the right-center
field seats. It was only the sixth time in Verlander’s career that he
allowed a home run on an 0-2 count.
“He’s one of the best pitchers in the big leagues,” Sandoval said of
Verlander. “In these situations, you want to face the best.”
But Verlander was far from his best. It was almost alarming: the
strikeout king could not put anyone away. In third, Angel Pagan capped
an eight-pitch at-bat by chopping a ball off the bag at third for a
fortuitous double. Marco Scutaro then finished his own eight-pitch
battle by slashing a run-scoring single to center, extending his hitting
streak to 11 games.
After him came Sandoval, who belted an outside fastball into the
left-field stands for two runs and circled the bases with his right fist
raised. Two home runs seemed unlikely enough, and in the fifth a
split-second of stunned silence gave way to deafening cheers when
Sandoval clubbed his third, this one off Al Alburquerque. In Sandoval’s
fourth at-bat, he merely singled.
“It’s a tremendous night, a night I know he’ll never forget,” Giants Manager Bruce Bochy said of Sandoval.
Memories of the Giants’ championship run in 2010 made the night more
poignant. Sandoval went 3 for 17 during those playoffs and played in
just one World Series game, going hitless. And Zito was excluded
altogether, left off the playoff roster, a fact that has made his
renaissance this October fascinating.
“It’s definitely kind of a cool thing that we’re both sitting up here
after 2010,” Zito said, motioning to Sandoval after the game.
Zito, 34, embodied a sharp contrast to the power game of Verlander,
flipping 72-miles-per-hour curveballs and sneaking fastballs around the
back alleys of the strike zone. He eased through the early going,
talking to himself incessantly while on the bench, and even contributed
to Verlander’s misery by driving in a run in the fourth with a swing
that resembled a tennis player’s backhand volley.
“He throws this when you’re looking for that, and vice versa,” Leyland said of Zito.
Zito gave up his only run in the sixth, when Miguel Cabrera ripped a
run-scoring single to center field. Tim Lincecum ended that inning by
coming in and striking out Jhonny Peralta, and he struck out four more
over two and one-third innings. George Kontos, trying to finish the
blowout in the ninth, gave up a two-run homer to Peralta.
The Tigers’ bullpen was more worrisome. Jose Valverde, the Tigers’
former closer who has been hit hard in recent weeks, began the seventh
inning and gave up run-scoring singles to Scutaro and Buster Posey
before being removed.
“You know, it’s a little bit puzzling, to be honest with you,” Leyland
said of Valverde’s problems, which seemed like the team’s biggest
headache this postseason.
But that was before Verlander turned shockingly normal Wednesday, before
Sandoval swatted his way into one of baseball’s most exclusive groups.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:Correction: October 25, 2012
Due to an error by the wire service, an earlier version of the slide show on the home page had a photo that incorrectly named the player throwing the ball as Barry Zito. The player was Brandon Crawford.
No comments:
Post a Comment