Giants shock even themselves while stunning the Rangers!

GIANTS 11 - RANGERS 7

Ever since the San Francisco Giants clinched on Saturday night, I had a nagging feeling that there would be a game like this in the World Series.  Never in a million years did I expect that it would come with Cliff Lee and Tim Lincecum on the mound.

The Giants pounded out 14 hits last night, 8 of them off of Lee, and 11 runs, 6 off of Lee, to defeat the Rangers 11-7.

This pitching matchup didn't have quite the anticipation that the Lincecum - Halladay matchup had, but it was pretty well hyped.  Lee was an astounding 7-0 in postseason play and he had just come off of a masterful performance against the Yankees.  The Giants, on the other hand, had  struggled to put runs on the board all season long and were not an offense that anyone expected to defeat the mighty Lee.  As a matter of fact, the Giants were such underdogs that an ESPN poll had 49 out of 50 states picking the Rangers to win this world series.

But this is a Giants team that has handled Ubaldo Jimenez, Roy Halladay, Roy Oswalt, Cole Hamels, Adam Wainright, and manhandled most of them.

Now they can add Cliff Lee to this list.

On a night when Tim Lincecum didn't have his best stuff (good thing they got the early series lead because I doubt that at this point Timmy could be effective on short rest) the Giants offense picked him up.  Lincecum did battle however because the game could have been easily 6-0 after the second inning rather than 2-0.

But the offense is really the story here.  Led by Freddy Sanchez whose 3 doubles set a world series record with three straight doubles in their world series debut.  Juan Uribe chipped in with a 3 run homer in the 5th that basically put an end to the contest.  Cody Ross chipped in with his usual RBI and Aurey Huff chipped in 3 hits of his own.

I do have to give a special shout out to Edgar Renteria.  He is rapidly making up for all of those days on the DL.  His performance last night in the field and even at the plate made me wonder if this was the same guy who the Giants have been trotting out at shortstop every so often, when he was healthy, for the last 2 seasons.  He is earning those 12 million dollars now.  That play he made on Ian Kinsler was a play that I wouldn't have believed he could make if I hadn't seen it myself.

Overall it was a great win.  I really wish that the Giants wouldn't have let the Rangers have those 3 runs in the ninth but they did.  The Giants even make blowouts torture don't they.  This Giants team has shown time and time again that they do what it takes to win games and they did it again last night.  No we are fooling ourselves to think that the Giants are going to put up double digits every night, but the Giants offense has been struggling for a while now and it was time for them to get hot.  Boy did they ever pick the right time to get hot!