Giants sweep Tigers for World Series title

• Giants sweep Tigers for World Series title
• Marco Scutaro drove in Ryan Theriot with a two-out RBI single in the 10th for the winning score
• Giants won their seventh World Series championship

DETROIT – They took the hard, winding road to the World Series, then discovered the direct path.

The San Francisco Giants, who survived six elimination games in the playoffs, closed out a four-game sweep of the Detroit Tigers with a 4-3 victory in 10 innings Sunday night to win their second World Series in three years.

Marco Scutaro drove in Ryan Theriot with a two-out RBI single in the 10th for the winning score. Theriot had opened the inning with a single off Detroit closer Phil Coke, pitching his second inning, and advanced to second on a sacrifice bunt.

Sergio Romo got the save for the Giants, who defeated the Texas Rangers in five games in 2010 for their first World Series crown since moving to San Francisco in 1958.

"They relied on me," Romo said. "They've got confidence in me all year long. Just do what I can do. These guys let me be myself. They give me the confidence they know I need out there. The faith they have in me – unreal."

Pablo Sandoval, who hit three home runs in Game 1, was named MVP of the World Series.

"We're just happy right now," Buster Posey said. "This tonight was a fitting way for us to end it. Those guys
played hard; they didn't stop."

The Giants reeled off a franchise-record seven consecutive victories after falling behind 3-1 to the St. Louis Cardinals in the National League Championship Series and outscored their opponents 36-7 (was 32-4 before Sunday) in that span.

San Francisco's pitching, coming off back-to-back shutouts, yielded as many runs Sunday as it had in the first three games. That still wasn't enough for the Tigers, who got virtually no production out of cleanup hitter Prince Fielder.

"Obviously, there was no doubt about it. They swept us," Tigers manager Jim Leyland said. "No bad breaks. We got beat. They earned it.

"We didn't hit enough. You just turn the page and move on and congratulations to the Giants."

"It was such an unselfish group," said Giants manager Bruce Bochy. "They just loved each other, played for each other, had a never-say-die-attitude. Just the way they set aside their own agenda, never said anything, never complained, it makes it a lot easier."

Delmon Young's homer to right in the sixth, the Tigers' second of the game, tied the score 3-3 and revived a crowd of 42,152 still stunned from the previous half inning.

Posey, who came in batting .196 in the postseason and had just two RBI in his last 10 games, launched a two-run shot down the left-field line to put San Francisco ahead 3-2 in the top half.

Right-handers Matt Cain and Max Scherzer, both 16-game winners during the regular season, pitched well but were not quite up to the standards of their predecessors in the last two games, both of them 2-0 San Francisco victories.

In fact, Giants starters had combined to allow a total of one run in the series until Miguel Cabrera reached Cain for a two-run homer in the third, giving the Tigers their first lead of the series, 2-1.

To that point, San Francisco had not trailed in 56 consecutive postseason innings, going back to the National League Championship Series.

The home run snapped a streak of 20 scoreless innings for the Detroit offense, which came in hitting just .165 in the series and had gone 1-for-11 with runners in scoring position.

Scherzer allowed three runs in 6 1/3 innings and struck out eight, while Cain gave up three runs in seven innings. Neither figured in the decision.

The Tigers had not caught many breaks in this series, illustrated by Quintin Berry's deep first-inning drive down the right-field line that landed maybe six inches foul. In the next inning, Brandon Belt's rocket in the same general direction hit fair for a triple that drove in the game's first run.

But Belt's ball missed going over the fence by a couple of feet, perhaps a sign that fortune was beginning to smile on Detroit. Belt was stranded, and the Giants left a runner at third in the next inning as well.

The biggest turn of events in the Tigers' favor was Cabrera's home run. The drive initially appeared to be a harmless fly, but continued to carry as a stiff wind blew furiously from left to right, depositing the ball into the first row of the right-field stands.

Detroit fans, bundled up in 44-degree temperatures, finally had something to cheer about. The memory will have to last them for the offseason, which has just begun.