2010 World Series Game 5 Preview
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San Francisco Giants at Texas Rangers
Monday November 1st at 7:30 PM
Texas: Cliff Lee 0-1, 11.57 WS
San Francisco: Tim Lincecum 1-0, 6.35 WS
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It will be the fifth game of the World Series as San Francisco has pitched its heart out on its way to a 3-1 edge, needing only one more win to clinch the series for the first time in 50 years.
San Francisco had heard all year that they didn’t have the hitting to get this far, yet somehow they still did. Then they heard they didn’t have the hitting to compete with the offensive thunder of the Texas Rangers in the World Series. So rather than compete they have pitched their way to an intimidating series lead shutting down the Rangers twice so far in the series. Sunday night the Giants sent 21-year old rookie Madison Bamgarner to the mound and he responded with eight shutout innings where he allowed only three hits and struck out six. Luckily, his birthday was in September and he will be able to legally celebrate with some champagne if the Giants wrap up the series tomorrow.
Tim Lincecum will take the mound for the Giants. “The Freak” faced Cliff Lee in Game 1, and though he was not brilliant, he was good enough to win throwing 5.2 innings while allowing four runs on eight hits while striking out just three. He had 30 strikeouts in 23.1 innings of postseason work leading into game one, and will look to duplicate that trickery this timeout. Texas will be looking to knock Lincecum out early, so he must have command of his fastball and off-speed pitches to be effective. The Rangers are a fastball hitting team so if he cannot change speeds he will be easy to read.
The Giants have surprised everyone with timely hits throughout the postseason. They scored 20 runs in the first two games, which is an aberration for this offense. They last two games they have scored a combined six runs, but the pitching has settled in and eased the pressure on the offense.
In Game 4, Aubrey Huff hit his first postseason homerun that was long overdue. Huff had been the Giants main power source in the regular season with 26 homers. Midseason call up Buster Posey also hit his first homerun. Posey is a strong ROY candidate, and big reason for the Giants post season berth. He hit 18 homeruns in 406 regular season at bats, while In the playoffs he has hit a solid .273 in 55 at bats with five RBIs but 18 strikeouts.
Taking the mound for Texas will be its ace — Cliff Lee. Lee is on the short list of whom you want on the mound in a big game, and perhaps the only man to consider in the postseason. Lee is 7-1 with a 1.96 era in nine postseason starts. That lone loss happened to come against Lincecum in Game 1. Lee was uncharacteristically hittable allowing seven runs on eight hits in 4.2 innings but did strikeout seven. Neither ace was especially sharp, perhaps succumbing to the postseason pressures. In the rematch, both will be at the top of their games and most will give the edge to Lee, as few would expect the gamer to be stopped twice by the younger Lincecum.
Meanwhile, Texas had been an offensive juggernaut heading into the World Series and looked strong in Game 1 putting up seven runs. Yet they lost that game and seemed to have been shaken when they witnessed the mortality of their ace, Lee.
Everyone knew they could hit, but even they seemed to doubt their own pitching, but once Lee provided a boost against the Yankees, everything fell into place. Now the offense is off track again and has amassed only four runs in the last three games including being shut out twice. The lineup is hitting a combined .211. Slugger Josh Hamilton is 2-16, Vlad Guerrero is 1-10 and has shown little if any post season power, and Nelson Cruz is 3-16 and seems to mirror whatever Hamilton does — which means the heart of the lineup is suddenly ice cold. Leadoff hitter Elvis Andrus is never a power threat but his current .231 slugging percentage is low even for him.
The odds makers have the Rangers as a -1.5 point favorite with an over/under of 6.5.
Matt’s Prediction: Texas is too good of a lineup to stay cold forever, and it would be hard for anyone to bet on Cliff Lee losing two straight regardless of how good Lincecum and the Giants are right now. Therefore, I’ll say the Rangers continue their postseason run for at least one more day.
Congrats to the San Francisco Giants on their World Series win! Hope all the fans there on the streets go out & vote tomorrow.