The San Francisco Giants shut out the Detroit Tigers 2-0 Thursday night, taking a 2-0 lead in the best of seven World Series. The Giants got superlative pitching from 23-year old Madison Bumgarner, who pitched seven scoreless innings, while striking out eight Tigers:
The G-Men also showed outstanding defense — check out this throw from left fielder Gregor Blanco — and the relay from Marco Scutaro to nail Prince Fielder at the plate:
The Giants have got to be feeling pretty good about having two victories under their belt, considering Ryan Vogelsong and Matt Cain have yet to pitch. Teams taking a 2-0 lead have gone on to become world champs 79% of the time. But before San Francisco can pop the champagne consider this: Ten teams have come back to win it all, after losing the first two games of a seven game series. They are:
* 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers over the New York Yankees
* 1956 New York Yankees over the Brooklyn Dodgers
* 1958 New York Yankees over the Milwaukee Braves
* 1965 Los Angeles Dodgers over the Minnesota Twins
* 1971 Pittsburgh Pirates over the Baltimore Orioles
* 1978 New York Yankees over the Los Angeles Dodgers ( I was at Yankee Stadium to see the Bronx Bombers win Game 5 by a score of 12-2).
The other teams to comeback from a 2-0 deficit are:
* 1981 Los Angeles Dodgers over the New York Yankees
* 1985 Kansas City Royals over the St. Louis Cardinals
* 1986 New York Mets over the Boston Red Sox
* 1996 New York Yankees over the Atlanta Braves
So don’t celebrate yet Giants fans. There’s still a lot of baseball left to go.
And anything can happen.
