Hunter Pence hit a bizarre, two-run double, Matt Cain pitched his second clincher of October and the San Francisco Giants won their record-tying sixth elimination game of the postseason, beating the defending World Series champion St. Louis Cardinals 9-0 in Game 7 of the NL championship series Monday night.
Marco Scutaro matched an LCS record with 14 hits in the series and Pablo Sandoval drove in a run for his fifth straight game. The Giants returned to the World Series two years after winning it all, getting the final out in a downpour.
The Detroit Tigers, who have been waiting on their opponent since finishing a four-game ALCS sweep of the Yankees last Thursday, get another trip to the Bay Area after clinching the division series in Oakland.
The Giants are the 11th team in postseason history to overcome a 3-1 deficit in a seven-game series and the first since the 2007 Boston Red Sox came back to beat the Cleveland Indians in the ALCS. (St. Louis fans should be familiar with such heartbreak. The 1996, '85 and '68 Cardinals also blew 3-1 leads while going on to lose the series.)
Though the NLCS went seven games, it featured only one lead change and that was when Matt Carpenter hit a two-run homer in the bottom of the third in Game 3. San Francisco outscored St. Louis 27-2 in its four wins while St. Louis outscored San Francisco 17-8 in its three victories.
The Giants will welcome the Detroit Tigers to AT&T Park for Game 1 of the World Series on Wednesday night. It's the second time in three years that the Fall Classic will begin in San Francisco.
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