The San Francisco Giants registered a spectacular 5-0 victory over the St Louis Cardinals to avoid elimination from the NLCS. Friday proved to be Barry Zito's day and he demonstrated an outstanding performance to help his team reduce the deficit against the Cardinals to 3-2.
The beautiful scenes of the baseball moving in the air and beating the batters became hallmark of game 5, between San Francisco Giants and St. Louis Cardinals. Zito mixed curve balls with some fastballs. He performed remarkably well with the baseball and made all the difference in the Giants' win over the Cardinals. He has single-handedly brought the Giants back to the NL championship series.
"All things considered, you know, there's definitely some playoff memories there, but they were in a different uniform," the soft-tossing lefty said after his first playoff win in six years sent the series back to San Francisco. "This was probably the biggest one for me."
Zito reminded his old days when he was at his best and as one of the best pitchers he won 23 games and the 2002 AL Cy Young Award. He was so dominating in that season that he managed to retire 11 batters in a row.
"This is definitely it for me," Zito said. "Coming here, especially doing it in a Giants uniform. A lot of people were saying stuff about A's days. And for me, the most important thing is doing everything for San Francisco right now."
It is a great comeback for Zito, who was not performing well during the last few seasons and was even left out of the playing squad when the Giants won the 2010 World Series.
"I couldn't be happier for him," manager Bruce Bochy said. "He had it all going. He put on quite a show."
Lynn was trying to turn the front end of a double play.
"I turned to throw it and I just threw it in the ground," he said. "Just a bad play. You make a good throw there and we are out of the inning. It was one of those times where I just short-armed it a little bit."
Pablo Sandoval homered for the second straight night and Zito made an extremely rare offensive contribution with a perfectly executed bunt for an RBI single.
Lynn, an 18-game winner his first year in the rotation, failed to make it out of the fourth for the second time in the series.
"I didn't give up a hit until the fourth, I had good stuff, it was just another bad inning," Lynn said. "This time of year, they are going to blow up on you, if you give them that extra out. And I gave them that extra out."
Zito's only trouble came in the second when Yadier Molina and David Freese, both swinging on the first pitch, opened the inning with a single and double. Lynn, a career .056 hitter including the postseason, hit into a bases-loaded double play to end the threat.
The next game will be played on Sunday at AT&T Park, in which Ryan Vogelsong will be pitching against the Cardinals's Chris Carpenter. It will be a crucial game for both the teams and much would depend on how Carpenter would perform.
"I'm sure Carpenter is going to be on top of his game, as always," Vogelsong said. "'I'm going to have to be sharp because with him on the mound one run can lose a game for you."
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