DETROIT ? There were two lineup cards in the Giants clubhouse Saturday night, and they did not resemble each other in the slightest.
Manager Bruce Bochy wrote the familiar one. He chose his starting nine for Game 3 at Comerica Park.
Giants hitting coach Hensley ?Bam Bam? Meulens jotted down the other one. His players were 2,400 miles away, in a beach town on the Caribbean coast, and what do you expect? They don?t put off the Venezuelan Winter League just because one of their managers is still busy with the World Series.
When Meulens heads down to join Los Bravos de Margarita in a few days, he should expect the Giants to supply him with a thick stack of papers ? standard uniform player contracts, enough to paper over a hotel room. And maybe a second stack, just to make sure.
Sure, successful organizations build through the draft, they pick the right investments on the free-agent front, they make shrewd trades and they employ minor league coaches who teach prospects how to play the game the right way.
But when the Giants reached the doorstep of the World Series with a 2-0 victory Saturday night, their principal contributors were a well-traveled right-hander and a hustling little left fielder who were neither drafted, developed nor signed to a rich deal that warranted a jersey-lifting news conference.
Ryan Vogelsong and Gregor Blanco signed minor league contracts as non-roster invitees in back-to-back winters, both having caught the club?s eye in the Venezuelan Winter League.
And on a mittens-and-mufflers night in Detroit, they made all the difference as the Giants moved within a victory of what would be the franchise?s first World Series sweep since 1954, when Willie Mays made his iconic basket catch to turn aside the powerful Cleveland Indians.
?I was in Venezuela pitching basically for my life ? for my life in baseball,? said Vogelsong, who had been released from two Triple-A clubs in 2010.
?I was just hoping for a good opportunity to be in the big leagues,? said Blanco, who hit .201 for Washington?s Triple-A affiliate in 2011.
The Giants, starting with Meulens and roving minor league infield coach Jose Alguacil, saw something more.
?He always was a guy who could get on base,? Meulens said of Blanco, who was the league MVP in Venezuela. ?But I saw something different last winter. He was even more patient. He had a knack of hitting left-handers and right-handers. He played defense and he had gap power that would play in out park. That?s why I was intrigued with bringing him on board.?
Blanco played for La Guaira, which was Ozzie Guillen?s former club. Blanco was very close to signing with Guillen?s Miami Marlins to try to win a backup outfield job, but Meulens told him that the Giants would give him a great shot in the spring.
?It was a leap of faith on his part,? Giants vice president Bobby Evans said. ?Nothing was guaranteed and so you have to trust the baseball people that you?re going to get the honest look that you?re promised.?
Blanco insisted that he speak directly with Evans and had his agent dial the number. After a reassuring conversation, he put pen to paper. Then he showed up to Scottsdale and turned every exhibition game into a dazzling display of speed, hard hits and running catches.
?We weren?t two weeks into spring training and he was making our club,? Evans said, laughing.
Meulens was convinced even before that.
?Definitely, the day he walked into camp, I knew this guy would help us out,? Meulens said. ?It?s the way he plays. He?s not afraid to go deep in counts and we hadn?t done that the year before. We needed good at-bats from guys who don?t strike out.
?We?ve seen three good pitchers in this series but we grind at-bats and get their pitch count up and keep the line moving.?
Blanco did that in the second inning against right-hander Anibal Sanchez. He saw a fastball and a curve. He saw a two-seamer that ran and another fastball that cut. He fouled one of them off, and then fouled a changeup, and then Sanchez came back with the one pitch he hadn?t thrown yet. It was a slider, and it caught too much of the plate.
?I was just trying to put the ball in play,? Blanco said. ?Angel Pagan and I talked about that, especially in this park. There is so much room out there. Just put it in play and anything can happen.?
Good things happen when you barrel the pitch and send it 400 feet to the deepest part of right-center field. Blanco?s triple gave the Giants a 1-0 lead, and it made him the first player in franchise history to own two triples in one World Series.
It was emblematic of a team that hit the fewest home runs in the majors but the most triples, who had the second fewest strikeouts in the NL and who strung together hits and kept taking an extra 90 feet to score 718 runs ? far more than the 570 they scored a year earlier. And when they lost Melky Cabrera, who was leading the majors in hits and runs when he was suspended Aug. 15, they found a way to keep going with Blanco as the primary left fielder.
The Giants didn?t make a big offensive splash on the free-agent market last winter. It was these Tigers who did the cannonball in the deep end, signing Prince Fielder to a nine-year, $212 million contract.
But the Giants saw a player a continent away who had some skills and fit their system, and they moved aggressively to get him.
Blanco went to the wall, all right. He sprinted into the left field corner and caught Jhonny Peralta?s fly ball in the narrow space between the foul line and the wall, securing the first of Sergio Romo?s three outs in the ninth.
?I?m thinking, `Two outs to go!?? Romo said. ?He?s not afraid of anything. He?s played that way since he got here. He?s fearless and he?ll go get those balls for you.?
Said Blanco: ?I was full speed, I just put the glove out and the ball pretty much caught itself."
The ball caught itself. So it has gone in this World Series for the Giants, who became the first club to post consecutive shutouts since the 1966 Baltimore Orioles. Their staff boasts two former Cy Young Award winners, as well as the author of a perfect game who started for the NL All-Star team.
But their truest ace is found elsewhere in Vogelsong, whose story just keeps getting better. He competed with stuff that graded a tick below those searing, darting pitches he threw to beat the St. Louis Cardinals twice in the NLCS, or the Reds in that Game 3 in Cincinnati that was their seafloor.
But he competed. He always does that.
?I remember the game when Vogey threw seven shutout innings against my team,? Meulens said. ?I was aware of him from the Pirates, too. But he was a different guy in Venezuela. Was he better than the five starters we had? No, but he could jump in and help us out.?
The Giants had kept in touch with Vogelsong, a former prospect dealt to the Pirates in 2001 for Jason Schmidt, both before and after he went to pitch in Japan. Meulens was one of the major recruiters in getting him to sign with the Giants, after his strong winter in Venezuela led to multiple offers.
Maybe it?s time to give Bam Bam a bonus.
Vogelsong has been more than just a solid starting pitcher and inspirational tale over the past two years. He?s doing historic stuff this postseason.
After holding the Tigers off the board for 5 2/3 innings, Vogelsong became just the fifth pitcher in history to make four starts in a single postseason in which he gave up one run or less. Curt Schilling, John Smoltz, John ?Blue Moon? Odom and Burt Hooton are good company.
And Vogelsong?s 1.09 ERA is the lowest by a starting pitcher in a single postseason, with a minimum of 24 innings, since Orel Hershiser (1.05) for the 1988 Dodgers.
No question: Vogelsong is the Giants? bulldog.
?I didn?t think my stuff was as good as the NLCS, but I really just tried to hit Buster?s glove as many times as I could,? said Vogelsong, who pitched around five hits and four walks. ?And when the guys are playing deep behind you, it encourages you to put the ball in play.
?You know, it?s my first World Series. I?ve been waiting for this since I was five years old, and I wasn?t going to go down without a fight, that?s for sure.?
He had the fight of his life in the fifth inning, after the Tigers loaded the bases with one out on two singles and a walk. Vogelsong struck out Quintin Berry with fastballs up and away. Tigers manager Jim Leyland called it the biggest at-bat of the night, remarking that Berry still had a thought worming through his brain --? that changeup Vogelsong threw him to induce a double play in his previous at-bat.
All apologies to Leyland, but the at-bat that everyone will remember from Game 3 came next.
Miguel Cabrera, who won the first Triple Crown in 45 years, stepped to the plate and he was impossible to avoid. He hit .420 with two outs and runners in scoring position during the regular season. He finished with 44 home runs and 137 RBIs.
Vogelsong had one place to go.
?You know what? You just go with your gut,? catcher Buster Posey said. ?If I put something down and he?s not convinced, he?ll shake. But we were on the same page there.?
Fastball in. Vogelsong threw it and Cabrera nearly flicked it down the right field line. It landed six feet foul.
Some pitchers, spooked, might have gone away with the next pitch. Vogelsong did not. He put his head in the lion?s mouth again.
?He?s the best hitter in the game,? Vogelsong said. ?I was just trying to make a pitch, and the way we were playing defense, just to get him to put a ball in play somewhere. Because I had a good feeling we were going to catch it if he did.?
Vogelsong trusted his defense. He trusted himself.
His inside fastball was just up enough to jam Cabrera, and the game?s most dangerous hitter made the most harmless of outs ? a pop-up to shortstop.
The Tigers, already wearing so much defeat and resignation in their swings, watched as three baserunners drifted listlessly back to the dugout. They did not threaten again. They might never threaten again.
?If you?re throwing the ball in there for strikes, it forces then to swing at it eventually,? Vogelsong said. ?I think it?s vital for any pitcher to establish the inner part of the plate, especially against a lineup that hits for power.?
Said Giants manager Bruce Bochy: ?Very impressive, with the hitters he had to face. But he?s been so good at that all year, and I think that?s what makes him a good pitcher, a quality pitcher. He?s got the ability to ?keep his poise and slow things down, one pitch at a time, and execute. That?s what he did in that situation.
?You appreciate his whole game -- the stuff he has, sure, but also how competitive he is.?
The will to compete is a quality that translates in any
league, in any language and on any continent. And when you see it, wherever
it?s embodied, you don?t let it get away.
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