For the first time since 1954, when the team was still located in New York and Willie Mays made “the catch,” the Giants are the Champions of Major League Baseball.

Following the trend of their entire season, the Giants won Game Five behind a terrific pitching performance and some timely offense from a surprising source.

Tim Lincecum and Cliff Lee dueled early in the game and both teams were held scoreless through the first six innings, but the Giants would get to Lee in the seventh frame.

Cody Ross and Juan Uribe started the inning off with back-to-back singles. Lee recorded two outs (one of which was a sacrifice bunt) when Edgar Renteria came up. Renteria drove a 2-0 pitch over the outfield wall to give the Giants a 3-0 lead.

Nelson Cruz hit a solo homerun for the Rangers in the bottom of the seventh, but Texas couldn’t get any more offense to make up the difference.

Lee finished the night with seven innings pitched and three earned runs allowed. All in all, the series was disappointing for Lee as he lost both of his starts; the first two postseason losses of his career.

Neftali Feliz pitched two scoreless innings in relief for the Rangers, but the offense was unable to get runners around the bases against Lincecum.

On the night, Lincecum fanned 10 batters and allowed just three hits to the Rangers.  Mitch Moreland, who went 1-2 in the game, was the only Texas regular to finish the series with a batting average over .250.

Brian Wilson relieved Lincecum for the ninth, and shut the door on any comebacks the Rangers had planned. After striking out Josh Hamilton and getting Vladimir Guerrero to ground out to short, Wilson fanned Nelson Cruz on a 3-2 pitch to clinch the Giants first World Series Championship since the team moved to San Francisco.

Edgar Renteria was awarded the World Series MVP following the game. Aside from his clutch homerun in the clinching game, Renteria led all Giants hitters with a .412 batting average in the series. Renteria won the award back in 1997 as a member of the Florida Marlins.

In the end, the Giants pitching and defense proved stronger than Texas’ powerful offensive attack. Both teams surprised plenty of people by getting to the series, and had terrific seasons. With the Giants win, we can close the book on a memorable 2010 season and begin looking toward the offseason and, eventually, Spring Training.

Used with permission of the author.

Along with contributing to Sports Climax, Brett Kettyle is the Atlanta Braves Community Leader on Bleacher Report and maintains a Braves column for MTR Media. Follow Brett on Twitter.

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