







DETROIT – The World Series ended Saturday night. They will play a Game 4 because they have to, and they may play a Game 5 if the Detroit Tigers find some semblance of competence. Anything beyond that is not happening if we're to believe history, and we're inclined to, even if the San Francisco Giants have reminded us all this postseason that history isn't always the sage it's cracked up to be.

History, for example, told us that the Giants weren't supposed to claw back and win three straight games on the road in the division series. No team ever had done that until San Francisco. And history, remember, gave the Giants a flyweight's chance against a heavyweight facing a 3-1 series deficit to St. Louis until they went jab-jab-uppercut.

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So forgive the Giants if they're not yet ready to declare this 108th World Series the inevitability it surely is. The Giants are winning this thing, and they're winning it in grand style, a 2-0 victory over the Tigers in Game 3 staking them a 3-0 lead in the best-of-seven series. Of the 23 teams with such an advantage, 20 finished the sweep. The other three won Game 5.

Most of the Giants took the lead of Marco Scutaro, their fireplug second baseman, who declared: "We haven't done [expletive]."

Well, other than throw consecutive shutouts against a Detroit team that was blanked twice all season. And hold the owners of the regular season's best OPS with runners in scoring position to one hit in 11 such at-bats thus far. Plus play pristine fundamental baseball: perfect on the basepaths, peerless in the field, patient at the plate.

Not to mention find enough offense to scratch out a few runs here and there, whether via a historic show of power, a GPS-guided bunt or, in Game 3's case, a quick-strike second inning that provided more than enough for the Cerberus of Ryan Vogelsong, Tim Lincecum and Sergio Romo.

"Fine," Scutaro relented. "We have done un poquito. But we want more than un poquito."





[Related: Heart of Tigers' lineup coming up empty in epic fashion]

The Giants are greedy for their second championship in three seasons, and with good reason: The beatdown they've delivered Detroit verges on historic, and they haven't even unveiled their best starter. That's Matt Cain, the Giants' $127.5 million man, and he'll start opposite Max Scherzer in Sunday night's Game 4.

Whether Comerica Park can play Chevy Volt and recharge overnight from the drain the Giants put on the 42,262 in attendance is almost immaterial. Here, San Francisco, Zimbabwe: Neither place nor time nor space nor even history can account for the thoroughness with which the Giants have dominated the Tigers, a series as stunning for hocking a loogie at most prognosticators as it was at affirming the Giants' place among modern dynasties.

No team since the 1999-2000 New York Yankees has won two titles within three years. The Boston Red Sox captured their two championships over a four-year span, and the St. Louis Cardinals went five seasons between titles. For the Giants – a team that scoffed at the draft, binged on past-their-prime free agents and didn't develop a position player over more than a decade-long drought – to best the sabermetrically inclined teams isn't necessarily a win for scouting. It's more an affirmation that success is multitudinous, and that the Giants' formula – pitching, pitching, pitching, a few gloves, maybe a couple knocks and some more pitching – is deadly if executed with the precision of San Francisco's front office.

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