Giants take Game 1 of NLCS

At left: Cody Ross celebrates after one of his two home runs Saturday night in Philadelphia.

The San Francisco Giants defeated the Philadelphia Phillies 4-3 Saturday night in Game 1 of the NLCS from Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia. Cody Ross was the big star, clubbing two home runs off Phillies ace Roy Halladay, who had thrown a no-hitter in his previous start. Tim Lincecum went 7 solid innings, yielding 3 earned runs. Javier Lopez retired two hitters in the 8th and Brian Wilson earned a four out save. Halladay allowed 4 earned runs in his outing. Pat Burrell had an RBI double and Juan Uribe an RBI single in the top of the 6th to push the Giants' lead to 4-1. The Phillies countered with a two run homer from Jayson Werth to trim the lead to 4-3 but would get no closer.

The big thing about the first Ross home run was that Halladay had not allowed a hit to that point and the game was in the third inning. I think that hit and that run that gave the Giants the 1-0 lead really helped loosen everyone up. Ross has been huge lately and it's pretty to cool to see from a guy whose acquisition seemed to be almost an afterthought in the minds of Giants fans. Even when Carlos Ruiz tied the game up on a homer, the Giants did not lose their cool and recaptured the lead behind Ross' second long ball. It was interesting to see on the replays on Baseball Tonight that Ross' stroke looked pretty much exactly the same on both of his homers on pitches that were in almost the exact location. That's some good consistency.

The Giants showed resiliency tonight and did not fold in front of a rabid, sell-out crowd and the two-time defending National League Champions. I thought the bullpen did a tremendous job. Brian Wilson has been great, but so has Javier Lopez ever since the Giants acquired him from the Pirates. Lopez has been extremely tough on left-handed hitters and that trend continued tonight when he retired Chase Utley and Ryan Howard in succession in the top of the 8th.

It's nice to take the opener in Philadelphia and have the lead now not to mention having the assurance of going back to the bay area with no worse than a split. A win tomorrow night, however, would be pretty sweet.

In the ALCS today, the Texas Rangers bounced back in a big way from last night in defeating the New York Yankees 7-2 to even that series at 1-1. The Rangers' bats were once again hot and they were able to jump out to a big lead. The difference today was that the bullpen was able to hold the lead, throwing 3 1/3 innings of scoreless, one-hit baseball. The win was the first home win in Texas Rangers playoff history so it's good to get that out of the way. One cool play in the game came in the first inning when Elvis Andrus stole home on a double steal play to put the Rangers up 1-0 and help give them some momentum. Cliff Lee pitches for the Rangers in Game 3 on Monday night in the Bronx in a very pivotal game in the series.

Here's the stuff for the game tomorrow night:

Game 2 -- San Francisco Giants (Sanchez) at Philadelphia Phillies (Oswalt), 6:19 p.m. MT (FOX, Giants lead series 1-0)