World Series Game 3: Giants 2, Rangers 4 - Moreland's Homer Leads the Rangers

The San Francisco Giants could not keep the Texas Rangers bats quiet for long but they did not expect the damage to come from Mitch Moreland, the number 9 hitter.  Moreland hit a three-run shot of Jonathan Sanchez in the second inning that gave the Texas Rangers a 3-0 lead and lead them to a 4-2 victory in Game 3 of the World Series and cut the Giants series lead to 2-1.  Ranger outfielder Josh Hamilton hit a solo homerun in fifth inning for his first World Series homerun and gave the Rangers their fourth run of the game.

The Rangers starting pitcher, Colby Lewis shut down a Giants offense that had scored 20 runs in two games.  Lewis went 7 2/3 innings while giving up only two runs and striking out 6.  The two runs came of solo homeruns from NLCS MVP Cody Ross and Giants leadoff hitter Andres Torres. 

In the eigth inning, the Giants had a chance to tie the game after Aubrey Huff was hit by Colby Lewis and Buster Posey was up to bat with two outs.  Posey grounded out to shortstop Elvis Andrus and that ended the threat.  That was the last offensive threat by the Giants because in the ninth innings Ron Washington brought in Neftali Perez to save the game and he did so in an emphatic way.  He struck out both Pat Burrell and Juan Uribe and got Cody Ross to fly out to deep right field.

Speaking of Pat Burrell, who is slowly becoming this World Series' version of Reggie Sanders.  I'm sure we all remember Sanders in the 2002 postseason when he hit a whopping .182 with 18 strikeouts.  Well Burrell is hitting .176 in this postseason with 15 strikeouts.  Like I said, well on his way.  Look, its hard to forget what Burrell has been to this team this year and no doubt the Giants would not still be here without him but he cannot continue to kill rally's like he is doing.  Today, he was 0 for 4 with four strikeouts and two of the four at-bats he was in an RBI situation and could not even make contact with the ball.  He is swinging at balls out of the strike zone and making it easy for the pitchers to get out of jams.

I don't expect to see Bruce Bochy sit him tomorrow but I do expect him to be moved down in the lineup.  It wouldn't be the worse thing to move up Cody Ross to the fifth spot and put Burrell in the sixth hole. 

Bruce Bochy's full post-game transcript is after the jump: