BOX SCORE

CINCINNATI They are icons now, all of them.Brandon Crawford for his glove. Matt Cain for his ability to match zeroes as long as he could. Sergio Romo for his fearless, 88-mph fastballs with a season hanging on every one.And Buster Posey. For being Buster Posey.Itll be a month before they announce the National League Most Valuable Player Award. The Giants will not bother to count ballots. They already have their answer.Posey stepped into a perfect MVP moment and met it. His grand slam off perfectly-cast heel Mat Latos in the fifth inning struck the facing of the upper deck at Great American Ball Park, and the Giants will to play baseball again together.They barely held on for a 6-4 victory over the Cincinnati Reds and clinched a most improbable NL Division Series in which they trailed after losing the first two games at home.Poseys slam was the first by a Giant in the postseason since 1989, when Will Clark read Greg Madduxs lips and timed a fastball into the Wrigley Field bleachers.Crawford had the biggest day of his baseball life, hitting a tiebreaking triple in the fifth and making stops both solid and spectacular to help subdue a Reds club that kept straining the leash.And Romo finally dispatched the Reds, who were down 6-0 after Poseys slam, yet found a way to get the tying run to the plate in each of the last three innings. Romo strutted and yelled after he struck out Scott Rolen with two on base to send the Giants along to the NL Championship Series.The Giants succeeded where 21 other clubs had failed. They became the first NL team in the Division Series era to recover from an 0-2 deficit and advanceThey also became the first team all season to sweep a three-game series at Cincinnati. In fact, the Reds hadnt lost three in a row at home all season. The Giants hadnt done it since April, 1999, at old Riverfront Stadium.Starting pitching reportThe Reds had an opportunity to tag Matt Cain in the first inning, when Zack Cozart chopped an infield single to third base and Joey Votto walked on pitches that missed by a wide margin.But Ryan Ludwick fouled off the one hittable fastball he saw before Cain dusted him off with his slider. Then came Jay Bruce, who was 8-for-15 lifetime against Cain and bedeviled him for a double and home run in Game 1.Nothing Cain had thrown to Bruce seemed to work, so he improvised. After getting ahead, Cain took something off a two-seamer turning it into an 86-mph changeup, essentially and the pitch cut away from the left-handed hitters powerful bat as he struck out to end the inning.Cain had to pitch from the stretch again in the second inning, when third baseman Pablo Sandoval dropped Scott Rolens grounder down the line. But Cain picked up Sandoval by inducing a double-play grounder from Ryan Hanigan.Cain matched Latos until the fifth, when the Giants shook the big, blond right-hander. Cain ran into some trouble, too, as Hanigan got hit by a pitch and Drew Stubbs singled in front of Brandon Phillips two-run double.But Cain kept a critical third run from scoring, as Joey Votto grounded out to end the inning.If Cain was fuzzy in the strike zone at times in the fifth, he started to unravel in the sixth. Ryan Ludwick led off with a no-doubt home run, Bruce drew a walk and Scott Rolen singled to bring the tying run to the plate.Hanigan battled Cain for an eight-pitch at-bat but the right-hander got the call on a 3-2 fastball on the outer fringes, and for reasons known only to Reds manager Dusty Baker, the runners were moving on the 3-2 pitch.Posey managed to avoid a leaning Hanigan and zip a throw to third base, where Pablo Sandoval applied the tag on Bruce to complete a rather monumental double play.Those were the first outs recorded by a Giants starting pitcher in the sixth inning all series.Cain had thrown 96 pitches, and after that taxing battle with Hanigan, Bochy walked out for the baseball.Cain finished one out short of a quality start, giving up three runs on six hits, two walks and a hit batter. It was not his cleanest or finest work, but he matched Latos zero for zero until the Giants could get in the right-handers meaty-thick head.Bullpen reportNo three-run lead is safe. The Giants understand that better than most.The bullpen had 10 outs to get, and they did not come easily. The Reds brought the tying run to the plate in each of the last three innings.George Kontos got the first out, stranding Cains inherited runner by getting Stubbs to ground out to end the sixth.The Reds got the tying run to the plate in the seventh against Jeremy Affeldt after Phillips singled and Joey Votto rapped a hit up the middle. It took Crawfords incredible, diving effort to keep the ball from going into center field and prevent Phillips from taking third base.In one of the tensest at-bats of the game, Affeldt stayed in to face Ludwick. The left-hander allowed just one home run in the regular season (to the Padres Carlos Quentin), and Bochy didnt want to use up all his relievers going batter-to-batter so soon.Ludwick fouled off four pitches in the course of working the count full, but he hit a sharp comebacker that Affeldt gloved and walked to first base to end the inning.Bochy wanted Affeldt to face Bruce to start the eighth, but Gregor Blanco lined a foul ball that hit the left-hander as he stood at the top of the dugout stairs. Affeldt tumbled down the stairs and trainers immediately raced after him.So Bochy had to break the seal on his left-handed anti-venom, using Javier Lopez to retire Bruce on a grounder to start the eighth. After that, the Reds once again found a way to get the tying run to the plate. Santiago Casilla retired just one of three batters he faced, and that one out only came because Crawford made a startling, diving catch of Hanigans line drive.The Giants needed one more incredible defensive play to escape the inning, when Sergio Romo entered and pinch hitter Dioner Navarro blooped a pitch to center field. Angel Pagan raced in and made a sliding catch, punching the air with his fist as he was still rolling on the grass.Your browser does not support iframes.