SAN FRANCISCO — Travis Ishikawa blasted a three-run home run with one out in the bottom of the ninth inning Thursday night, sending the San Francisco Giants to their third World Series in five years with a 6-3 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals.
By virtue of their five-game win in the National League Championship Series, the Giants will move on to face the American League champion Kansas City Royals in the World Series. Game 1 is scheduled for Tuesday night in Kansas City.
After pinch hitter Michael Morse drew the Giants even at 3-3 with a home run leading off the eighth inning, the Giants immediately jumped on the Cardinals’ third pitcher, right-hander Michael Wacha, in the ninth.
Third baseman Pablo Sandoval greeted Wacha with a single. One out later, pinch runner Joaquin Arias advanced into scoring position when first baseman Brandon Belt drew a walk.
Wacha then fell behind the left-handed-hitting Ishikawa 2-0 before the Giants left fielder turned on a fastball and lined it over the 25-foot-high wall in right field at AT&T Park for the game-winner.
The homer was Ishikawa’s first of the postseason.
Left-hander Jeremy Affeldt, the third Giants pitcher, got the win after coming on to get pinch hitter Oscar Taveras to ground out with two outs and the bases loaded in the top of the ninth, preserving a 3-3 tie.
Behind the strong pitching of starter Adam Wainwright, the Cardinals held a 3-2 lead through seven innings. However, the St. Louis ace was replaced by fellow All-Star Pat Neshek to start the eighth, and three pitches later, the game was tied.
Morse provided the game-tying blow, belting a home run just inside the left field foul pole. The pinch-hit homer was the first in Giants postseason history.
Morse was limited to pinch-hitting duties in the series because of a strained left oblique he sustained Sept. 1.
Neither starting pitcher got a decision.
Reverting back to his 20-win form of the regular season after two shoddy starts in the playoffs, Wainwright limited the Giants to two runs on four hits in seven innings. He struck out seven and walked two.
After giving up a two-run homer to Giants second baseman Joe Panik in the third, Wainwright allowed only one more hit, retiring the last 10 men he faced.
The All-Star Game starter was bombed to the tune of nine runs on 17 hits and four walks in nine innings in his previous two postseason starts, including a 3-0 loss to the Giants in Game 1 in which he couldn’t get out of the fifth inning.
Giants ace Madison Bumgarner was almost as good. He pitched eight innings, allowing three runs on five hits and two walks. He struck out five.
Cardinals first baseman Matt Adams and catcher Tony Cruz belted fourth-inning home runs off Bumgarner, who briefly was given a one-run lead on Panik’s homer.
Sandoval and center fielder Gregor Blanco had two hits apiece for the Giants, who out-hit the Cardinals 7-6.
Outfielder Jon Jay had two hits for St. Louis.
The Giants led briefly early on, using Panik’s two-run homer to erase a 1-0 deficit in the last of the third. The two-out hit came after Blanco had kept the inning alive with a single.
The homers by Adams and Cruz, both solo shots, followed almost immediately. Adams’ blast to right, his third of the series, led off the St. Louis fourth. Cruz’s first of the series — and just second of the season — came with two outs and pushed the Cardinals back on top 3-2.
Jay’s second hit, a one-out double that was misplayed by Ishikawa, opened the game’s scoring in the third. It plated Cruz, who led off the inning with a walk.
NOTES: After saying that C Yadier Molina would have entered Wednesday’s game for defense in the bottom of the ninth inning had the game gone that far, Cardinals manager Mike Matheny did not start his Most Valuable Player candidate for a third consecutive time Thursday. Molina strained a left oblique muscle in Game 2 of the series and has since been unable to swing a bat pain-free. … Matheny announced Game 2 starter RHP Lance Lynn, tentatively penciled in to pitch a Game 6 if necessary, would be available in the bullpen Thursday. … The Giants began the day with the longest postseason home run drought (six games) since the 1973 Oakland Athletics went eight consecutive games without a homer en route to their second of three straight World Series titles. … Matheny made no pregame speech to his team. “For me to call together a club like this and tell them they need to play harder would be a huge insult,” he said.
