2012 World Series: No one always overcomes pressure, but everyone tries

DETROIT — Somewhere there is a vial of secret serum that inoculates ballplayers against the pressures of the playoffs. Maybe it is hidden under a loose plank in Carlos Beltran’s back porch or disguised as motor oil for one of Reggie Jackson’s vintage automobiles. Above all, let’s check the locker of Giants pitching coach Dave Righetti since his pitchers, both in 2010 and in this World Series that San Francisco now leads three-games-to-none over Detroit, seem to know secrets of inner peace that escape the rest of us.

Nobody, of course, has found that potion. It is a mixture of calm and intensity, focus and fun, rally rituals and groundballs that hit third base. The concoction is an unstable isotope just waiting to decay. A walk-off homer by Jayson Werth turns into a blown six-run lead to end the season the very next night. Or, in one series, the Cardinals score four runs in the ninth inning to advance; then, in the next round, the choke is on the other throat as they lose three games by a combined score of 20-1 to the Giants to incinerate their pennant.

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The antonym for pressure is confidence. When one team finds its groove, as the Giants pitchers have ever since Game 5 of the National League Championship Series, then pity the poor, stress-torn team it faces.

The Tigers have now lost twice in a row by identical 2-0 scores. In Game 2, they got only two hits. In Game 3 on Saturday, only one Giants outfielder had to take a step backwards all night, for a routine catch on a long fly. Once, the Tigers loaded the bases. Ryan Vogelsong took Triple Crown winner Miguel Cabrera up the ladder with a high-and-tight fastball. Popup. After that, this crowd was quieter than snow falling in Dearborn.

“We couldn’t get the killer hit or the killer blow,” said Tigers Manager Jim Leyland, who identified the split identity of his team, which is fairly tame when Cabrera and Prince Fielder aren’t hitting. “We’ve been hot and cold all year, and cold more. We’ve been fighting all year long with our offense.”

Nobody wants to crack under pressure in the World Series, an event that creates emotions that perform a Cirque du Soleil act in your stomach. But it looks like the verdict is almost in. There is no action to describe because what matters most takes place in the minds of the Giants’ buoyant pitchers and the Tigers’ lunging hitters. San Francisco’s hurlers perform as they might in May, throwing good pitches to good spots. The Tigers do the rest, rarely even forcing the Giants to make a good defensive play. Prince and Miggy sure aren’t makin’ ’em look back 20 rows into the bleachers.

The Tigers’ plight is part anxiety, part rust from their pre-Series layoff, but mostly the constant attack by a focused Giants pitching staff that now includes a relief pitcher with two Cy Young Awards, Tim Lincecum, who added seven outs of Freak work to 5² / ₃ innings by Vogelsong.

“I’ve been waiting for this since I was 5 years old,” Vogelsong said. “I wasn’t going to give up without a fight.”

No World Series team had suffered back-to-back shutouts since the Orioles blanked the Dodgers three straight times and allowed Los Angeles only two runs in the entire 1966 series. Few sights are more common than the power-hitting pennant winner that reaches the World Series, then plummets, gasping, into a one-through-nine slump.