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NLCS 2010: San Francisco Giants on Brink of League Title As Phillies Fall Again

The San Francisco Giants are where few thought they would be at the beginning of the season...hell, at the beginning of the postseason. They are one win away from representing the National League in the World Series.

The Giants came into this series as heavy underdogs to the reigning two-time NL champion Philadelphia Phillies.

After shocking the world and hitting around Roy Halladay in Game 1, they have taken care of business so far at home and throw out the winner of the last two Cy Young Awards in Tim Lincecum.

Gotta love the irony here of the Phillies' Roy Halladay likely winning the Cy Young this year with the Giants likely to go to the World Series. I'm sure Tim Lincecum will gladly accept this reversal of roles.

This was a very emotional win for San Francisco, and they need to avoid any hangover from this game and close out the series tomorrow.

If they don't, we see two games in Philly against one of the game's best double-barreled 2-3 punch in Roy Oswalt and Cole Hamels.

Wednesday's game saw the uprising of a recently dormant Philadelphia offense, which struck lightning to the tune of four runs in the fifth inning, aided by the erratic pitching of Santiago Casilla.

In the end, it was the bullpen that let down Philadelphia. Chad Durbin left a fastball up to Pablo Sandoval that put the Giants up 5-4 in the sixth inning.

After willing back to tie on a Jayson Werth double, Oswalt came on in relief in the ninth and proceeded to allow a game-winning sacrifice fly to Juan Uribe.

Aubrey Huff slid across home plate with ease and the Giants took a 3-1 series lead into the night.

Halladay will need to be very sharp tomorrow because this Giants' lineup is an opportunistic group.

They have had Cody Ross shouldering the load so far, but in this game, everybody who was asked to do so seemingly delivered with RBI from Uribe, Posey, Huff, and Sandoval.

Lincecum will need to be sharp in this last home game of the series for the Giants. Because if he doesn't bring all he has, this is going back to Philly.

That would be a dangerous proposition, one that this ragtag bunch can't afford to risk.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

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