Giants Escape With Victory Over Tigers and Take 2-0 Series Lead SAN FRANCISCO - One after another the scoreless innings accumulated, and as the onset of dusk splashed a lavender streak over the water, a strange new feeling crept across San Francisco Bay: tension. Hosting three previous games here this week, the San Francisco Giants had stuck closely to a carefree pattern, scoring early and scoring big, to establish a lasting tone of revelry inside AT&T Park. They beat the St. Louis Cardinals twice, 6-1 and 9-0, to earn their World Series berth. They then downed the Detroit Tigers, 8-3, during Game 1 on Wednesday night. It was, in all, a rollicking good time. But even if the tightly contested Game 2 possessed a wholly different mood, the end results - deafening cheers, swirling orange towels, contented fans - were the same, as the Giants slipped away with a 2-0 win, securing two late runs to take a two-game lead in the Series. Afterward, the Giants, who produced unlikely comeback escapes from the previous two rounds, were feeling another new sensation: the comfort of holding a solid lead in a playoff series. The teams meet again at Comerica Park in Detroit for Game 3 Saturday night. "It's a lot less stressful, for sure," said Madison Bumgarner, who pitched seven scoreless innings for the Giants. But at the same time, I don't think we can stop pushing or we're going to find ourselves in the same spot we've been in the last two series. The stress of this game only began to yield in seventh inning, when the Giants broke the scoreless deadlock. Hunter Pence slipped a single to left, and Brandon Belt drew a walk against reliever Drew Smyly. With runners on first and second, Gregor Blanco tried to push a sacrifice bunt down the third-base line and came up instead with an infield single when the ball came to a stop inside the chalk. Tigers Manager Jim Leyland set himself up for some second-guessing when he set his infield at double-play depth. When Brandon Crawford drilled a grounder to Omar Infante, the Tigers turned it for two outs and let the go-ahead run score. But Leyland defended his choice after the game. "To be honest with you, we were absolutely thrilled to come out of that inning with one run," Leyland said. I mean, we had to score anyway. He added, "It's not debatable to me." Throughout the close game, the anxiety within the announced crowd of 42,982 was palpable. On this night, there were no towering home runs, no swashbuckling rallies. Taking their place were bang-bang outs, close calls, near misses and a long string of zeros. The Giants evaded danger in the second inning, when Bumgarner hit Prince Fielder on the right arm with a pitch and then gave up a hard-hit ball down the left-field line to Delmon Young. The ball careened off the wall there, sending Blanco the wrong way and emboldening Gene Lamont, the Tigers" third-base coach, to wave Fielder home. Blanco's throw sailed over Crawford's head, but second baseman Marco Scutaro was there to corral it, and he fired a perfect throw to catcher Buster Posey, who applied a sweeping tag on Fielder's backside. Fielder protested the out, crouching down before popping up again and crossing his arms over his chest. Television cameras afterward showed Fielder pacing the dugout, cursing loudly to himself. "I think Gene just got a little overaggressive," said Leyland, who argued with the umpire during the game, but afterward commended the call. The bottom of that inning produced a nervous moment, when Blanco lined a changeup from Doug Fister, the Tigers" starter, back toward the mound. Fister could not get his 6-foot-8 frame out of the way, and the ball glanced off the ride side of his head, looping high into center field for a single. Fister, looking unfazed, remained in the game and received a round of applause from the home crowd. "It was a scary moment, obviously, but he was fine," Leyland said of Fister. Fister gave up a walk after that, loading the bases. But he induced a pop-up from Bumgarner, who failed to give the Giants a fifth straight game in which their starting pitcher drove home a run. Bumgarner did continue another recent staff trend for the Giants, delivering a glistening outing, one that seemed unlikely before the game. The 23-year-old Bumgarner was making his first appearance since his Oct. 14 loss against the St. Louis Cardinals in the National League Championship Series. Over his two starts this postseason, he managed only eight total innings while giving up 15 hits and 10 runs. The Giants attributed the bad outing to some mechanical issues, which they tried to fix over subsequent days. If Thursday's results were an indicator, something was repaired. Bumgarner zoomed down the Tigers" order, allowing two hits over seven scoreless innings, striking out eight. The Giants" starters are 5-0 with a 0.55 earned run average in the last five games. "We all take lot of pride in pitching and defense," Posey said. Any time we have one of these five starters on the mound, I feel pretty good about our chances. Fister, 28, a native of nearby Merced, Calif., matched Bumgarner most of the way, allowing one base runner from the third inning through the sixth. He was removed, 114 pitches under his belt, after allowing a single to Pence to open the seventh, and he was charged with the run when Pence came around to score. Pence provided slim insurance to the Giants in the eighth, floating a sacrifice fly to right field off Octavio Dotel. The Giants" bullpen held on, pitching for once this week with tension filling the park until the last out. Now, bucking another recent trend, the Giants have charged to an important series lead. And yet their own comebacks have made them wary about overconfidence. "Look at what our group was able to accomplish to get to this point," said closer Sergio Romo, who earned his second save of the postseason with a perfect ninth. Anything is possible. We can't sleep on those guys.