After spending most of the postseason with their backs to the wall, the Giants finally took it easy on all the hearts left back in San Francisco by sweeping the Detroit Tigers in the World Series.
The Giants’ whitewash was the 21st World Series sweep and third in franchise history. In 1954, the Giants surprised the Cleveland Indians, who had won 111 games in the regular season, by shutting them out in the Fall Classic, while in 1922, John McGraw doubled down on bragging rights in the city by punctuating a second consecutive World Series victory over the Yankees with a sweep.
World Series Sweeps, by Franchise
Source: Baseball-reference.com
For the Tigers, it was the second time they failed to win a game in the Fall Classic, but what made the team’s quick exit more unique was the abrupt about face from the ALCS. Ten days after celebrating a sweep of the Yankees to advance to the World Series, the Tigers suffered the same fate at the hands of the Giants. The only other team to go from ecstasy to agony so quickly in the postseason was the Colorado Rockies, who, in 2006, swept the Arizona Diamondbacks in the NLCS only to have the Red Sox return the favor in the World Series. In fact, before being dismissed by Boston, the Rockies had not only swept their way through the first two rounds of the playoffs, but had won 14 of the last 15 games in the regular season as well.
The Yankees are no stranger to World Series sweeps. Eleven of the team’s 40 appearances in the Fall Classic have only lasted four games, including eight on the winning side. The Bronx Bombers also hold the record for the longest World Series winning streak at 14 games, 12 of which came via sweeps in 1927, 1928, and 1932. Unfortunately for the Yankees, they were on the wrong side of the broom in 2012. The team’s sweep at the hands of the Tigers was only the second it had experienced in the ALCS, with the other occurring in only three games against the Royals in 1980. In total, the Yankees have recorded 13 sweeps (including four in the ALDS and one in the ALCS) and been swept five times.
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