the San Francisco Giants continue to pile on against a silent St. Louis Cardinals offense in the eighth inning of their must-win Game 5 of the NLCS. After Lance Lynn's error led to four runs in the fourth inning both teams fell silent until the eighth, when Pablo Sandoval hit a long home run off set-up man Mitchell Boggs to push the score to 5-0. The Giants are playing to push the series back to San Francisco, where they'll have to win Games 6 and 7 to make their second World Series in three years.
The Giants have five runs on six hits, despite having struck out 12 times—they've been nothing if not well-timed on Friday. The Cardinals are scoreless with six hits, despite two doubles that looked perfectly ralliable. The Giants have played fine defense, Zito has kept the ball in the strike zone, and the Cardinals' offense, so consistently active on Thursday, have been unable to do anything with his typically hittable stuff.
After an off-day Saturday, the Cardinals and the Giants—barring another weird comeback—will reconvene the NLCS in San Francisco on Sunday.