1989 National League Championship Series
Wednesday, October 4, 1989, at Wrigley Field in Chicago, Illinois The Giants entered the series as slight favorites due to the MVP season of Kevin Mitchell, the solid play of Will Clark, and the best ERA in baseball by pitcher Scott Garrelts.
The Cubs also had three pitchers with 16 or more victories, Rick Sutcliffe, Mike Bielecki, and Greg Maddux, coming off his third full season in the majors.
Ryne Sandberg doubled and Mark Grace drilled a two-out, two-run homer to cut the Giants lead to 3–2.
Having already driven in two runs, Clark tied the NLCS record for RBIs for an entire series in less than four innings when he drilled a grand slam to right that finished Maddux and the Cubs.
The 8–3 lead ended in an 11–3 Giants victory when Mitchell nailed a three-run homer to close the scoring in the eighth.
The Giants walked Joe Girardi to get to the pitcher's spot, and Bielecki responded with a single that scored Salazar and Dunston to make it 5–0.
Walton again singled, scoring Girardi, and when Kelly Downs retired Sandberg on a pop-up, the Cubs went back into the field with a 6–0 lead.
The Giants cut the lead to 6–2 in the fourth when Will Clark singled and Kevin Mitchell homered for the second time in the series.
Following the trend of the first two games—five runs by the two teams combined in the first inning of Game 1 and six in the first inning of Game 2—the Cubs roared out of the gate with two first-inning runs courtesy of back-to-back singles by Walton and Smith, a wild pitch by LaCoss that put them on second and third, and a single by Andre Dawson that scored both and put the Cubs in the lead, 2–0.
Kevin Mitchell was given an intentional pass, and Matt Williams grounded out to the pitcher to score Butler.
With runners at second and third and two out, the Giants nearly escaped, but a wild pitch from Brantley scored Dunston and tied the game.
The Giants mimicked the Cubs in the bottom of the first when Thompson walked, went to third on a Clark single, and scored on a Kevin Mitchell ground out.
But a bases-loaded single by Matt Williams in the bottom of the third scored two runs and put the Giants back in front.
But in the bottom of the fifth, Clark doubled and Matt Williams (after fouling off seven pitches in a 12-pitch at-bat) hit his second homer of the series to give the Giants a 6–4 lead that was the final score.
Monday, October 9, 1989, at Candlestick Park in San Francisco, California Before the game, the Tower of Power horn section played the National Anthem.
The Cubs held the 1–0 lead until the seventh inning when Will Clark tripled and scored on Mitchell's sacrifice fly.
With two outs in the eighth, the Cubs appeared ready to perhaps send the series back to Chicago, but Candy Maldonado pinch-hit for Reuschel and walked.
Don Zimmer sent for Mitch Williams to end the jam, but Clark drove home the pennant-winning runs with a single to center that gave the Giants a 3–1 lead.
1989 NLCS (4–1): San Francisco Giants over Chicago Cubs NBC play-by-play man Vin Scully was unable to call Game 2 because he had come down with laryngitis.
The 1989 World Series was most known for the Loma Prieta earthquake, which hit minutes before Game 3 causing significant damage to both Oakland and San Francisco.
The game was postponed out of concerns for the safety of everyone in the ballpark as well as the loss of power, with commissioner Fay Vincent later saying that he did not know when play would resume.
Long-time Giants catcher Bob Brenly would later serve as a color analyst for televised Chicago Cubs games from 2005-2012.
In 2010, the Giants defeated the Texas Rangers in five games to win the World Series for the first time since moving to San Francisco in 1958, thus ending the 52-year "Curse of Coogan's Bluff".
They won Game 7 by a score of 8–7 in 10 innings at Cleveland's Progressive Field, ending their 108-year drought and the Curse of the Billy Goat.
They had previously lost their first 10 games as the visiting team on the West Coast in the postseason, which included three losses in San Francisco in the 1989 NLCS.
