Tigers vs. Giants, 2012 World Series Game 2: Madison Bumgarner returns to rotation, leads San Francisco to 2-0 win

The San Francisco Giants blanked the Detroit Tigers, 2-0, on Thursday night, taking a 2-0 lead in the series and moving to within two wins of their second World Series championship in the past three years.

A night after showcasing their prowess behind the plate and winning Game 1 with strong hitting, the Giants turned to small ball Friday and won largely in part to a dominant performance on the mound from pitcher Madison Bumgarner. After being bumped out of the Giants' rotation in the NLCS due to back-to-back poor performances early in the postseason, Bumgarner returned with a vengeance and delivered the goods he has always been capable of producing, according to Grant Brisbee of SB Nation's San Francisco Giants blog, McCovey Chronicles.

"That's all before you considered the very strong possibility that the Giants couldn't keep pulling wins out of a hat without Bumgarner's help. The World Series is a dandy scrum between a couple of teams who got there because they have a gaggle of good players. Bumgarner is one of those good players. If he continued his streak of degooding, it was going to make things a lot harder on the Giants.

Which was all a lengthy introduction to say this: Madison Bumgarner was good again."

Bumgarner pitched seven scoreless innings for the Giants and allowed just two hits while striking out eight batters.