Baseball: Giants sit on top of world

MVP winner Pablo Sandoval (GETTY IMAGES)

They don't have the big names, a Triple Crown winner or a $200m [£124m]-plus slugger. But for the second time in three years the San Francisco Giants rule baseball, clinically completing a four-game sweep of the Detroit Tigers to win one of the most lopsided World Series in recent years late on Sunday night.

The Giants may have started baseball's showpiece event as underdogs. But they proved the truth of the game's oldest adage – that good pitching beats good hitting. The Tigers' vaunted hitters turned into lapcats, none more so than clean-up hitter Prince Fielder, who eked out just one hit in the entire Series, batting an abysmal 0.71. Over the four games, Detroit scored just six runs.

What offensive fireworks there were came from San Francisco in Game One, when Pablo Sandoval slammed three homers in his first three at bats in an 8-3 rout of the Tigers, a feat matched by only three players in baseball and which earned the rotund Sandoval (nickname "Kung Fu Panda") the Series MVP award.