Giants get to Rangers’ Cliff Lee to win World Series opener, 11-7

The Texas Rangers endured four decades of misery for the right to play in the World Series. They skipped up the steps onto baseball’s grandest stage, led from the baseball wilderness by a pitcher touted as the second coming of Sandy Koufax or Christy Mathewson.

Not on this night.

In a Fall Classic opener that evoked wretched memories of summers past for the Rangers, Cliff Lee more closely resembled a second coming of David Clyde or Chan Ho Park.

The San Francisco Giants beat up on the supposedly unbeatable Lee, dismissing the Rangers’ ace in the fifth inning of an 11-7 victory in Game 1 of the Series. The Giants had not scored more than six runs in a game throughout the playoffs, but they tattooed Lee for seven runs in 4 2/3 innings.

“I was missing on everything,” Lee said. “It’s unacceptable.”

The Rangers also committed four errors, two by Vladimir Guerrero, who was forced into right field because National League rules in San Francisco do not allow the designated hitter.

In a series in which every other starting pitching matchup favors the Giants, the Rangers now must win at least three games in which Lee is not scheduled to start.

“This series isn’t won with one person,” third baseman Michael Young said. “We feel we have a huge weapon with Cliff, but we never feel one guy is going to be the end of the series.”

The Rangers’ regrets can only be compounded by the realization that Tim Lincecum was entirely beatable. The Rangers knocked out Lincecum in the sixth inning, but by that time Freddy Sanchez had hit three doubles, Juan Uribe had hit a three-run home run and the Giants had batted around in a six-run fifth inning.

Sanchez and Uribe did what no one had done to Lee — not Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez, not Evan Longoria and Carl Crawford, not Manny Ramirez and Matt Kemp, not Carlos Gonzalez and Troy Tulowitzki.

“This is exactly what we wanted,” outfielder Cody Ross said. “We wanted to beat him.

“We wanted to beat whoever was on the mound. It could have been Cy Young.”

It might as well have been, for all the hype around Lee that the Giants had to digest.

Lee had started eight previous postseason games. His team had won every one. His earned-run average was 1.26, trailing only Hall of Fame members Koufax and Mathewson among pitchers with at least five postseason starts.

His ERA in this year’s division series: 1.13. His ERA in this year’s American League Championship Series: 0.00. His ERA so far in this World Series: 11.57.

Lee delivered a run-scoring double in the second inning, lifting the Rangers to a 2-0 lead. At that point, six of the first nine batters had reached base against Lincecum.

The Giants rallied to tie the score in the third inning, when Lee threw 32 pitches, then chased him in the fifth.

Lee made 104 pitches, a number he usually does not hit until the eighth or ninth inning. He walked one and struck out seven, without the pinpoint control that has become his trademark.

“I threw a lot of pitches over the heart of the plate,” Lee said.

As waves of reporters came and went from his locker, Lee appeared to grow increasingly resistant to the idea that the Giants were responsible for driving up his pitch count, or that his command was all that terrible.

“It’s not like I was walking the bases loaded and walking home runs,” he said. “I honestly didn’t feel like they were real patient.”

Lee had better be, for he has four days to think about this start.

“I try,” he said, “to have a short memory.”

bill.shaikin@latimes.com