Buster Posey stands at the heart of the Giants' title

• San Francisco waited 52 years to celebrate a championship. Now they have two in 24 months.
• Posey hit a two-run homer that put the Giants back on top, evoking rare emotion from the All-Star.
• The Giants survived six elimination games in the playoffs.

DETROIT – Buster Posey has completed two seasons as the San Francisco Giants catcher and they have won the World Series both times.

There are many reasons to point to for the Giants' emergence as one of baseball's powerhouses, and the first club to win two championships in a three-year span since the New York Yankees in 1998-2000.

A superb, mostly homegrown pitching staff is one of them. The stable guidance of general manager Brian Sabean and manager Bruce Bochy is another.

But at the heart of the championship drives has been a 25-year-old catcher who overcame a career-threatening injury to return to baseball's most demanding position, the one that best allows him to impact games.

That's Posey, who delivered two of the Giants' biggest hits of the postseason – a grand slam in the final game of the Division Series and a two-run homer in Sunday's 4-3, 10-inning clincher in the World Series – while expertly handling a staff that yielded seven runs in the last seven games. All of them were wins.

"That guy deserves another ring,'' reliever Jeremy Affeldt said after the Giants completed a four-game sweep of the Detroit Tigers. "He's going to be around a long time and he's going to be a leader on the team for a long time. There's no telling how many rings that guy's going to have by the time he's done.''

A two-out single by Marco Scutaro, the MVP of the National League Championship Series, drove in Ryan Theriot in the 10th inning with the winning run. Moments later, Sergio Romo notched his third save of the World Series by striking out the side, firing a gutsy 89 mph fastball by an inert Miguel Cabrera for the

final out.

San Francisco, which waited 52 years to celebrate a championship, will now host a parade down Market Street for the second time in 24 months, with World Series MVP Pablo Sandoval likely front and center.

"You can dream about this as a kid, but until you get to this moment and feel that special happiness, you don't know what it's like,'' center fielder Angel Pagan said. "Your tears come flowing out. I couldn't stop crying.''

In many ways, that's how the Giants felt on May 25, 2011, when they lost Posey for the season due to a gruesome leg injury incurred in a home-plate collision so brutal, it prompted a national debate on whether catchers should be better protected.

The Giants fell short of the playoffs in their attempt to defend the title, and Posey's future hung in the balance as he and the club pondered whether he should change positions.

He decided against it, and not only went on to put together a season that is expected to earn him NL MVP honors, but played an instrumental role in San Francisco's return to the World Series.

Before finding the quickest path to the championship, as the first NL team to sweep since the Cincinnati Reds in 1990, the Giants took the hard, winding road to the World Series.

They survived six elimination games in the playoffs, coming back from a 2-0 deficit in the first round against the Reds, then climbing out of a 3-1 hole in the NLCS against the St. Louis Cardinals.

Posey's grand slam against the Reds' Mat Latos powered the clinching win.

"I enjoy being in those situations,'' Posey said. "That's why you play the game, to have the opportunity to be in those situations.''

Another of those big situations arose in the sixth inning Sunday, with the Giants trailing 2-1 in the sixth inning and struggling to get much going against Tigers starter Max Scherzer.

One out after Scutaro singled, Posey launched a two-run homer that put the Giants back on top and evoked a rare display of emotion by the normally reserved All-Star, a fist-pump and an index finger raised in the air.

"Scherzer was tough,'' Posey said. "I felt like it was a big jolt for us.''

Delmon Young's solo homer off Matt Cain in the bottom half tied the game 3-3, but that was as far as the Tigers offense would go.

The San Francisco pitchers, coming off back-to-back shutouts, held Detroit hitless over the last four innings, getting eight of the 12 outs via strikeout.

It was the conclusion of a dominant performance that saw the Giants outscore their opponents 36-7 in those seven postseason wins in a row, a franchise record that began with Game 5 against St. Louis.

Posey caught all seven and by most accounts was dragging toward the end, but saw his efforts amply rewarded.

"They're both special in their own way,'' Posey said of the two world titles. "This one is unique because of the adversity we had to overcome during the course of the season, and obviously the postseason.''

The biggest blow during the season came when outfielder Melky Cabrera was suspended 50 games on Aug. 15 for testing positive for synthetic testosterone, a banned performance-enhancing substance.

That's when Posey's qualities as what Affeldt calls "a natural-born leader'' came to the forefront. He batted .348 with a .973 on-base-plus-slugging percentage from the moment of Cabrera's suspension until the end of the season as the Giants claimed the NL West title by eight games.

"Buster Posey said, 'Melky's gone. I have to help the team finish what we started,''' Gregor Blanco said. "So Buster took the reins, and along with Marco, Pablo and the rest of us, we accomplished this feat.''