Bits Blog: I.B.M. Reports Nanotube Chip Breakthrough

I.B.M. scientists are reporting progress in a chip making technology that is likely to ensure the shrinking of the size of the basic digital switch at the heart of modern microchips for more than another decade.

The advance, first described in the journal Nature Nanotechnology on Sunday, is based on carbon nanotubes, exotic molecules that have long held out promise as an alternative material to silicon from which to create the tiny logic gates that are now used by the billions to create microprocessors and memory chips. The I.B.M. researchers at the T.J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, N.Y., have been able to pattern an array of carbon nanotubes on the surface of a silicon wafer and use them to build chips that are hybrids of silicon and carbon nanotubes with more than 10,000 working transistors.

Against all expectations, the silicon chip has continued to improve in both speed and capacity for the last five decades. In recent decades, however, there has been growing uncertainty over whether the technology will continue to improve. The end of the microelectronics era would inevitably stall a growing array of industries that have fed off the falling cost and increasing performance of computer chips.

Chip makers have routinely doubled the number of transistors that can be etched on the surface of silicon wafers by routinely shrinking the size of the tiny switches that store and route the ones and zeroes that are processed by digital computers. They have long since shrunk the switches to less than a wavelength of light, and they are rapidly approaching dimensions that can be measured in terms of the widths of just handfuls of atoms.

The process has been characterized as Moore's Law, named after Gordon Moore, the Intel co-founder, who in 1965 noted that the industry was doubling the number of transistors it could build on a single chip at routine intervals of 12 to 18 months. To continue the process, semiconductor engineers have had to consistently perfect an array of related manufacturing systems and materials that continue to perform at ever-more Lilliputian scale.

The I.B.M. advance is significant, scientists said, because the chip making industry has not yet found a way forward beyond the next two or three generations of silicon.

"This is terrific. I'm really excited about this," said Subhasish Mitra, a Stanford University electrical engineering professor who specializes in carbon nanotube materials. The promise of the new material, he said is that not only will carbon nanotubes allow chip makers to build smaller transistors, but it is likely they will turn off and on more quickly as well.

In recent years, while chip makers have continued to double the number of transistors on microprocessors and memory chips, their performance, measured as "clock speed," has largely stalled. This has forced the computer industry to change its design and begin building more parallel computers. Today, even smartphone microprocessors come with as many as four processors, or "cores," which are used to break up tasks so they can be processed simultaneously.

I.B.M. scientists said they believed that once they have perfected the use of carbon nanotubes sometime after the end of this decade, it will be possible to dramatically raise the speed of future chips as well as dramatically increase the number of transistors.

This year, I.B.M. researchers published a separate paper describing the speedup made possible by the new material.

"These devices outperformed any other switches made from any other material, said Supratik Guha, director of physical sciences at IBM Research. "We had suspected this all along, and our device physicists had simulated this, and they showed that we would see a factor of five or more performance improvement over conventional silicon devices."

Carbon nanotubes are one of three promising technologies that engineers hope will be perfected in time to keep the industry on its Moore's Law pace. Graphene is another promising material that is being explored, as well as a variant of the standard silicon transistor, which is known as a tunneling field effect transistor.

However, Dr. Guha said that carbon nanotube materials had more promising performance characteristics and that I.B.M. physicists and chemists had perfected a range of "tricks" to make the materials easier to make.

Carbon nanotubes are essentially single sheets of carbon rolled into nanoscale tubes. In the Nature Nanotechnology paper, the I.B.M. researchers described how they were able to place ultra-small rectangles of the material in regular arrays by placing them in a soapy mixture that makes them soluble in water. They used a process they described as "chemical self-assembly" to create the patterned array in which the nanotubes stick in some areas of the surface while other areas are left untouched.

Perfecting the process will require a more highly purified form of the carbon nanotube material. Less pure forms are metallic and are not good semiconductors, Dr. Guha said.

He said that Bell Labs scientists figured out ways to purify germanium, a metal in the carbon group, chemically similar to silicon, in the 1940s to make the first transistors, and he was confident that I.B.M. scientists would be able to make 99.99 percent pure carbon nanotubes in the future.

12.07 | 0 komentar | Read More

Giants 4, Tigers 3, 10 Innings: Giants Win World Series After Sweeping Tigers

Pat Borzi provided updates for Sunday's Game 4 between the Giants and the Tigers. For a pitch-by-pitch recap of the game, check out the live game-tracker.

Bot 10th — 11:50 P.M. |Giants Win World Series

Infante suffered a non-displaced fracture of a bone in his left hand that won't require surgery, the Tigers are saying.

Romo strikes out Jackson and pinch-hitter Don Kelly on breaking pitches. Now it's up to the Triple Crown winner, Cabrera, to extend Detroit's season. On 1-1, Cabrera goes fishing for a breaking ball away and misses, 1-2. Takes a pitch, 2-2, fouls off the next. Then Romo freezes him with a fastball for strike three, striking out the side, and the jumping, rolling, hat-throwing celebration begins in the middle of the infield.

Giants win, 4-3, in 10 innings, for their second world championship in three years.

Yankees must have left their bats in Detroit, and the Tigers used them

— David Waldstein (@DavidWaldstein) 29 Oct 12

Top 10th — 11:39 P.M. |Scutaro Drives In Run, Giants Lead 4-3

Marco Scutaro hit a single to drive in Ryan Theriot in the top of the 10th inning to give the Giants the lead.

Affeldt fans Dirks for his fourth consecutive strikeout, and Pagan nearly circumnavigates the outfield before running down Peralta's long fly on the warning track. Did the wind play tricks with it? Manager Bruce Bochy brings in the righthanded Santiago Casilla to face the righthanded-hitting Infante. Affeldt departs with a Tim Lincecum-type
line – one and two-thirds innings, no hits, four strikeouts.

Casilla drills Infante in the left hand with a fastball, crushing the flesh against the knob of the bat. Infante leaves the field in agony. Danny Worth pinch-runs, but Laird forces him at second.

On we go deeper into the night, to the 10th. Worth replaces Infante at second base.

A fired-up Coke, pumping mid-90's fastballs, strikes out Pence, Belt and Blanco, the latter with a slider that a stunned Blanco watched float in at the knees. Coke has faced nine batters in this World Series and struck out them all. Jose who? It's still 3-3 with Dirks, Peralta and Infante due up for Detroit in the bottom of the ninth.

Bot 8th — 11:08 P.M. |Still Tied Heading to the 9th

If I'm Cabrera with a man on first in the eighth, I'm looking for something away to lift into that wind howling out to right. So naturally, Affeldt works Cabrera inside, changing speeds and striking him out with a change. Affeldt buckles Fielder's knees with a sharp-breaking curve before striking him out. And Young strikes out too, on a curve. Great game, huh? On to the ninth.

There's a debate in here whether Leyland will dare bring in struggling closer Jose Valverde. For now, Leyland calls on his most reliable finisher, Phil Coke, for the ninth. Avisail Garcia, who walked as a pinch-hitter in the eighth, stays in the game to play right field as Dirks moves to left. That's significant because Garcia, a 21-year-old rookie, has a great arm.

Dotel is still in for the Tigers in the top of the eighth. After a leadoff walk, first baseman Fielder does Dotel a solid by starting a 3-6-1 double play with Sandoval's ground ball, finished with Dotel applying the tag on Marco Scutaro. Still tied, 3-3.

Cain, who was trying to become the first pitcher since Andy Pettitte in 2009 to win three clinching games in the same postseason, gets a no-decision instead as he gives way to Jeremy Affeldt in the bottom of the eighth.

10:45 P.M. |Chickens Are Safe

Young can be a funny guy when he wants to be. After Game 3, when asked by reporters if there was anything else the Tigers could do to try and win Game 4, he said, "You talking about sacrificing a chicken or something? Nah. We're not going to do anything like that."

That referenced the movie Major League, where the players discussed sacrificing a live chicken before settling for a bucket of KFC.

And Young isn't the first person to bring this up. Last year, two high school players from Texas allegedly sacrificed live chickens on the field to try and change their team's luck. Washington Nationals manager Davey Johnson joked about doing it in May after a rash of injuries, leading a Nationals fan to cut off the head of a rubber chicken, saving on poultry and matches.

Still, it's probably not a good idea. Here's a rule of thumb: When it comes to chickens, stick to broiling.

Top 7th — 10:32 P.M. |Scherzer Leaves the Game

San Francisco's Ryan Theriot grounds out on a hit-and-run in the seventh, with Gregor Blanco taking second. Max Scherzer is done after 90 pitches, and Jim Leyland goes batter by batter with the bullpen. The lefty Drew Smyly retires Brandon Crawford on a fly ball. And in a matchup of former Mets, the well-traveled right-hander Octavio Dotel draws an inning-ending grounder from Angel Pagan.

Bot 6th — 10:14 P.M. |Tigers' Young Homers; Game Tied, 3-3

Possible World Series most valuable players? Pablo Sandoval, with his three homers in Game 1 and 8-for-13 hitting (.615), stands as the clubhouse leader. But Tim Lincecum, with his two hitless relief appearances covering four and two-thirds innings, deserves consideration. Hard to overlook someone who struck out 8 of the 16 batters he faced.

But hold on – Delmon Young hits one out to right field in the bottom of the sixth to tie the game, 3-3. That's his third homer this postseason, and the first against a team that doesn't wear pinstripes. Andy Dirks singles, and the crowd shrieks on Jhonny Peralta's long fly to left until Gregor Blanco runs it down near the wall.

Top 6th ‚ 9:59 P.M. |Posey Homers; Giants Lead, 3-2

Until last night, when he went 0 for 4, Buster Posey had a hit in all seven career World Series games he had played. Thanks to his two-run homer to left in the sixth, he now has a hit in eight of nine.

Giants back in front, 3-2, and Comerica grows quiet as we head to the bottom of the sixth.

Giants will see your MVP candidate, and raise him with theirs.
— John Branch (@JohnBranchNYT) 29 Oct 12

Bot 5th — 9:55 P.M. |Tigers Waste an Opportunity

Laird breaks a cardinal rule trying to sacrifice in the fifth: Hold the bat at the top of the strike zone and don't offer at any pitch higher, because it's not a strike and you'll probably pop it up anyway. Instead, Laird pokes a line drive that Belt snags with a leap. Omar Infante, the runner, never advances, and shortstop Brandon Crawford throws out Berry on a nifty charging barehand play (it caromed off Cain) for the final out.

Top 5th — 9:43 P.M. |Scherzer Still Strong

With light rain falling at Comerica, Scherzer retires the Giants in order in the top of the fifth to maintain the 2-1 lead, picking up his sixth strikeout along the way.

the rain looks worse on TV than it is in person.

— David Waldstein (@DavidWaldstein) 29 Oct 12

Mid 4th — 9:37 P.M. |Verlander Cool on Camera

Seeing Justin Verlander chatting with Joe and Tim from the dugout in the fourth reminds me: If the Tigers miss the playoffs next year, don't be surprised to see Verlander on the Fox or ESPN sets as a guest commentator. This postseason has been one big audition for him. Now he goes back to rooting for himself – he'll start Game 5 if the Tigers can hold or extend this 2-1 lead.

There appears to be no truth to the rumor that the wind that helped push Cabrera's ball over the right field fence came from Fielder huffing and puffing in the on-deck circle.

Scherzer finishes off the fourth with a strike-em-out, throw-em-out double play — Laird nails Brandon Belt at second as Blanco fans.

Wind outside Comerica is fierce. On the field it's not so bad but once a ball like Cabrera's, gets up into jet stream it will carry to right
— David Waldstein (@DavidWaldstein) 29 Oct 12

Bot 3rd— 9:16 P.M. |Cabrera Homers, Tigers Lead 2-1

Near-mayhem in the Tigers third. As Austin Jackson (walk) breaks for second with one out, Berry inexplicably lays down a bunt. Third baseman Sandoval fields the ball as pitcher Matt Cain hurdles him. The throw is low, Belt digs it out of the dirt with a deft sweep of the glove, then nearly cuts down the wide-turning Jackson diving back to second.

After all that, Cabrera picks out a changeup and homers to right field for his first extra-base hit of the series. The 2-1 lead is the first by the Tigers since Game 4 of the A.L.C.S. against the Yankees.

Top 3rd — 9:07 P.M. |Scherzer Regains Control

He does; Scherzer mixes in two changeups among five pitches to Brandon Crawford, who beats out an infield hit to short. With two out Scherzer throws three consecutive changeups to Sandoval, who pulls the third for a single to right — Sandoval's 24th hit this postseason, one short of the major-league record shared by Marquis Grissom of Atlanta (1995), Darin Erstad of the Angels (2002) and David Freese of the Cardinals (last year). The Giants don't score, though, as Posey flies out.

By the way: We're no longer hearing the between-innings chatter from the booth. Rats.

Bot 2nd — 8:53 P.M. |Tigers Waste Opportunity

Tigers waste leadoff single by Delmon Young in the second. The Giants seem to be sitting fastball on Scherzer early in the count; we'll see if he switches things up in the top of the third.

Top 2nd— 8:51 P.M. |Giants Score First, Lead 1-0

Scherzer, who averaged 11.1 strikeouts per nine innings this year to lead the A.L., fans Buster Posey looking leading off the second, his third strikeout in four batters. But Hunter Pence doubles to left-center and Brandon Belt follows with a run-scoring triple to right, and suddenly the Tigers are behind again, 1-0. Since the Giants are 9-1 this postseason when scoring first, this is a whole bunch of not good for the home team.

Detroit manager Jim Leyland plays the infield in on Gregor Blanco to cut off the second run, and for the second straight night gets away with it as Blanco grounds right to second baseman Omar Infante. Tigers come out of it trailing only 1-0.

Bot 1st — 8:36 P.M. |Detroit's Big Bats Still Quiet

Quintin Berry, who hit into a double play and struck out badly to strand five runners in Game 3, hooks a ball deep down the right field line that lands foul by about three inches – a good call by umpire Fieldin Culbreth, but close enough that right fielder Hunter Pence chases it down and plays it like a fair ball.

Berry grounds out and Miguel Cabrera walks, but Matt Cain strikes out Prince Fielder. Detroit's bookend bombers, Cabrera and Fielder, are 3-for-20 in the series.

We 're underway. Max Scherzer, who finished second to Justin Verlander in the A.L. in strikeouts, fanned Angel Pagan and Pablo Sandoval while retiring the side in order. The crowd is into it, and we'll see what the Tigers can do.

Pregame — 8:20 P.M. |Chilly Weather in Detroit

It's so cold out that about 100 of us have chosen to set up in the press room deep within the stadium rather than brave the open-air auxiliary press box in the left field stands. Can you blame us? It's 44 degrees outside and feels like 37 with the wind chill. Pity the team that falls behind this night; 2-0 might seem like 12-0.

There's another plus to being in here: We get the Fox TV audio pumped in, and during commercial breaks we're hearing Joe Buck and Tim McCarver communicating with the truck and among themselves. Wonder how long it will take until Fox figures it out and cuts us off?

Pregame — 8:12 P.M. |Our National Anthem

Since it's an MLB rule that the anthem singer must be from a Fox TV show, I nominate Lisa Simpson on her sax if we go to Game 5.

— Tyler Kepner (@TylerKepner) 29 Oct 12

Pregame — 7:35 P.M. |Getting Ready for the First Pitch

Hi folks, Pat Borzi here at Comerica Park for Game 4 of the World Series. Detroit is not in the path of Hurricane Sandy – for those of you who are, please be smart and safe – but it's still plenty windy here, much more than it was for Game 3.

The temperature had fallen to 45 degrees when I last checked, as cold as it got in the late innings last night. The wind started picking up by the time I left the field about 90 minutes before first pitch. Even before that, some players pulled out their best cold-weather gear. One of the Giants took batting practice in a hood that covered so much of his face I couldn't tell who he was. (Gregor Blanco, was that you?)

If World Series history holds, the Tigers will go down hard tonight. Twenty of the 23 teams to go up three games to none in the World Series finished off the sweep, and the other three closed it out in Game 5. And already, there's a snag for the Tigers. Catcher Alex Avila is a late scratch with a bruised right forearm, the remnants of a foul tip from Game 1. Gerald Laird, 1-for-16 in the Series, draws the start.

I prattled on too long last night about the national anthem singer, so I'll just tell you that tonight it's Demi Lovato, the X Factor judge reprising her turn from last year's World Series Game 5.

So excited to sing the National Anthem at game 4 of the World Series tonight!!!!!

— demetria lovato (@ddlovato) 28 Oct 12

If the Tigers win, Aretha Franklin performs it tomorrow night.

By the way: The last team to be shut out three straight times in the World Series was the 1966 Los Angeles Dodgers, by the Baltimore Orioles. Here's the most incredible detail of that: Games 3 and 4, which both ended 1-0, took one hour 55 minutes and one hour 45 minutes, respectively. We'll be lucky to be through six innings tonight in that time. And Game 2, which Baltimore won 6-0 behind Jim Palmer's shutout, marked the final appearance of Sandy Koufax, who retired after the season.

12.07 | 0 komentar | Read More

Hurricane Sandy Predicted to Bring ‘Life-Threatening’ Surge

Ruth Fremson/The New York Times

A woman leaped to catch a train from Manhattan to Connecticut on Sunday night. More Photos »

Hurricane Sandy, a menacing monster of a storm that forecasters said would bring "life-threatening" flooding, churned toward some of the nation's most densely populated areas on Sunday, prompting widespread evacuations and the shutdown of the New York City transit system.

Officials warned that the hurricane, pushing north from the Caribbean after leaving more than 60 people dead in its wake, could disrupt life in the Northeast for days.

New York went into emergency mode, ordering the evacuations of more than 370,000 people in low-lying communities from Coney Island in Brooklyn to Battery Park City in Manhattan and giving 1.1 million schoolchildren a day off on Monday. The city opened evacuation shelters at 76 public schools.

The National Hurricane Center said it expected the storm to swing inland, probably on Monday evening. The hurricane center reported that the storm had sustained winds of almost 75 miles an hour.

"We're going to have a lot of impact, starting with the storm surge," said Craig Fugate, the administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. "Think, 'Big.' "

The subway closing began at 7 p.m. to darken every one of the city's 468 stations for the second time in 14 months, as officials encouraged the public to stay indoors and worked to prevent a storm surge from damaging tracks and signal equipment in the tunnels. A suspension of bus service was ordered for 9 p.m.

The closing this year seemed more ominous. The shutdown before Tropical Storm Irene last year began at noon on a Saturday, and service resumed before the workweek started on Monday. This time, officials warned, it might be Wednesday before trains were running again.

Another fear in the Northeast was that winds from the storm might knock down power lines, and that surging waters could flood utility companies' generators and other equipment.

Forecasters said the hurricane was a strikingly powerful storm that could reach far inland. Hurricane-force winds from the storm stretched 175 miles from the center, an unusually wide span, and tropical storm winds extended outward 520 miles. Forecasters said they expected high-altitude winds to whip every state east of the Mississippi River.

President Obama, who attended a briefing with officials from FEMA in Washington called Hurricane Sandy "a big and serious storm." He said federal officials were "making sure that we've got the best possible response to what is going to be a big and messy system."

"My main message to everybody involved is that we have to take this seriously," the president said.

The hurricane center said through the day on Sunday that Hurricane Sandy was "expected to bring life-threatening storm surge flooding to the mid-Atlantic Coast, including Long Island Sound and New York Harbor."

The storm preparations and cancellations were not confined to New York.

Amtrak said it would cancel most trains on the Eastern Seaboard, and Philadelphia shut down its mass transit system.

In the New York area, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's commuter rail lines, which suffered the heaviest damage during Tropical Storm Irene, were suspended beginning at 7 p.m. on Sunday.

New Jersey Transit began rolling back service gradually at 4 p.m., with a full shutdown expected by 2 a.m.

The Staten Island Ferry was scheduled to stop running by 8:30 p.m., PATH trains at midnight.

The nation's major airlines canceled thousands of flights in the Northeast. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates the three major airports in the New York City area, said it expected major carriers to cease operations entirely by Sunday evening. The Coast Guard closed New York Harbor — cruise ships were told to go elsewhere — and the Northeast faced the possibility of being all but shut down on Monday.

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Giants 4, Tigers 3, 10 Innings: Giants Sweep Tigers to Win Second World Series Title in Three Years

DETROIT — With bristly winds swirling and a World Series championship on the line, the San Francisco Giants defeated the Detroit Tigers, 4-3, in 10 innings on Monday night in Game 4 to claim their second title in three years.

The game, played before an announced crowd of 42,152 at Comerica Park, provided a dose of intensity and intrigue to a series that proved something of an anticlimax to an otherwise stunning postseason run for the Giants. During their two previous series, San Francisco had to overcome huge deficits and unlikely odds to keep their season alive. In the World Series, they were cutthroat and businesslike, finishing off the Tigers in the minimum four games, the first World Series sweep since the Boston Red Sox defeated the St. Louis Cardinals in 2007.

And now, this storied franchise, born in New York, packed and moved to California in 1958, has its seventh World Series title, and second since they upended the Texas Rangers in five games in 2010.

It was a cagey final confrontation, the runs appearing in sporadic bursts, all momentum undercut with swift counterpunching. The Giants jumped ahead in the second inning, but were leapfrogged by the Tigers in the third. The Giants barreled in front again during the sixth, but the Tigers tied them up in the bottom of the frame.

The starting pitchers, the Giants' Matt Cain and the Tigers' Max Scherzer, battled a chilly, windy night and stood their ground, firing with what seemed to be less than their best. They left the game at an impasse, but after the mound was bequeathed to the bullpens, the relief pitchers refused to bend either, sending the game into extra innings.

Ryan Theriot singled off Phil Coke to start the 10th inning, and moved to second on a sacrifice bunt. One out later, Marco Scutaro, who had cooled this series after lighting up the N.L. Championship Series, punched a single into center field. The crowd gasped.

Theriot raced around third and raised his arm in triumph as he slid safely across home plate. In the dugout, his teammates pummeled his helmet with their fists. The title felt within their grasp.

In the bottom of the inning, Sergio Romo, the Giants' bearded and oft-animated closer, struck out the side, setting down triple crown winner Miguel Cabrera to seal a lasting image of the powerful Tigers' sudden futility at the plate. Cabrera, a favorite for the American League Most Valuable Player award, struck out looking at an 89-mile-per-hour fastball, right down the middle of the plate.

Romo clenched his fists and pumped them in front of his chest. Soon, his teammates engulfed him.

For this must-win game, the Tigers handed the ball to Scherzer, who lasted six and a third innings, allowing three runs, seven hits, and one walk, while recording eight strikeouts. The Giants' runs were built off two previously dormant bats.

In the second inning, Brandon Belt, who was hitless during the first three games of the series, swiveled on an inside fastball and missed a home run by mere feet when the ball banged off the upper portion of the wall in right field. Belt scampered around the bases, settling for a triple, while Hunter Pence, who preceded him with a ground-rule double, scored easily.

In the sixth inning, Buster Posey, who entered Game 4 batting .196 during the postseason with two extra-base hits, walloped a 82-m.p.h. changeup from Scherzer, sending the ball hooking inside the left-field foul pole for a two-run homer.

The action injected life into the frigid environs. Players and fans alike donned layers to battle the wind and bluster. The announcement over the public address system of the game time temperature, 44 degrees, incited a lusty cheer from the crowd. Shortly thereafter, a light, steady rain fluttered diagonally from left field, dampening but not dispiriting the crowd.

These conditions seemed to help the Tigers in the third. Cabrera came up with one on and two outs, and lofted a low changeup from Cain into the air to right field. He seemed not to have squared it up perfectly, but the ball carried and carried before plopping into the second row of seats beyond the right-field wall. The Tigers went up, 2-1, as their fans, wrapped in scarves and hooded sweatshirts, bounced in their seats.

It was the first Tigers hit with a runner in scoring position since Game 1. It was the first time the Giants trailed a game since Game 4 of the championship series, and it broke a 20-inning scoreless streak by their pitchers.

After Posey's home run in the sixth, Delmon Young retaliated for the Tigers in the bottom of the inning, lashing a hanging slider from Cain into the opposite-field seats for a line-drive, solo home run.

Cain, as he did throughout the playoff run, soldiered through while appearing to lack his best stuff. He fired 102 pitches over seven strenuous innings, giving up three runs, five hits, and two walks while striking out five.

He left the mound with the game, the season, still hanging in the balance. But his teammates did the rest.

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Barclays Center Attracts Cabs to Brooklyn

The yellowing of Flatbush Avenue began just before 10 p.m., greeting the area's revelers as they lumbered out of the neighborhood's new nerve center with beer on their breath and their team's logo on their chests.

The people jockeyed for curbside position, stretching their open palms into traffic. Terse words were exchanged. A traffic guard was called in as an arbitrator, waving a glowing orange baton to try to establish order amid the chaos.

"The new Times Square!" a man shouted from the back seat of a passing S.U.V., goading the traffic guard into a hard-won smile.

In its first month of existence, the Barclays Center has helped bolster a shift once thought to be impossible: attracting hordes of yellow taxis to Brooklyn.

Interviews with drivers, residents and traffic guards nearby, combined with city data, suggest that a pattern has emerged: throughout the evening of an event, drivers become more willing to perform drop-offs in the area, or even cruise in adjacent neighborhoods, because they can reasonably expect a return fare to Manhattan. And once an event ends, they descend on the arena to greet the crowd as it leaves.

The trend could upend the unspoken compact between taxi passenger and driver, communicated by a flick of the roof light to off-duty, an invented outer borough surcharge, or perhaps the most demonstrative act of defiance: the cabby simply speeding off, slamming the gas pedal as the question, often rhetorical, curdles in the city air. Will you go to Brooklyn?

In recent years, amid gentrification and neighborhood safety gains, the answer seems to have been shifting gradually. And with the Brooklyn Nets — and, in 2015, the New York Islanders — beginning regular-season games there, that trend seems sure to be amplified.

But according to an early analysis by the city's Taxi and Limousine Commission, the arena has already had an impact on the availability of yellow taxis, provided that a rider knows when to hail.

GPS data compiled by the commission shows that total pickups from 7 p.m. to midnight have nearly doubled, to an average of 351 a night, within a quarter-mile of the arena during 14 event nights.

Although the increase was most pronounced in the hours just before and after an event, a jump — a Barclays Bump, perhaps — is also seen during the event itself, distinguishing the arena from other entertainment and athletic hubs outside of Manhattan.

On Sept. 28, when the arena hosted the first of eight Jay-Z concerts, pickups totaled 188 from 8 to 11 p.m., before the concert crowd left, an increase of over 70 percent compared with an average Friday. On Oct. 11, the night of Barbra Streisand's first concert, there were 137 pickups during this period, an increase of 37 percent.

At the Madonna concert at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx on Sept. 6, seven yellow-taxi pickups occurred nearby from 8 to 11 p.m. At the United States Open men's tennis final on Sept. 10, in Flushing, Queens, cabbies performed four pickups in the six hours after the event's scheduled start time.

A typical Yankees game attracts no more than a couple of yellow-taxi pickups per hour after the final out, the commission said. From 11 p.m. to midnight on the night of Ms. Streisand's concert, yellow taxis performed 268 pickups near the arena, more than five times the average for a typical Thursday.

"Taxis follow the business," said Marty Markowitz, the Brooklyn borough president. "It's comparable to the burger place." (He was referring to Shake Shack, which opened a restaurant near Borough Hall last year.)

While observing that taxi availability has increased in much of Downtown Brooklyn, Fort Greene and Crown Heights over the past decade, however, Mr. Markowitz said many other areas remained with virtually no yellow-taxi service.

David S. Yassky, the city's taxi commissioner, said this reality, and the recent data, underscored the importance of the city's now-stalled plan to provide hail service outside of Manhattan. "If a taxi is dropping somebody off at the Jay-Z concert, there'll be a passenger there hailing it," he said. "But that same passenger is there on nights where there's no Jay-Z concert."

Pickoffs and drop-offs on nonevent nights have seen little change, compared to nights before the arena opened. And in an area with a traffic plan, developed by Sam Schwartz Engineering, that seeks to "promote transit and discourage driving," public transportation remains a preferred option.

So far, though, the arena appears to have created some clear ripples. Mo Mullen, 32, from Clinton Hill, said that while she often used for-hire vehicles, she had in recent weeks stumbled upon yellow taxis on Atlantic Avenue on weekend afternoons. "I've been about to call a car service and then a taxi drives by," she said.

Julius Folorunso, a livery driver from East Flatbush, said the opening of the Barclays Center had not produced the increase in pickups near the arena that he and other for-hire drivers had expected. "You might get one," he said. "Then the whole place is dry."

Many yellow-taxi drivers continue to wade into Brooklyn cautiously. As they drive south on Flatbush Avenue, past the arena and toward Prospect Heights, some set their roof lights to indicate that they are both available and off-duty — a tactic often deployed by drivers seeking to negotiate the geography of their next ride. For drivers heading north, toward Downtown Brooklyn and Lower Manhattan, the off-duty light is rarely seen.

But at the very least, it seems that drivers have identified a new landmark in an area some have long sought to avoid. On Thursday, two Brooklyn women, Meredith Brown, 31, and Frances Jacobus-Parker, 30, asked a driver to take them from the Upper East Side to the Brooklyn Academy of Music — that cultural pillar of the borough for over 150 years. He told them he did not know where to find it.

So the women floated another idea: take us to the Barclays Center, a short walk away.

That, after three weeks, he was happy to do.

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The Quad | Live Blog: College Football Saturday

The Times is back today to host the best college football watch party in the country. Bassey Etim will offer up his own analysis and insights on all of the big games, including No. 3 Florida at No. 12 Georgia at 3:30 p.m. Eastern, No. 5 Notre Dame at No. 8 Oklahoma and No. 13 Mississippi State at No. 1 Alabama.

It's also Halloween weekend, and it's pretty much a sure thing that football and Halloween parties will dominate the college scene Saturday.

We're also guessing that the two will cross paths a few times, too. Will there still be Tebow costumes in the state of Florida? Will there be masks at tailgate parties and in the stands? Certainly there will be Tennessee Volunteer-theme pumpkin carvings. They are orange after all.

Send us photographs of the crossroads of Halloween and college football via Twitter, using the hashtag #nytquad, and we'll run them in our college football live blog during the day.

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Bats | Giants 2, Tigers 0: Giants Are One Game Away From World Series Title

Pat Borzi is providing updates on Saturday night's Game 3 between the Giants and the Tigers. For pitch-by-pitch updates of the game, follow our live game-tracker.

Bot 9th — 11:32 P.M. |Final: Giants 2, Tigers 0

The Tigers' offense went completely silent again on Saturday night, failing to generate any runs against Ryan Vogelsong, Tim Lincecum and Sergio Romo in the ninth inning as San Francisco took a commanding 3-0 series lead.

The Giants jumped on Detroit starter Anibal Sanchez early, scoring two runs in the second inning, highlighted by Gregor Blanco's triple, and it proved to be the only offensive burst they would need to take Game 3. The Giants are now one victory away from the World Series title.

The Tigers have now gone 18-straight innings without scoring a run and Giants starting pitching has given up a total of just one run so far in this series. Game 4 takes place in Detroit on Sunday night.

— Justin Sablich

Bot 9th — 11:22 P.M. |Last Chance for Detroit

Phil Coke strikes out the side in the Giants ninth and storms off the field pounding his glove, trying to fire up the dugout. Will it work? Something better. Here comes Giants closer Sergio Romo jogging in from the bullpen. Survivor's Eye of the Tiger, playing now, is not for him.

End 8th — 11:12 P.M. |Boo Birds Out in Detroit

Now Fielder is hearing boos after striking out in the eighth, which follows Cabrera's broken-bat groundout on a diving play by shortstop Crawford. Those two are combined 3-for-19 now in the Series, 1-for-8 tonight. Young reaches when Crawford bobbles Young's grounder and throws in the dirt to first, but Lincecum fans Andy Dirks, his third strikeout in two and one-third innings. On to the ninth.

Tim Lincecum, when he is pitching like Tim Lincecum, is unfair as a reliever. What a weapon.

— Tyler Kepner (@TylerKepner) 28 Oct 12

Could Lincecum be the series MVP?

— John Branch (@JohnBranchNYT) 28 Oct 12

Mid 8th — 11:03 P.M. |Time Running Out on Tigers

Sandoval doubles to the base of the wall in left off Benoit in the eighth but the Giants don't score. It's still 2-0 San Francisco. The Tigers, running out of chances, have Cabrera, Fielder and Young due up in the eighth.

End 7th — 10:50 P.M. |Tigers Continue to Struggle on Offense

If you're keeping track at home: Through seven innings, Cabrera and Fielder are a combined 1-for-6 tonight and 3-for-17 in the series with no extra base hits and one RBI. Detroit hasn't scored since the ninth inning of Game 1, so that's 16 consecutive scoreless innings. Some fans booed as Berry struck out wildly against Lincecum to end the seventh with Jackson (walk) at first. Joaquin Benoit is on for Sanchez, who did not pitch badly – two earned runs over seven innings with eight strikeouts.

Updated ERA for those Giants starters in the last six games: 0.47. That's zero-point-four-seven. Wow.
— Tyler Kepner (@TylerKepner) 28 Oct 12

Rushed throw by third baseman Cabrera on a Blanco chopper in the seventh forces Fielder to belly-flop toward right field to snag it for the out, though it's debatable whether Fielder got a foot down ahead of Blanco's headfirst slide. I don't know how Fielder avoided pulling a hamstring.

Top 7th — 10:29 P.M. |Tricky Hops in Detroit, Stiill 2-0

Remember how Eric Chavez and Mark Teixeira let ground balls play them in A.L.C.S. Game 4 here because they feared tricky hops? Sandoval, the Giants third baseman, did the opposite, hanging in on Delmon Young's grounder in the sixth and making the play even though the second hop nearly hit him in the face. The infield dirt here must be like concrete.

Vogelsong is done after 104 pitches and 5 2/3 scoreless innings, lifted for Tim Lincecum, who retires Jhonny Peralta on a fly ball. To the seventh we go.

Mid 6th — 10:15 P.M. |Austin Jackson Helps Keep it 2-0

In the top of the sixth, Jackson runs down Sandoval's leadoff bid for an extra-base hit in left-center. Hey Yankee fans: Think Curtis Granderson makes that play? Still 2-0 Giants as we go to the Detroit
sixth. Temperature is down to 45 degrees.

End 5th — 10:06 P.M. |Tigers Leave Bases Loaded

Now we've got waving towels, thanks to back-to-back singles by Alex Avila and Omar Infante at the bottom of the Detroit order with one out in the Tigers fifth. Jackson's full-count walk loads the bases and brings out Giants pitching Dave Righetti, the ex-Yankee, to chat with Vogelsong.

With the middle infielders split wide and back for a possible double play, Infante takes a big secondary lead and should score on a single. Quintin Berry strikes out though, bringing up Cabrera, who dumps a ball eight feet foul down the right field line before popping out to short for the third out. Through five innings, Tigers have left six men on and are 0-for-4 with runners in scoring position – not good for the team down two-games-to-none in the series.

Bot 5th — 9:50 P.M. |It's Flat-Out Cold in Detroit

Tyler Kepner and Andrew Keh are in a different section of the press box from me. I'm in the cool section. I'm not kidding. There isn't much heat in here. My old pal Howard Bryant of ESPN The Magazine is wrapped in fleece with a black ski cap pulled tight around his ears, like he's going ice fishing. And he's from Boston, where they know cold on a first-name basis.

In the top of the fifth, Jackson, playing a shallow center, tracks back and nearly drops Pagan's long fly to center – it sticks in the heel of his glove, right in the spot where we all usually drop them. I
don't know how Jackson held on. Why does this make me think of Fred Biletnikoff?

Top 5th — 9:40 P.M. |Comerica Park Sounds Like Yankee Stadium

Triple Crown winner Miguel Cabrera, who has one home run this postseason, uppercuts a hanging slider from Vogelsong 50 feet foul into the upper deck. Then he lines out softly to second. The
scoreboard exhorts fans to get LOUDER, but it's hard for the home crowd to get excited when Prince Fielder takes a called strike three.

Hardly anybody is waving the white towels, and the place seems dead.

Mid 4th — 9:28 P.M. |The Many Beards of the Giants

The barrel of Hunter Pence's broken bat flies into the Tigers dugout, scattering people, as he singles to left leading off the fourth. Which reminds me: The Giants bring baseball's most varied collection of beards, from Pence's (which channels Jay Buhner, the ex-Yankee and Mariner) to that of injured closer Brian Wilson, which is so thick and heavy it almost looks fake.

Sanchez retires the side after the Pence single. Seventy-four pitches in, he looks strong.

Top 4th — 9:20 P.M. |Tigers Waste Another Chance

Interesting to see how folks are coping with the chill. I see some players in half-sleeves, like Giants pitcher Ryan Vogelsong, but most are going with long sleeves. In the stands, I see a mix of ball caps, ski caps, and a lot more bare heads than I would have expected. The wind must not be that bad.

The Tigers waste another first-and-second chance as the Giants turn their second inning-ending double play in three innings. Second baseman Marco Scutaro pumps a fist as he runs off the field. Giants, 2-0, as we go to the top of the fourth.

Looks like Yanks passed on whatever offensive sickness they had to #tigers. Always wash your hands this time of year! #giants up 2-0 in GM 3

— Justin Sablich (@JSablichNYT) 28 Oct 12

Mid 3rd — 9:07 P.M. |Fall Chill in the Air

It's so late in the season that the ivy leaves on the batter's eye is center field here at Comerica Park are turning fall colors. Reminds me I need to do some raking when I get home. And the Tigers need to do some raking of their own as we go to the bottom of the third. (Sorry, couldn't resist.)

@TylerKepner He'd like to be known as the "top taco", Tyler.
— Naila-Jean Meyers (@NailaJeanMeyers) 28 Oct 12

Bot 2nd — 8:51 P.M. |Giants Jump Out to a 2-0 Lead

Or maybe not. With one run in on Gregor Blanco's triple to the base of the wall in right-center in the top of the second, Tigers manager Jim Leyland plays the infield in against DH Hector Sanchez. That says as much about Detroit's punchless offense than anything. Anibel Sanchez fans Hector Sanchez, and the infield retreated to normal depth. But Brandon Crawford singles to center to make it 2-0, then took second when Austin Jackson lets the short hop skip behind him for an error.

Pagan grounds out to end it. Now the Tigers need to get something done soon before this slips away.

End 1st — 8:33 P.M. |Tigers Threaten but Do Not Score

Nice low stretch and pick by Giants first baseman Brandon Belt to complete a double play as the Tigers waste a first-and-second, one-out chance in the bottom of the first. Get comfortable, folks, we may be here awhile.

Bot 1st — 8:18 P.M. |Giants Go Quietly in the First

A bloop single to center by Pablo Sandoval is all the Giants can muster in the top of the first. I don't see a lot of fans twirling those white towels the Tigers gave away, but it's early. We'll see if Miguel Cabrera and Co. can get them going.

San Francisco Giants uniforms more reminiscent of actual tigers

— Andrew Keh (@andrewkeh) 28 Oct 12

Top 1st — 8:11 P.M. |We're Underway in Detroit

First pitch from Detroit starter Anibel Sanchez is a strike to Angel Pagan at 8:07 p.m., and away we go. It's 47 degrees with a swirling wind.

Pregame — 8:01 P.M. |Deschanel Hits It Out

Deschanel did a nice job, especially since she looked like she was freezing (she wore a sparkly sleeveless dress). Tigers great Al Kaline threw out the first ball to Justin Verlander. We're almost ready to go.

Pregame — 7:22 P.M. |We're Nearing Game Time

Welcome, all. Pat Borzi here in Detroit, where the sun has set and the temperature is dropping for Game 3 of the World Series.

The good thing, the rain that hovered around the area yesterday moved off to the east, so we should be clear and dry tonight. The bad news is, since the start of batting practice the temperature has already fallen four degrees, to 49 from 53. Though the wind whipped the flags in center field from left to right, it didn't feel that bad on the field, though players on both teams wore jackets or hoodies.

We'll see if anybody is brave enough to break out short sleeves for the game.

Also: I am rooting for BOTH teams!!! Go #Tigers! Go #Giants! Can't wait for the game! #WorldSeries
— zooey deschanel (@ZooeyDeschanel) 27 Oct 12

Since Fox is broadcasting the Series, the star of one of its shows will sing the national anthem – Zooey Deschanel of "New Girl." She's the one who does that ridiculous iPhone commercial where she tries to have soup delivered to her house. (Nobody has a can opener in that neighborhood? Don't get me started.)

Deschanel is supposedly a Giants fan, but according to her Twitter feed is rooting for both teams tonight. Fine, whatever. The legendary Aretha Franklin is primed for the Game 5 anthem, offering the best reason to root for the Tigers tonight. Detroit rocker Jack White was around pregame, sporting a hipster fedora from the Frank Sinatra collection.

In a pregame off-field ceremony, Hall of Famer Hank Aaron presented the award named for him to Detroit's Miguel Cabrera and Buster Posey of the Giants as the top hitters in each league. "I'm humbled that Hank Aaron knows who I am," said Posey, who first referred to him as Mr. Aaron. Posey grew up in Georgia, but at 25 is too young to have seen Aaron play for the Atlanta Braves.

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News Analysis: Al Qaeda-Inspired Groups, Minus Goal of Striking U.S.

Samuel James for The New York Times

Members of Boko Haram, a group that has killed thousands of people in recent years in an effort to establish an Islamic state in Nigeria.

WASHINGTON — One of the currents running through the presidential campaign has been a tacit but fundamental question: After 11 years of the war on terror, what kind of threat does Al Qaeda pose to America?

The candidates offered profoundly different answers during their final debate last week, with President Obama repeating his triumphant narrative of drone attacks and dead terrorists, and Mitt Romney warning darkly about Islamists on the march in an increasingly hostile Middle East.

In a sense, both are true. The organization that planned the Sept. 11 attacks, based in Afghanistan and Pakistan, is in shambles; dozens of its top leaders have been killed since Mr. Obama assumed office, and those who remain appear mostly inactive.

At the same time, jihadists of various kinds, some identifying themselves with Al Qaeda, are flourishing in Africa and the Middle East, where the chaos that followed the Arab uprisings has often given them greater freedom to organize and operate. The death of J. Christopher Stevens, the American ambassador to Libya, in September during an assault by armed Libyan jihadists on the American mission in Benghazi has driven that home to the American public.

But there is an important distinction: most of the newer jihadist groups have local agendas, and very few aspire to strike directly at the United States as Osama bin Laden's core network did. They may interfere with American interests around the world — as in Syria, where the presence of militant Islamists among the rebels fighting the government of Bashar al-Assad has inhibited American efforts to support the uprising. But that is a far cry from terrorist plots aimed at the United States itself.

"In a lot of ways we've gone back to the way the world was before Sept. 11," said Brian Fishman, a research fellow in counterterrorism at the New America Foundation. "It's local jihadi groups focused on projects within their own countries, even if they sometimes maintain the rhetorical framework of Al Qaeda and its global struggle."

While these local groups may have benefited in the short term from the turbulence that followed the Arab Spring uprisings, they have also suffered an ideological blow that could make it far more difficult to recruit young followers. Peaceful protest movements brought down dictatorships in Tunisia and Egypt, and there, as in the more violent conflicts in Libya and Yemen, the United States was on the side of change.

The idea of attacking the United States, "the far enemy" in jihadist parlance, was always unpopular for many Islamic radicals, whose chief goal was replacing their own governments with theocracies. The concept became more unpopular after the Sept. 11 attacks when Osama bin Laden and his followers were driven out of their sanctuary in Afghanistan. In the following years, Al Qaeda's affiliates in Iraq and Saudi Arabia did the brand considerable harm by killing large numbers of Muslims, although killing American soldiers in Iraq, where those troops were seen as Crusader-like occupiers, still met with wide approval.

What Al Qaeda retains is a mystique, the legend of a small band of warriors who took on an empire and struck a devastating blow. That mystique still has tremendous appeal, even for insurgents who differ with Al Qaeda's methods or its focus on attacking America.

Recent years have seen the proliferation of jihadist movements that may take some inspiration from Al Qaeda, but have greatly divergent goals. In Nigeria, the radical Islamist group Boko Haram has killed thousands of people in the past few years in its struggle to overthrow the government and establish an Islamic state. There, the struggle is largely sectarian; Boko Haram has struck mostly at Christians and burned churches.

Jihadists now control Mali's vast north, as Mr. Romney mentioned more than once in the last debate, and have links to an older group officially affiliated with Al Qaeda that grew out of Algeria's civil conflict in the 1990s. Although these groups are well armed and dangerous, some appear to be more criminal than ideological, focused on kidnapping and drug smuggling. Jihadists have also gained strength in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, just across the border from Israel.

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Chinese Premier’s Family Disputes Article on Riches

The statement, published in The South China Morning Post on Sunday, said, "The so-called 'hidden riches' of Wen Jiabao's family members in The New York Times's report" did not exist.

After criticizing several points in the article, the statement hinted at the possibility of future legal action. "We will continue to make clarifications regarding untrue reports by The New York Times, and reserve the right to hold it legally responsible," the statement said.

The statement reported in The Post, a Hong Kong newspaper, has not been obtained directly by The Times.

The statement was not a sweeping denial of the article. The statement acknowledged that some family members were active in business and that they "are responsible for all their own business activities."

While the statement disputed that Mr. Wen's mother had held assets, it did not address the calculation in the article that the family had controlled assets worth at least $2.7 billion.

Eileen Murphy, a spokeswoman for The Times, expressed confidence in the article. "We are standing by our story, which we are incredibly proud of and which is an example of the quality investigative journalism The Times is known for," she wrote in an e-mail.

The lawyers' statement represents an unusual move for the family of a senior Chinese leader. When Bloomberg News published an article in late June describing real estate and other assets held by the family of Vice President Xi Jinping, his family did not respond publicly.

The statement published in The Post was attributed to Bai Tao, a partner in the Beijing office of the Jun He Law Firm, and Wang Weidong, the managing partner of the Beijing office of the Grandall Law Firm.

No one answered phone calls to both lawyers' offices on Sunday, nor did Mr. Wang respond immediately to an e-mail.

The statement denied an anecdote in The Times article that described how one investment in the name of Mr. Wen's mother, Yang Zhiyun, was worth $120 million five years ago. "The mother of Wen Jiabao, except receiving salary/pension according to the regulation, has never had any income or property," the statement said.

Corporate registration records reviewed by The Times showed that in 2007 the prime minister's 90-year-old mother held about $120 million worth of shares in Ping An, an insurance company, through investment vehicles. A signature bearing her name and her government-issued identity card were included in the registration record, which was obtained from government regulatory filings.

The family's statement also said that some members had not engaged in business while others "were engaged in business activities, but they did not carry out any illegal business activity. They do not hold shares of any companies."

The statement also said that Mr. Wen had not been involved in those activities. "Wen Jiabao has never played any role in the business activities of his family members, still less has he allowed his family members' business activities to have any influence on his formulation and execution of policies."

The Times article did not allege any illegal business activity, and it said that Mr. Wen did not appear to have accumulated assets. The article also said that there was no evidence that Mr. Wen personally intervened to help family members' investments. The article pointed out that as prime minister in a country where the state plays a large role in the economy, Mr. Wen oversaw many government officials whose decisions could play a large role in the fortunes of businesses and investors.

Hong Lei, the spokesman for China's foreign ministry, criticized the article on Friday during a briefing, saying that it "smears China and has ulterior motives."

The Times posted the article in English on Friday, and in Chinese three hours later, after final edits in English were translated. The Chinese government quickly blocked access from mainland Chinese computers to the Chinese-language and English-language Web sites of The Times before the article was posted in Chinese. But many people in China appear to have used virtual private networks to view the article anyway.

The report on the finances of Mr. Wen's family has also received heavy coverage in the Hong Kong news media, which has extensive reach inside mainland China.

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Game 3: Giants 2, Tigers 0: World Series: Giants Take 3-0 Lead Over Tigers

DETROIT — Like the early Halloween revelers who filtered from the bars around Comerica Park and into the stands Saturday night, the San Francisco Giants have undergone a dramatic autumn costume change, from wide-eyed underdogs to ruthless front-runners.

The Giants fell to a two-games-to-none deficit before winning their National League division series and to a three-games-to-one deficit before emerging from the champions series. But after a 2-0 victory over the Detroit Tigers, they have taken an authoritative three-games-to-none lead in the World Series.

"It's a good situation, but there's nothing been done yet," Giants Manager Bruce Bochy said. "It's a number, just like I said about two. Now its three. That's not the series."

The Giants have now won six straight games in the postseason and have not trailed a single inning in those games. And now this team that spent the early days of October teetering ingloriously along the brink of elimination needs just one victory to win their second championship in three years. Game 4 is Sunday in Detroit, where the Giants' Matt Cain is scheduled to face the Tigers' Max Scherzer.

"You don't really have to tell them anything," Tigers Manager Jim Leyland said of his players. "They know. They can count. We're down three games to zero."The Tigers, who never trailed during their American League Championship Series sweep of the Yankees, have experienced a dramatic turnaround of their own, falling limp at the plate. Late Thursday night in San Francisco, after his team lost their second straight game with a meek showing at the plate, Leyland hoped aloud that a return home might reinvigorate his team's offense.

Home for the Tigers, despite temperatures that hovered in the mid-40s, seemed a warmer place, with a crowd of 42,262, many bundled and cheering the Tigers' every move. But still the bats did not ignite.

Ryan Vogelsong returned to the mound for the Giants after throwing seven sparkling innings last Sunday in Game 6 of the N.L.C.S. That outing brought him his second victory of the playoffs and lowered his postseason earned run average to 1.42. Even so, he represented potential respite for the Tigers. They struggled against a pair of left-handed starters during the first two games of the series and managed just 10 hits and 3 runs through those games. During the regular season, the Tigers batted .275 against right-handers and .253 against left-handers.

But Vogelsong did not oblige. He pitched five and two-thirds innings, giving up five hits and four walks, while striking out three. Again and again, he worked out of troublesome spots, inflating the hopes of the crowd before puncturing them once more.

The Tigers' first mouthwatering chance appeared when cleanup hitter Prince Fielder — who had a 1.017 on-base-plus-slugging percentage against right-handers, compared to an .808 O.P.S. against left-handers, during the regular season — stepped to the plate with two on and one out in the first inning. But Fielder flailed awkwardly at an outside changeup and grounded into a double play, ending the inning.

Instead, it was the Giants who slipped ahead. Leading off the top of the second, Hunter Pence drew only his second walk of the postseason, stole second, advanced to third on a wild pitch and scored when Gregor Blanco crushed a hanging slider against the faraway wall in right-center field for triple. The Giants added a run when Brandon Crawford, batting ninth, plopped a single into center.

The two-run second was the only sign of rust for Anibal Sanchez, who last started for the Tigers on Oct. 14. He pitched seven innings, gave up six hits and one walk to go with eight strikeouts.

But his efforts went unrewarded as the Tigers offense failed to capitalize on its chances. In the third, Omar Infante and Austin Jackson provided back-to-back one-out singles. But as Miguel Cabrera — the recipient of a humongous commemorative crown before the game that acknowledged his regular season triple crown — waited on deck, Quintin Berry rolled a ball to second for another inning-ending double play.

Cabrera got his chance in the fifth inning after the Tigers had pushed Vogelsong against the ropes, loading the bases. Earlier in the day, Cabrera had admitted to being nervous while receiving the Hank Aaron award, which is given yearly to the players considered the "most outstanding offensive performers" in each league. Cabrera stumbled with his words after Hank Aaron showered him with praise.

But here he was in his element, strolling to the plate, his chest puffed, the low, ominous bass line of the Kanye West song "Mercy" thumping through the public address system, and the crowd bubbled along with expectancy. But after slicing a ball tantalizingly on the wrong side of the right-field foul line, Cabrera could only float a ball into the air above shortstop, deflating the crowd again.

"Right now, he's the best hitter in the game," Vogelsong said of Cabrera. "I was just trying to make pitches there. It's a lot easier facing him in that situation when there's two outs."

The Giants have recently had the luxury of a former Cy Young winner working out of their bullpen: Tim Lincecum, who entered the game with 14 strikeouts in 102/3 innings as a reliever this October, pitched two and a third hitless innings, striking out three.

Sergio Romo closed the game with a perfect ninth, and the Giants strutted off the field, unrecognizable from earlier this month.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: October 28, 2012

An earlier version of this article misidentified the pitching matchup for Game 4. The scheduled matchup for that game is the San Francisco Giants' Matt Cain and the Detroit Tigers' Max Scherzer. 

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