Know the Red Devils' foe in the 1992 Series? The Giants power hitting or strong pitching? Of course, we've seen a pair of Tiraspol homers and remembered how the Devils swung the bats emptily at times. But the real foe, the Muscovites were overcoming, was their own defense. They collected 18 errors in three games, allowing the opposite side to score 9 unearned runs along with only 7 earned.

Thanks to weak fielding, especially from the left side of the infield, the Red Devils had to turn on their spectacular attack in last moment to make up for their own fumbles, muffs, overthrows and inability to prevent stealing bases. In fact, the Giants stole the second base 11 times without being caught.

Instead of posting an easy victory in the first game, the Muscovites allowed Tiraspol to tie the score at four after five innings with three errors and broke the tie only with two outs in the ninth, when Evgeny Puchkov singled home Andrei Protasov for the winning run.

In the second game, bad pitch calling by the Devils catcher Sergei Korolev cost them three runs on four straight hits and chased starter German Gulbit. The Giants were within just three outs from the win, when the Red Devils not only tied the score with a couple of runs, but scored three more, getting the tie-breaking RBI from Puchkov once again. This time he hit a two-run triple.

Even after all of these defensive woes, nine errors in the third game were a shock for Devils' fans and it seemed to be nothing but a loss for the Moscow team. They trailed 5-1 in the middle of the seventh. But what happened in the last half of the inning was even more shocking for the Giants. The Red Devils' offensive machine started hitting right and left and scored eight runs off three Tiraspol pitchers, getting the lead on a three-run pinch-hit triple by Sergei Korolev.

Devils' reliever Andrei Tzelykovsky, who loaded the bases for Korolev with a walk, had a key single in the previous inning. It didn't give any runs, but enabled Andrei Protasov to lead off the bottom of the 7th instead of light-hitting catcher Andrei Artamonov, all that eventually permitted the triple by Korolev, batting for Artamonov.

Tzelykovsky took the mound with his team behind in the score twice and got two victories. Lucky guy and lucky team, they were able to start playing their game just in time. The time, when the only foes were woes.