Giants eliminate Braves, will face Cards in NLCS

ATLANTA -- The long wait is over. Barry Bonds is finally a postseason winner.

One of the greatest players in baseball history seized the playoff stage Monday night, homering and scoring the first two San Francisco runs as the Giants held off the Atlanta Braves 3-1 in the decisive Game 5 of the NL division series.

Bonds homered three times in the series. His last one meant the most as San Francisco won the final two games to oust the Braves.

Bonds and Giants barely hung on. The Braves, no strangers to postseason misery, put runners on first and third with no outs in the ninth.

But Robb Nen struck out Gary Sheffield and then got Chipper Jones to ground into a double play to end it.

Russ Ortiz earned his second win, sending the wild-card Giants to a matchup against the St. Louis Cardinals in the NL championship series. Game 1 is Wednesday night at Busch Stadium.

At 38 and in his 17th major league season, Bonds will be trying to reach his first World Series -- but he's already exorcised one of his demons.

In five previous trips to the postseason, the last two with San Francisco, his teams were 0-for-5. The four-time NL MVP and home-run king hit just .196 with one homer and six RBIs in those games.

Two of those losses were to the Braves, including a gut-wrenching loss in Game 7 of the 1992 NLCS at old Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium, now the site of a parking lot just across the street from Turner Field.

Because of those failures, Bonds became known as a player who couldn't come through in the biggest games. But in less than a week, he did his best to purge all those unpleasant memories.

Bonds' first two homers of the series didn't have much impact in blowout games, but the third gave San Francisco a crucial insurance run in the tightest matchup of the series.

Bonds homered in the fourth against Kevin Millwood in Game 5.