Atlanta Braves 1-3 San Francisco Giants
Giants win five-match series 3-2

Baseball great Barry Bonds has finally erased the one black mark on a stellar career by winning a post-season baseball series.

Bonds, who holds the record for hitting most home runs in a season, led the San Francisco Giants to victory over the Atlanta Braves on Monday to win the National League Divisional play-off series.

The Giants will now play off for the National League title against the St Louis Cardinals.

Bonds, the favourite to win the National League's Most Value Player award, homered and scored twice as the Giants beat the Braves 3-1.

The win puts the Giants into the NL Championship Series for the first time since 1989, when they reached the World Series.

Bonds has the reputation as a superstar who has not delivered in the play-offs - much of it derived from back-to-back post-season series against Atlanta in the early 1990s.

But he got the Giants going early. The superstar left fielder singled and scored in the second inning and lined his third home run of the series to open the fourth.

Bonds, fourth on baseball's all-time home run list with 613, entered the series with a .196 average and one homer in 97 post-season at-bats.

"The Braves have been my nemesis for years, so this is good for me," Bonds said.

"I've never been past the first round before. I want to win a World Series, so this is just the beginning."

Atlanta, who had the best record in the NL, lost in the Division Series for the second time in three years.

The Braves had never lost a Divisional Series match-up before 2000 but were swept by the Cardinals that season and blew a 2-1 lead in this series.