The San Francisco Giants are flourishing as underdogs — again
SAN FRANCISCO — We really should know better by now, all of us.
Some teams get to the postseason and fold. Some teams get there, shake off their regular-season woes and defy expectation. If you don’t know which one the San Francisco Giants are, they’ve got two World Series rings to show you from the past four years.
Those rings — even though the Giants have them, making their club the closest thing to a dynasty we’ve seen in recent years — still don’t seem to buy the Giants much respect.
Here they are in the postseason again. And here they are, underdogs again.
“Always,” says ace pitcher Madison Bumgarner, whose beer-chugging celebrations are becoming a postseason treasure.
He had good reason to chug Tuesday night. The Giants knocked off the heavily favored Washington Nationals in the NLDS with a 3-2 victory, ending the series in four games and setting up an NLCS meeting with the St. Louis Cardinals, a rematch of the 2012 NLCS.
Why didn’t we know better?
Nobody thought the Giants would beat the Tigers in the 2012 World Series. Or the Rangers in 2010. Counted out then, just like they were counted out not even a week ago.
The Washington Nationals, people figured, were too much for the Giants. They had the best record in the National League. They’re the winningest team in baseball the past three seasons. They had the best regular-season ERA. They had a potent lineup. This, people figured, was going to be their year. The Giants were but a stepping stone. But that underdog role suits this bunch from S.F. well.
“It sure seems that way,” Bumgarner said. “I don’t mind it. I don’t think anybody in here minds it. We don’t get nowhere near enough credit. But no one in here cares. Don’t need credit to win.”
The story’s the same this time. Just some of the characters are different.
There’s Tim Hudson, 39, standing in the corner beaming because he’s going to a championship series for the first time in his 16-year career. Many of his teammates are happier for him than they are themselves. There’s young Joe Panik, 23, the rookie who scored the go-ahead run on a wild pitch, talking to every reporter who wants to talk to him, telling everyone how surreal this is. There’s Jake Peavy, with a couple kids in tow, soaking in another Champagne celebration. Last year with the Boston Red Sox, he won the World Series and bought a duck boat as a keepsake. This year, if the Giants win it, you think he’ll buy a McCovey Cove kayak?
Hunter Pence is still here, only instead of being the new guy, traded midseason to the Giants in 2012, now he’s their motivational speaker and, in many ways, the team’s heartbeat. Buster Posey is still here, the quiet leader in full uniform an hour after the first Champagne bottle was popped. He’s stoic while the others scream and take selfies. Brandon Crawford is here too, holding his young daughter as his teammates pour beer on each other’s head and light cigars. He takes her to the quiet side of the clubhouse so she can walk around and climb on a chair. You want to talk about things that have changed in two years? She wasn’t even born in 2012.
Can’t forget Ryan Vogelsong, the underappreciated 37-year-old free-agent-to-be who had become something of an afterthought for the Giants this season. Forget his regular-season record and ERA, it was the “playoff” Vogelsong who was the starting pitcher Tuesday night. He threw 5 2/3 innings, allowing two hits and one run. He earned himself the distinction of being the first pitcher in MLB history to allow one run or fewer in each of his first five career postseason starts.
All those other appearances? The 2012 World Series run, in which Vogelsong won two NLCS games against the Cardinals, including a crucial Game 6, then won another in the World Series. His current postseason stat line reads: 3-0 with a 1.19 ERA, with four earned runs allowed in 30 1/3 innings.
“There was never a doubt for me that he was going to show up,” Bumgarner said. “He had the best stuff I’d seen him have in two years.”
“Vogey,” Pence said, “as clutch you’ll ever see.”
On paper, Vogelsong shouldn’t have pitched as well as he did Tuesday night, no-hitting the Nats for the first four innings and striking out four. His ERA was 5.40 in September and 4.00 for the season.
“We know that baseball’s not won on paper,” first baseman Brandon Belt said.
Look no further than the Giants scoring runs Tuesday night on a bases-loaded walk, an infield grounder and a wild pitch. It wasn’t pretty, but it beats the just-got-eliminated cross-country flight the Nats were forced to take.
“We come up with wins a lot,” Belt said. “We put ourselves in position to do that.”
That’s how it goes in the postseason. Not everybody can hit three-run homers with the game on the line. Oftentimes, a team has to scratch out a run here and a win there, however it can — 18-inning marathon or wild pitch, whatever works.
This series, as weird as it was at times, probably won’t get the Giants too much more respect. The Cardinals will probably be favorites in the NLCS. The Giants, underdogs again.
But it’s like Bumgarner said: Don’t need credit to win.
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Mike Oz is an editor for Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @MikeOz
