It took 53 seasons, three gut−wrenching World Series defeats and a three−run home run from the unlikeliest of heroes, but for the first time since moving from New York to San Francisco, the Giants are the champions of baseball.
The underdog Giants needed just five games to defeat the favored Texas Rangers, securing the title with a 3−1 victory in Arlington, Texas, on Monday night.
This year's Giants did not have the sluggers that headlined the rosters of the organization's past National League pennant−winning teams. Instead, a tremendous pitching staff helped this year's squad achieve what Willie Mays, Orlando Cepeda, Willie McCovey and Barry Bonds could not.
Tim Lincecum, the two−time Cy Young winner who struggled with diminished velocity and erratic command in his third full big league season, was solid in Game 1 and dominant in Game 5. Both times — the first a slugfest, the second a low−scoring affair — Lincecum outdueled Rangers ace Cliff Lee, who entered the World Series with a flawless career postseason record of 7−0 before suffering two straight defeats.
Lincecum's clinching victory on Monday night would not have been possible without the heroics of Edgar Renteria. Lincecum and Lee had matched zeroes on the scoreboard for six swift innings before the 35−year−old shortstop stepped to the plate with two on and two out in the top of the seventh. Renteria, playing with a completely torn biceps tendon in his left arm, sent a poorly placed cutter from Lee into the left−centerfield bleachers, giving the Giants a 3−0 lead they would not surrender. He was named the World Series MVP in what is likely to be his last season.
But Lincecum's Game 5 gem, in which he pitched eight innings and gave up only a solo homer to Nelson Cruz, may not even have been the best pitching performance of the series.
The previous night, 21−year−old rookie Madison Bumgarner hurled eight shutout frames in a 4−0 win that gave the Giants a commanding 3−1 series lead. Bumgarner was the youngest pitcher to start a World Series game since Fernando Valenzuela in 1981 and, together with first−year catcher Buster Posey, he formed the first rookie battery in a Fall Classic game since Spec Shea pitched to Yogi Berra for the New York Yankees in 1947.
None of that mattered to the even−keeled Bumgarner, however, as he simply took a deep breath before every pitch and attacked the Rangers' powerful lineup. The results were remarkable for any pitcher, but especially one barely old enough to drink the champagne that flowed in the Giants' clubhouse after Game 5.
The Rangers' lone win in the series came in Game 3, when Colby Lewis — who enjoyed his first successful big league season after years of toiling in the minors and a two−year stint in Japan — delivered 7.2 innings of two−run ball and defeated the Giants 4−2. Lewis held the Giants scoreless until the seventh, when Cody Ross, San Francisco's NLCS hero, hit a solo home run. But thanks to a three−run blast in the second inning by Mitch Moreland that swung the momentum to the Rangers dugout and a solo shot by Josh Hamilton in the fifth, the contest was safely in hand for Texas.
Apart from Game 3 and an 11−7 Giants victory in Game 1, San Francisco's pitching staff silenced one of the best offenses in baseball. The Rangers led the league with a .276 batting average during the regular season, but they hit just .190 against the Giants. Manager Ron Washington's lineup had excelled at its home ballpark, averaging 5.3 runs per game in Arlington this year, only to score just five total runs in the three games played there during the World Series. For the five games that mattered most, the Giants were better than the Rangers, outscoring them 29−12.
But these were not the same Giants who took the field in April, June or even September. And while much of the credit goes to the players, San Francisco also benefited from the strategic choices of manager Bruce Bochy. In his fourth year with the Giants, Bochy made the most of a roster that had more questions than answers, erasing the memories of his first World Series as skipper of the San Diego Padres in 1998, when his team was swept by the Yankees.
Bochy benched the 2009 Giants' best hitter, Pablo Sandoval, for much of the postseason and kept left−hander Barry Zito — who was paid $18.5 million this year — off the roster entirely. He made perfectly timed defensive substitutions, removing lumbering outfielder Pat Burrell for the fleeter Nate Schierholtz in the late innings. And he stuck with centerfielder Andres Torres through a lengthy slump until the 32−year−old emerged with a homer in Game 3 and two timely doubles in Game 4. Bochy may not have been the manager of the year, but he was certainly the manager of the postseason.
And Bochy's 25 players — 24 of whom appeared in a game, with backup catcher Eli Whiteside the lone exception — proved that any team can win in the playoffs. The Giants did not have the most pop in their lineup, the most experience in their pitching staff or the slickest defenders in the field. But from their Game 1 victory in the NLDS over the Atlanta Braves to their Game 5 triumph in the World Series over the Rangers, they played better than the other seven teams in the postseason.
Dating back to its roots as the New York Gothams in 1883, the Giants franchise has been home to more Hall of Famers than any other in Major League Baseball. But it took 127 years for the team to move west and for the right mix of players to come along at the right time and bring a championship to the city by the bay. Lincecum, Bumgarner, Buster Posey and the rest of their teammates may be a long way from Cooperstown, but they're now as near to the hearts of the San Francisco faithful as any other players in the franchise's history.
