Kuzul

Two perfect games. One near perfect game (How near is near? Blown call on the 27th out “near”).  Three regular season no-hitters. One no-hitter in the playoffs, first since 1956. The 2010 Major League Baseball season has been headlined as “The Return of the Pitcher.” 

Along with 2010 being the year of the pitcher, this year in baseball saw the return of the National League.

In the 80th mid-summer classic in Anaheim, California, the National League came out victorious for the first time since 1996.  National and American league pitchers combined to scatter 13 hits while only giving up a combined four runs. Lineups that consisted of former MVP’s, former batting champions, former Rookie of the Year award winners, future MVP players were limited to only four runs combined.

The 2010 MLB Playoffs were headlined by dominant pitching. Roy Halladay opened up the MLB playoffs by no-hitting the Cincinnati Reds in his first playoff start. Tim Lincecum opened up the NLDS series between the San Francisco Giants and the Atlanta Braves with a complete game shutout. Cliff Lee gave up two runs in three starts in the ALDS and the ALCS and only walked one batter in 24 innings pitched. Colby Lewis who has pitched to a career 5.27 ERA, who found himself pitching for Hiroshima Carp of Japan’s Central League for two seasons, became the seventh pitcher to defeat the New York Yankees twice in a playoff series, pitched to a 1.27 ERA and helped the Texas Rangers reach the World Series for the first time. Matt Cain earned a 0.00 ERA throughout the 2010 postseason in route to winning his first World Series championship.

As soon as the San Francisco Giants and Texas Rangers punched their tickets to the Fall Classic, many were quick to write off the Giants and were ready to hand the commissioner’s trophy over to Nolan Ryan and the Texas Rangers. I was part of that group, and as soon as the Rangers took a 2-0 lead in Game 1, I said the Rangers were going to be celebrating last Sunday night as World Series Champions.

I mean, come on; how could you not assume an outcome like that? Texas as a team hit .304, slugged .512 and had an OPS of .890 against the Yankees in the ALCS.

The Giants, on the other hand, beat the heavily favored Phillies. That was no small feat as they took care of Roy Halladay, Roy Oswalt and Cole Hamels.

Still, the Rangers were the favorite in the World Series. The Giants pitching staff held the Rangers unforgiving lineup to a .190 average, .288 slugging, and an OPS of .546. Scan a few lines up and look at the comparisons of the two series for the Rangers. Do we still use the excuse that the team is rusty after not playing for four days?

The mid-summer classic and the playoffs are the two biggest stages for Major League Baseball. The two showcased tremendous pitching and in each of them the National League came out winners.  To me, the resurgence of pitching will in fact take some “fire power” away from the AL as the notorious power hitting league.

The Giants once again proved that good pitching will always beat good hitting. The AL has developed some good young pitching, but if it continues to rely on strong lineups and power hitting stars, the National League will continue to thrive in each of the two “big stages” in the baseball season.

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The San Francisco Giants won their first World Series with a 3-1 Game 5 victory over the Texas Rangers. It was the first title for the Giants franchise since 1954, four years before they moved from New York.

Giants SS Edgar Renteria, who was talking retirement just five weeks ago, tells teammate Andres Torres that he’s hitting the long ball. And he did just that. In the seventh, Renteria took a Cliff Lee 2-0 cut fastball for a ride, a three-run home run that silenced the 52,045 in Arlington. His heroics were awarded, as he was named World Series MVP in a 3-1 World Series-clinching victory.

“I got confidence in me, but I was joking like I’m going to get it out. But it went out. I got confident, looking for one pitch. So he threw the cutter and it came back to the middle of the plate,” Renteria said.

Renteria’s heroics are nothing new, though. His 11th-inning walk-off RBI single for the Florida Marlins won Game 7 of the 1997 World Series, and he became only the fourth player in MLB history to drive home the winning run in two clinching games, joining Hall of Famers Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio and Yogi Berra.

The Giants won the way the best teams do—strong, young pitching. They also received a ton of support from what many deem “castoffs and misfits,” which was essentially a collection of short-term rentals, releases and waived players from around the league. No Giants player ranked in the top 10 in any significant statistical category during the regular season.

It didn’t matter that the Giants weren’t headlined by a big-name superstar, as they had a handful of unlikely saviors throughout the postseason—Cody Ross, Juan Uribe, Aubrey Huff, Freddy Sanchez and now Renteria.

“For us to win for our fans—it’s never been done there with all those great teams—that was a euphoric feeling. All those (former players) were in the clubhouse so many times and they were pulling for these guys to win. They helped us get here,” manager Bruce Bochy said.

Much credit is due to RHP Tim Lincecum, better known as “The Freak.” He out-dueled Lee (how often does that happen?) not once, but twice. He went eight strong, gave up just three hits and two walks while striking out 10. He’s now able to add a World Series trophy to his two NL Cy Young awards.

“You know what it is? It’s called being a gamer. Walking into the clubhouse today, the guy’s as loose as can be, joking around. Same old Timmy. You’d have no idea he had the opportunity to go out and win Game 5 of the World Series and win us a World Series championship. You saw it from the get-go. He had swing-and-miss stuff all night. Cruz hit a pretty decent pitch out. And he bounced back and got us out of there,” said Buster Posey.

The question now is can they do it again? A team consisting of castoffs and misfits wasn’t supposed to get this far in the first place, but now, it’s quite possible that a repeat is in the cards.

With an offence that ranked 17th of 30 teams in the bigs with just 697 runs scored during the season, this unlikely championship team has proven that there is no blueprint to success in the MLB.

Around the fanbase, it has proven that baseball is one of the greatest sports for playoff unpredictability, where the best team doesn’t always win, but rather, the one that happens to be playing best at the time.

Taking a look at this team’s roots, there is a ton of homegrown talent. Buster Posey and Pablo Sandoval, for example, are two of the club’s few homegrown position players, whereas the pitching staff was created predominantly through the draft—Madison Bumgarner went in the first round 10th overall (in 2007), Lincecum, 10th overall (in 2006), Matt Cain 25th overall (in 2002), Brian Wilson (24th round in 2003) and Jonathan Sanchez (27th round in 2004).

As for their “castoffs and misfits,” a lot of their bats came from second or third markets—so much credit is due to the club’s scouting.

When all was said and done, it came down to their starting pitching. Lincecum defeated Lee in Games 1 and 5, while their other young starters, Cain and Bumgarner, won Games 2 and 4. The trio did an incredible job of putting the Rangers bats to bed—the heart of the order, OF Josh Hamilton, DH Vladimir Guerrero and OF Nelson Cruz, who homered their way past the Tampa Bay Rays and New York Yankees in the postseason, were a combined 7-for-54 in the Series, which includes Nelson’s solo shot that got the Rangers their only run in Game 5.

Wilson retired those three batters in order in the ninth, finally punching out Nelson at 9:30pm CT, initiating a celebration 56 seasons in the making.

One has to love the story behind this team—specifically, for Wilson. It’s the same routine for the creator of “Fear the Beard”—after recording the final out of a ball game, the closer turns away from the plate, crosses his forearms in front of his chest and quickly looks toward the sky. It’s an MMA-style signal that he says he adopted to honor both his late father, who passed away from cancer when Brian was only 17, and his Christian faith.

“This one was the most special, sure. It showed that hard work really does pay off. That’s what my dad always taught me,” he said.

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They’ve been called Torture, The Dirty Dozen, The Misfits, The Cast-Offs, The Scrapheap Gang, The
Bad News Bears, The Little Rascals and compared to virtually every underdog team in sports history.

For the video accompanying this article go here.

But now they’ll ultimately be known as the 2010 World Champion San Francisco Giants.

For a guy like me who was born and raised in San Francisco and grew up idolizing the Giants, it feels amazing to say.

This team of colorful, diverse, outspoken, crazy characters was indeed a team of destiny.

The Rangers lineup inspires much more fear than the Giants. Cliff Lee was thought to be immortal until the Giants proved otherwise.

The Phillies are a much better team on paper. They’ve got seven all stars in their lineup and a supremely dominant three headed pitching staff. Halladay threw the first no-hitter in the postseason in decades, then a no-name cast-off, Cody Ross, made him look junior varsity.

It doesn’t make sense—at all.

If the Atlanta braves don’t lose Billy Wagner, Martin Prado and Chipper Jones before the playoffs the Giants don’t beat them. Period. Because then Brooks Conrad isn’t on their roster and all those eighth- and ninth-inning comebacks don’t happen. Something miraculous had to happen. And it did.

Miracle after miracle happened, over and over, and no one could even attempt to explain it except with theories of heart and Divine Intervention.

It’s too bad a lot of the country didn’t follow the 2010 Giants and learn their story. It’s a great one, like Boston having their 3-0 comeback against the Yankees and then winning it all. Just a great story.

Sports stories like this one just don’t happen that often.
 
There is story after story of guys on this team who all faced extreme humility and fought back against adversity with the notion of team as their North Star as they overcame every obstacle on their way to World Series glory.

Instead of telling them all, I’ll just tell the most unbelievable one: Cody Ross. A few months ago he wasn’t even a Giant, and he was then, in fact, a strategic acquisition to prevent him from going to competitor San Diego

But more amazingly, Giants fans disliked him a few months ago.

Not like we dislike anyone in a Dodger uniform, but like we dislike Casey Blake for mocking Brian Wilson, or Vicente Padilla for nailing Aaron Rowand.

Ross flipped his bat at Matt Cain after smacking a dinger off him in July. Cain glared at him all the way around the bases, then struck him out swinging his next at bat.

Had that game versus Florida not been close Cody Ross would have gotten a Cain fastball in the ribs. And Giants fans would have loved it.

Has that ever happened before in the history of baseball? A guy goes from hated prick to irreproachable playoff hero in the same year?

It’s the kind of story that fiction writers make up and people laugh at because it’s so implausible and ridiculous. Yet that happened. That happened to the 2010 Giants.

And so in the end, there can be no logical explanation. The Giants played better defense in the playoffs than they’re capable of.

They got more clutch hits in the playoffs than they did in the regular season.

They had a higher percentage of late inning comebacks in the playoffs than they did in the regular season.

Yeah, we’ve always had great pitching, but we didn’t do play like this in the regular season.

We’re 11-4 in the postseason. That’s the best we’ve played all year.

Other teams players got injured. Invincible pitchers suddenly turned mortal. The San Diego Padres lost 10 games in a row, which must have had a probability of less than one percent.

We won game one of each playoff series and never trailed at any time. Everything went right.

The 2010 Giants shouldn’t be the world champions of baseball. But that they are is a reason to believe in something greater than ourselves for anyone out there looking for a reason.

Maybe that sounds like a cliche, but sports isn’t at its greatest when great competition leads to entertaining and dramatic finishes, it’s at its best when great contests tell the amazing, unbelievable and miraculous stories of regular human beings.

That’s what the Giants are: A regular and very flawed group of guys that somehow rose above themselves and played as a TEAM.

And I believe it is a miracle.

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In his young career, Tim Lincecum of the San Francisco Giants has accomplished some pretty special things on a pitching mound. Already owning two Cy Young awards, he has now added a World Series title, in which he out-pitched Cliff Lee in the clinching game to earn the Giants their first title since moving out west from New York.

Lincecum and his merry band of outsiders, otherwise known as the 2010 San Francisco Giants, out-pitched, outhit, and outclassed the Texas Rangers in every facet of the game, earning themselves baseball’s most coveted prize, the title of World Series Champions.

Facing an offensive powerhouse, led by leading American League MVP candidate, Josh Hamilton, as well a pitching staff headed by modern postseason legend, Cliff Lee, the San Francisco Giants weren’t expected to have much of a chance against the Texas Rangers. Relishing the underdog nature of their title challenge, the Giants went to work, with several dominant pitching performances and a rotating cast of characters providing heroics each night.

The resulting five game World Series victory is the Giants’ first championship since 1954, and the lone title they have won since relocating to San Francisco prior to the 1958 season.

Led by their own pitching phenom, Tim Lincecum, the Giants proved that strong pitching is the key to baseball postseason success. Lincecum’s stellar effort, coming five days after an uneven Game 1 start, would be enough to stifle the powerful Rangers and claim the championship.

San Francisco’s unorthodox right-hander already authored a classic postseason start in his personal playoff debut during the NLDS, but his World Series clinching Game 5 performance will stand as one of the greatest clinching performances baseball has seen.

Let’s see where Lincecum’s gem ranks among the greatest World Series clinching, starting pitching performances of all time.

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I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate the Giants on winning the 2010 “Fall Classic” (TM), otherwise known to the rest of the world as the “World Cup,” 4-1 in front of a thrilled national audience of approximately fifteen people from outside the San Francisco area (almost thirty if you count their various pets). It was truly a hard-fought battle that involved many impressive feats of strength and struggle that I’m sure would have been amazing had I actually watched any of it. I considered tuning in last night for the finale, but then a new DVD of NCIS came from Netflix, and no mere mortal can overcome the allure of the Gibbs.

I would also like to extend sincere and heartfelt gratitude toward the Giants for choosing to wait and win their first championship since the fifties until well after Barry Bonds was forced into retirement via national popular vote and/or grand jury indictment. I can only hope his vast collection of bobble-head memorabilia will give him comfort on those lonely, cold winter nights when he has nothing but an array of international super-models, millions of dollars and dozens of MVP trophies to keep him company. It must be quite a challenge to live with such shame. I wonder how he can cope.

I do feel a little bad for Texas, mostly because of their star outfielder Josh Hamilton, who overcame a serious and life-threatening addiction to Grand Theft Auto before making his first post-season appearance this fall. You may remember him as that guy who hit 217 home runs in the 2008 Home Run Derby before passing out from exhaustion and not waking up until almost August. I was hoping that he would win a trophy this year, considering all the trials he has endured over the years, but I can take solace in knowing that he is still far richer than I will ever be, even if I sell both of my kidneys on the black market.

I will offer genuine praise for one player, however, and that is Tim Lincecum. He is a man that is so awesome, so talented, so special that you are almost able to overlook just how tiny he is compared to everyone else in the league. He looks how I imagine a fifteen-year-old kid would look if he tried on a uniform made specifically for Dwayne Johnson and tried to pitch. The only difference is, this fifteen-year-old is the product of some bizarre and illegal government-run genetics experiment, the result of which has caused him to be able to see ultraviolet light and throw 137 MPH, even after eating Italian. I have high-hopes for this man’s future, and can only hope that he becomes so spectacular that he becomes unaffordable to the Giants and signs with the Red Sox.

Until next season, I hope that all seven baseball fans in San Francisco enjoy this special day and remember that real cities celebrate championships by setting fire to random vehicles and committing acts of violence. I have yet to see flames on the news, so it’s time to get to it! I hear the Prius smells lovely when burned with mesquite.

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It was 1954 when Willie Mays made “The Catch” and propelled the New York Giants to a four game sweep of the Cleveland Indians in the World Series. In 1962, it was a well played Bobby Richardson that broke hearts in San Francisco after he snagged a Willie McCovey liner in the first appearance of the San Francisco Giants in a World Series. It was the Loma Prieta earthquake that stole to show of a four game sweep by the Oakland A’s in the 1989 Battle of the Bay. And it was a game ball given to Russ Ortiz in the 2002 World Series that was the last good moment for San Francisco in a crushing defeat at the hands of the Angels.

But all is forgiven, at least for the next 4 months, because the Giants are sitting on top of the baseball world, propelled by one of the most dominant pitching staffs of all time and a three-run blast by the man with no left bicep, Edgar Renteria.

It was a dominant conclusion to a rather dominant series outing by the Giants as a team. And it was a thrilling conclusion to a thrilling postseason, one that I, nor most Giants’ fans, will ever forget.

Let us take a closer look at the game which lifted the 56 year drought off of a team, a city, and a fan base and which shocked the world.

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Congratulations to the San Francisco Giants, the 2010 Major League Baseball champions.

By wiping out the Texas Rangers, the Giants won their sixth World Series and first since moving to San Francisco in 1958.

It has been a long time coming for the San Francisco Giants. Just how long has it been?

Let’s have a look.

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The San Francisco Giants won the World Series, knocking off the Texas Rangers in Game 5 today with a 3-1 victory.

Tim Lincecum edged out fellow ace Cliff Lee in a heated matchup where pitching fought it out till the end. The two-time NL Cy Young award recipient finished with ten strikeouts and only let three hits go through eight innings. And, as always, closer Brian Wilson came in and was able to seal the deal.

Of course, the game was ultimately determined by Edgar Renteria‘s three-run homer in the seventh inning. After the game, Renteria was deservingly rewarded with the World Series MVP honors. 

This team may not have tremendous star power, but they are fundamentally sound, with a solid pitching rotation and a lot of scrappy batters who have demonstrated the ability to make plays when they count the most. 

All in all, this is a team built for the playoffs, and even though they came in as underdogs they displayed perseverance and proved to be victorious. 

Interestingly enough, we learned that superb pitching can shut down top-notch batting as the team with the MLB’s highest ERA knocked off the team with the league’s top batting average. 

This is the franchise’s first championship since 1954, and the first champion the Bay Area has seen ever. That said, this is certainly a proud moment for any Bay Area sports fan, and is one that will undoubtedly be celebrated

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In the final game of the 1997 World Series between the Cleveland Indians and Florida Marlins, Florida shortstop Edgar Renteria (who was just in his second season) drove in Craig Counsell on a walk-off single to win the championship. 13 years later, Renteria can credit himself with delivering yet another championship.

With a three-run home run in the top of the 7th, Edgar Renteria propelled the San Francisco Giants to their first World Series win since 1954. It is their first since moving to California, having reached the World Series four times, including coming up just short in 2002 against interstate rival Anaheim.

The Giants won the game by a score of 3-1 after an impressive pitching performance by Tim Lincecum, his second start of the series. He dueled against free agency-bound Cliff Lee, who went seven innings and allowed the big shot to Renteria. The Rangers fell into a deficit they could not dig themselves out of, even with a solo-shot by Nelson Crúz (his sixth of the postseason). Giants closer Brian Wilson, who had been rather lights-out all postseason long, sealed the deal by getting the aforementioned Crúz to strikeout swinging.

San Francisco entered the second-half of the season trailing division-rival San Diego, yet managed to power forward towards an NL West title after the latter played poorly down the stretch. They successfully knocked off the Atlanta Braves in the NLDS, as Cody Ross (who had been claimed off of waivers earlier in the summer) slugged his way into playoff galore. After conquering the defending NL champion Phillies, San Francisco would go on to lose only once in Game 3 to Texas.

Even with poor ratings predicted (and eventually being sustained), the Giants managed to pull through. In a season filled with unlikelihood, the San Francisco Giants proved that just about anything can happen.

This article can be found on SportsFullCircle!

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Edgar Renteria = Babe Ruth.

Really? Um, no. But it was Renteria’s supposed “called shot” that won it for the Giants as they can now call themselves World Series champions.

Aaron Rowand was miked when he was told that Renteria had said he was going to do it. And do it, he did. His three run homer was the difference as the Giants won 3-1, taking the series 4-1.

Cliff Lee was good, but he is 0-2 in the World Series. Meanwhile, the only mistake Tim Lincecum made was the solo home run that Nelson Cruz hit in the bottom of the seventh.

There is no reason to believe the Giants cannot do it again next year.

Look, I know the game just ended. But let’s take a look at five reasons why the Giants could repeat.

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