Champions

The San Francisco Giants are the 2012 World Series Champions.

Last night, the Giants finished off a four game sweep of the Detroit Tigers, giving them their second World Series win in three years.  This Giants team was down, but never out for most of the playoffs, coming back to win game five in the NLDS to knockout the Cincinnati Reds, and coming back to win game seven of the NLCS to eliminate the defending World Champions, the St. Louis Cardinals.  For the World Series, the Giants said they didn’t want to play with their backs against the wall, and to come out strong.  They did just that, only trailing the Tigers briefly in game four before reclaiming the lead.  The Tigers pitching was strong in games two, three and four, but the Giants pitching was better the whole series.

While the Tigers pitching was good, their bats were not.  The Tigers struggled to put runs on the board all series, and looked like a team that had a week off.  Much like 2006 when the Tigers swept the Oakland A’s in the ALCS, the NLCS that year also went to a game seven.  The St. Louis Cardinals won the series in five games.  Having a week off is nice in that it gives the players a chance to rest and relax, but a week is also enough time to mess up your timing.  The Tigers’s players looking lost at the plate the whole series.  They started to show signs of life in the game last night, but when you’re down 3 games to none, it’s a little too late.  This season, the Tigers have played far better at home, like most teams, but Comerica is a special ballpark.  It’s HUGE.  If it wasn’t for the strong wind blowing out, there wouldn’t have been any home runs.  They’ve brought the outfield walls in, and it’s still a huge yard.  The Coco Crisp play in game two of the ALDS showed how large the outfield is when he came running in and wasn’t able to cleanly catch the ball.

The Giants players came together like a team in the World Series, which was great to watch.  There was a different guy making things happen each night.  You see too many teams rely on one guy to get things done, but the Giants had each guy out there making things happen.  Plus, we have Angel Pagan making us all happy by stealing a base- Don’t forget to get your free taco from Taco Bell tomorrow (October 30) from 2-6 pm!  Pablo Sandoval got the Giants off to a good, and by good I mean great, start with the THREE home runs in game one off of Justin Verlander.  I believe in momentum, especially in baseball.  Beating Verlander, one of the best pitchers in the game right now, is a big deal, and put the Giants in a great spot.  Some argued that the Tigers should have started him on short rest for game four, but I think the Tigers made the right choice.  The Giants had Verlander’s number in game one, and I don’t think it would have changed in game four.  Also, I don’t think it mattered who the Tigers put on the mound.  The Giants were just too good and too hot to be stopped.  After everything they had to overcome to make it to the World Series, they deserved the win.  I’m very happy for Marco Scutaro, he played great, but I already knew he was more than capable of that.

Congratulations to the 2012 World Series Champions, the San Francisco Giants.

Sweep Taste of Victory

I don’t believe it.  The Detroit Tigers have swept the New York Yankees out of the playoffs and are moving on to the World Series.  A month ago, I didn’t even think the Tigers would make it to the playoffs and now they’re representing the American League in the big show.

Game four was supposed to be played Wednesday, but due to rain, the game was postponed until Thursday.  I can’t help but wonder if that delay was part of the issue with C.C. Sabathia.  Sabathia’s last start was game five of the ALDS a week ago.  Even if they had played Wednesday, that’s still six days between starts, which can have an impact on a pitcher.  I’ve seen other pitchers that on six days rest have struggled quite a bit, so on seven days this late into the season might have explained his start.  C.C. is usually an ace on the mound, so to see him struggle as much as he did yesterday was painful to watch.  I stopped watching the game after the Tigers went up 6-0.  I’ve seen how that goes, twice.

The other game tonight continued to highlight the San Francisco Giants’s pitching struggles.  The Giants’s pitching staff has been a bit of a roller coaster in the first four games of this series, allowing six runs, one run, three runs and eight runs.  While the Giants bats are helping out to keep games close, when you allow six and eight runs, you add extra pressure to the batter.  For the series being 3-1 Cardinals, the total runs scored would suggest the games were closer than they were.  The Giants have scored fifteen runs to the Cardinals eighteen.  The thing helping the Giants is the fact they scored seven runs in game two, with them scoring no more than four runs in any of the other three games.  As we learned from the last two World Series Champions, which just so happens to be these two teams, is that getting hot at the right time is sometimes all you need.  While the Cards didn’t finish the season strong against the Washington Nationals, their win in Atlanta to win the Wild Card position seemed to give them the boost they needed to keep going.  I’m looking forward to seeing how tonight goes, as the Cardinals go for the series win, but as we learned from the NLDS series between the Giants and Reds, the Giants thrive in elimination games.

If the Cardinals do win tonight to advance to the World Series, the Tigers will have a chance to get back at the Cardinals for beating them in the 2006 World Series.