The 2010 team was great too, but this one takes the cake for being able to make lemonade out of lemons.
First, they lost their black-bearded ace closer, Brian Wilson, for the whole year. Second, they lost their best hitter, Melky Cabrera, two-thirds of the way through the season. Third, Tim Lincecum, two-time Cy Young Award winner, was having an off-year.
Somehow, Bruce Bochy put together a relief corps that did the job and allowed Sergio Romo, sporting a Wilson-esque beard, to emerge as the new ace.
While the Dodgers were bulking up on big names who took them nowhere, the Giants quietly picked up Marco Scutaro from the Rockies. He got 21 hits during the postseason, including the winning RBI of the final game, and played a stellar second base.
As for Lincecum, he proved to be Bruce Bochy's literal ace-in-the-hole. Lincecum didn't start a game in post-season, but he was deadly coming out of the bullpen in middle relief. He allowed only one run in 13 innings.
Good pitching stops good hitting. That's the oldest and most basic baseball truth. The combination of Vogelsong, Cain, Bumgarner, Zito plus a dazzling bullpen, won six straight elimination games, and seven straight games, against some very good teams, to close the season. In fact, it was Barry Zito, of all people, who stepped up and turned the tide in game 5 against St. Louis.
Vogelsong finished the postseason with the lowest ERA since Orel Hershiser in 1988. Bumgarner has a 15 scoreless inning streak going. The 2012 Giants joined the 2010 team as one of four to ever throw four shutouts in a single postseason.
Image: All American boy, Buster Posey, embraces Sergio Romo after Romo strikes out the side on the bottom of the 10th. Ezra Shaw/Bleacher Report
Comments