The San Francisco Giants just won the World Series again | For The Win
The San Francisco Giants just won the World Series again
The San Francisco Giants just won the World Series again
By Ted Berg October 29, 2014 11:21 pm Follow     @ogtedberg
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John Rieger/USA TODAY Sports
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The San Francisco Giants beat the Kansas City Royals, 3-2, to win Game 7 of the 2014 World Series and earn their third championship in the last five seasons. Though starting pitcher Tim Hudson could not escape the second inning in the game, the Giants’ bullpen shut down the Royals the rest of the way to lead San Francisco to yet another World Series win.
Here are five things we learned from the Giants’ world championship:
1. That just happened again
(USA TODAY Sports Images)
Maybe we focused so much on how improbable a Royals’ championship that we lost sight of how absurd it is that these Giants did it yet again. No team in the 2014 postseason had a worse record in the regular season, and the Giants benefited from playing in the same division as the Diamondbacks and Rockies — the teams with the worst and second-worst records in the sport.
Baseball can be pretty ridiculous sometimes. The Giants didn’t seem like they should win the World Series in 2010, when they needed big performances out of dudes like Pat Burrell, Juan Uribe and Edgar Renteria. And they didn’t seem like they should win it in 2012, when they swept a Tigers team that included, at the time, the best pitcher and the best hitter in the world. And it certainly didn’t seem like they should win it in 2014, when they played under-.500 ball from June 9 through the end of the season.
And yet here we are. Maybe there’s some secret formula to winning World Series that only GM Brian Sabean knows, or maybe they’ve just had some great pitchers and strong bullpens and good luck, and baseball is mostly random. One thing that helped them this year:
2. Madison Bumgarner had one of the best postseasons of all time
(USA TODAY Sports Images)
The parameters of the postseason have changed so much over MLB’s history that it’s hard definitively that the Giants’ ace had the best postseason ever for a pitcher. Another Giant, Christy Mathewson, threw complete-game shutouts in Games 1, 3 and 5 of the 1903 World Series, for example. And Curt Schilling dominated in 2001, as did Orel Hershiser in 1988, as did Sandy Koufax in 1964.
But Bumgarner’s 2014 is one for the history books regardless: He threw 52 2/3 innings — more than anyone else ever did in a single postseason — and in those 52 2/3 innings he had a 1.03 ERA and strikeout-to-walk ratio over 7:1. That’s nuts. And throwing five scoreless innings in an elimination game on two days’ rest ranks as one of the coolest things you’ll ever see done on a baseball field. What a stud.
3. Hunter Pence was good enough to be World Series MVP
Hunter Pence (USA TODAY Sports Images)
Pence went 12-for-27 with three walks — good for a .500 on-base percentage — in the World Series. Plus he scored eight runs and played fine defense in right field throughout. Practically any other year, that’d be good enough to earn him World Series MVP honors. But he made the mistake* of playing for the same team as Madison Bumgarner.
*- Note: Not an actual mistake.
4. Tim Hudson got a ring
Tim Hudson (USA TODAY Sports Images)
Despite Hudson’s short outing in Game 7, he pitched pretty well for the Giants en route to his first-ever World Series berth. Hudson is 39 years old, he’s the active Major League leader in wins with 214, and he battled back from a gruesome ankle injury that ended his 2013 season with Atlanta. During the Giants’ champagne celebration after the NLCS, Hudson called out, “I waited 16 years for this!” Now, after 16 seasons in the Majors — including spots on six playoff teams that never escaped the LDS — Hudson gets his ring.
5. Farewell to the Panda?
Pablo Sandoval (USA TODAY Sports Images)
Pablo Sandoval also had a great series for the Giants, just like he did in their 2012 run. But Sandoval is slated for free agency after the season. He has been such a mainstay on these Giants championship team and such a popular player in San Francisco that it’s hard to imagine him playing elsewhere. But it could be that Sandoval’s three-hit night in Game 7 represents the exclamation point on his fine tenure with the club.