October Giants

The Giants won their seventh consecutive postseason elimination game and eighth postseason game overall, and it was no contest.

And yet, it's October and they are still out there...They don't care that they aren't a playoff team.

The Nationals were one out away from a victory when...

Conventional has always been an antonym for Pence, so it should come as no surprise that one of the best catches of his Major League career was anything but on Tuesday night.
With one out and an 0-2 count in the top of the sixth, Jayson Werth hit a 91-mph fastball from Ryan Vogelsong to deep right field. Pence tracked back to his left and leapt into a chain-link portion of the fence, with his left arm extended into the padded section. Reminiscent of Michael Jordan, a fully-extended Pence somehow snagged the ball, tongue out. He then bounced off the wall, landed with a thud and the ball secure in his glove.
The catch robbed Werth of at least a double and helped preserve what was then a 2-1 San Francisco lead.
"I knew he hit it hard, and I was just like, 'I know that our park is big,' so I was trying to run back as hard as I could," Pence said. "Judging, when I looked at it, I was like, 'I'm going to have to go as hard as I can to make a jump and a stab.' Fortunately, I was able to get it."

won on a wild pitch, allowing a runner to score.

Go Cards!

Pure luck? Surely fortune comes into play, but so do the tangible strengths of the Giants in a postseason environment that is different from the regular season. They win because of timely hitting, stout pitching and defense, an astute manager, Bruce Bochy, with great skill running a bullpen and a contact-hitting lineup that can win games without the home run.

UPDATE, 10:10 P.M.: Kansas City, Mo. – The immovable force was a 25-year-old mountain of a pitcher with iron nerves and an uncanny ability to quiet a hostile crowd in the biggest of games.

The unstoppable object was a spunky team that found a way to win every game it had played this October after it reached the postseason for the first time in 29 years.

When Game 1 of the 2014 World Series was over, and the scoreboard said 7-1 Giants, it also could have read, “Nerves of Iron 1, Spunk 0.”

Tuesday night’s game at Kauffman Stadium was no contest because Madison Bumgarner did what he always does on the road in the postseason. He became a left-handed stop sign for seven innings, holding the Royals to a seventh-inning Salvador Perez home run that, remarkably, produced the first World Series run that Bumgarner has allowed in three starts.

It also ended his record postseason road scoreless streak at 32 2/3 innings.

But it happened when the Giants had a 7-0 lead after they took it to James Shields for three first-inning runs, two on Hunter Pence’s first homer in more than a month.

“We wanted to get the momentum on our side as soon as possible with Madison on the mound and let him settle into his groove,” first baseman Brandon Belt said. “Fortunately we were able to do it early.”

And, by taking an early lead in the Series, the Giants have recent history squarely on their side. The Game 1 winner has captured 10 of the past 11 World Series.

Damn Yankees fans get to gloat more than Dodger Blews, though, thank God for that.