Saturday, October 23, 2010

The Giants win the pennant!

Pictured: The San Francisco Giants celebrate their fourth pennant since moving west.

The San Francisco Giants defeated the Philadelphia Phillies 3-2 tonight to win the National League pennant! Those words just sound great! Awesome!!! I am so excited! This is what it's all about! The Giants are going to the World Series! Wow this feels great!

The Giants beat the Phillies 4 games to 2 to win the National League Championship Series. Brian Wilson got Ryan Howard looking for strike three on a full count with two outs and runners at first and second. As FOX announcer Joe Buck said, that was about as intense as a baseball game could be. You have one of the best closers in the game throwing to one of the best hitters in the game with the winning run on base, two outs and a full count with a trip to the World Series on the line. I'm just glad that Wilson came through and sent the Giants to the Fall Classic. I don't think it's totally sunk in yet, but it's just an amazing feeling.

Juan Uribe hit the game-winning home run with a solo shot off Ryan Madson in the 8th inning to give the Giants a 3-2 lead. Uribe has had a good year with the power numbers and it makes me happy to see him come through. That home run will be long remembered among Giants fans. Good, good stuff.

Jonathan Sanchez struggled in this one, giving up 2 runs in the first inning and couldn't find the strike zone. Sanchez hit Chase Utley with a pitch in the third inning and Utley tossed the ball back to him under-handed. Sanchez took exception to this and the benches cleared. It was kind of fun to see the benches clear (there wasn't a fight) and to see guys on both sides show so much emotion for their teams. That proved to be the last hitter that Sanchez faced as he left with two runners on and nobody out. Jeremy Affeldt got out of that inning unscathed and threw two innings in total. Madison Bumgarner pitched two scoreless innings as well. Javier Lopez threw an inning of his own (he's been simply great for the Giants this season) and Tim Lincecum even came in in relief and recorded an out. Lincecum allowed a couple of runners to get on in the eighth and Brian Wilson came in and got out of that and then finished the save in the ninth. The bullpen threw seven scoreless innings in total -- simply awesome in a playoff game.

Cody Ross was named NLCS MVP and to me this was really an obvious choice. He was the Giants' most productive player, particularly on offense, for the entire series. I'm happy for him. I'd say that's a pretty good for a guy the Florida Marlins simply gave away on a waiver claim this year.

The World Series gets under way on Wednesday at 5:57 p.m. MT on FOX. It will be the Texas Rangers at the San Francisco Giants for Game 1 at AT&T Park. Game 2 is set for the same time on Thursday night. I'm excited the Giants have home field advantage. This should be awesome. Go Giants!

No comments:

Post a Comment