Tim Lincecum Led the Giants' Fantastic Rotation With Wins in Games 1 and 5 of the World Series
What a fitting end to a fabulous baseball season. In a year featuring two perfect games and four no-hitters, Tim Lincecum and Cliff Lee put on a pitching showcase, only to be interrupted by the swing of World Series MVP Edgar Renteria who launched a three-run blast in the 7th inning off Lee to win the game.
13 years after hitting a walk-off single to score Craig Counsell and secure the Florida Marlins’ first World Series title, Renteria broke up Cliff Lee’s gem with a dinger, capturing the first title for the Giants since they moved to San Francisco.
Tim Lincecum pitched 8 solid innings and then handed the ball over to Brian Wilson who sent the Rangers down in order. Tim McCarver noted that the Giants were “lethal because there are no misfits on their pitching staff.” Between The Freak’s hair and Wilson’s beard, it looked like the Giants had a bunch of homeless guys on their pitching staff.
The Rangers looked dead in the 9th inning. ALCS MVP and probable AL MVP, Josh Hamilton, went down looking to start the inning. Vlad followed suit with a first-pitch groundout to short. Hamilton and Guerrero, the Rangers 3-4 hitters, combined to go 3 for 38 in the World Series. In a nutshell, that is why the Rangers were shutout twice, outscored 29-12, and defeated in 5 games.
Even if they manage to sign Cliff Lee, which owner Chuck Greenberg insists he will pursue diligently this Winter, it’s hard for me to see the Rangers finding their way back to the Fall Classic a year from now. The Giants however seem poised to make deep post-season runs for years to come. The four homegrown San Francisco starters proved that pitching wins championships and if GM Brian Sabean can come up with a decent offense to match his stellar rotation and bullpen, the Giants will be clear-cut favorites to win the West again. The comparison between the Giants and the great Braves teams in the 90s jumps out at me: solid pitching (Glavine, Smoltz, Maddux to Lincecum, Cain, and Bumgarner) and a few young star offensive units (Chipper and Andruw Jones to Buster Posey). Bochy proved himself as an elite manager this series and the Braves certainly had good leadership with Bobby Cox pulling their reins.
The miserable days of the baseball off-season are now upon us. Former MLB Commissioner summed up my feelings best during a piece he wrote at the conclusion of the 1977 season:
It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone. You count on it, rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most, it stops.
-A. Bartlett Giamatti
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