The San Francisco Giants shocked the baseball world in 2010 when they won the World Series for the first time since they relocated from New York after their 1957 season. But in 2011 they failed to even make the playoffs to defend their title.
Well, it’s 2012 and here they are again. And just like in 2010, you can define these Giants as: Torture, which was the catchphrase fans used to describe the Giants’ offense that year. This year it was torture for fans again when the Giants fell behind in the early couple series of the playoffs.
It was a season that started out with little anticipation, and no major moves, besides the free agency loss of Carlos Beltrán who was brought in last year for a failed playoff push.
The team also got terrible news when its starting closer Brian Wilson had to have season-ending Tommy John surgery, less than one month into the season.
They did pick up a star player in Melky Cabrera, who would end up winning the 2012 All-Star MVP award to top off an incredible first half of the season. But the amazing play Cabrera maintained for more than half the season all came to a stop once he was suspended by the MLB for the use of performance-enhancing drugs.
Another trial the Giants would have to overcome was the ineffective play of two-time Cy Young award-winner Tim Lincecum. Lincecum finished the season with a 10-15 win-loss record, with an earned run average (ERA) of 5.18, which were both terribly below his average.
Even with Lincecum’s down year, the Giants’ pitching was still top 10 in the majors. They were powered by the leader of the staff, Matt Cain, who pitched the first perfect game in SF Giants history in June, as well as a totally unexpected, almost revitalized, season from Barry Zito.
Although National League West rival Los Angeles Dodgers started out the season incredibly hot, by the time the All Star Break came around, the Giants were only a 0.5 game out of first place in their division.
A strong post-All Star Break effort from the NL Comeback Player of the Year, and likely NL MVP, “Buster” Posey, led to another successful season for the Giants.
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By Aug. 25 the Dodgers had fallen from first place, now two games behind the Giants, and had made a huge Hollywood trade for Adrian Gonzalez, Carl Crawford and Josh Beckett from the Red Sox. This move was unable to keep the Giants from securing their second NL West title in three years.
In the playoffs, the Giants had the first challenge of facing a Cincinnati Reds team who finished the season second in the NL. The Reds won the first two games in San Francisco and headed home for three games (part of the MLB’s new 2-3 best of 5 series).
The Giants seemed doomed, but instead they made history, winning the final three games and becoming the first NL team to overcome a 0-2 deficit. Additionally, they were the first team to come back in a best of five National League Divisional Series by winning three straight on the road.
The Giants moved on to face the St. Louis Cardinals, the defending World Series champions. The Giants fell behind 1-3 in the best of seven National League Championship Series.
Behind a tremendous series by the huge midseason pickup Marco Scutaro, the NLCS MVP who tied an LCS record with 14 hits, and fan support that “Rally Zito’d”, “Rally Vogey’d” and “Rally Cain’d”, the Giants overcame the deficit and knocked off the ex-champs with a 9-0 rout in game seven.
The Giants had made it into the World Series once again and were looking at facing a rested Tigers team. The Giants didn’t overwhelm them; they just outplayed them and possibly even out-lucked them.
Led by three game one homeruns by eventual World Series MVP, Pablo Sandoval, the Giants never looked like underdogs to the Detroit Tigers, the 2011 American League Cy Young and MVP winner Justin Verlander, or MLB’s first Triple Crown winner since 1967, Miguel Cabrera.
The Giants kept Verlander silent while beating him in game one and kept Cabrera relatively ineffective all series, besides his lone game four home run.
The Giants created a new moniker leading up to the World Series after going 6-0 in elimination games: Never-Say-Die-Giants. But, after sweeping the Tigers 4-0 they showed the world, they were for real and it wasn’t just luck, but hard fought games and grit that made this team something special and World Series champions.
