In winning pennant, Giants finally find their long game
SAN FRANCISCO - The drought was starting to extend into historical proportions, not unlike the one their home state is experiencing.
Sure, the San Francisco Giants had shown they could score in all sorts of wild and wacky ways, but at some point they could stand to benefit from getting reacquainted with that quick-strike weapon the rest of baseball knows as a home run.
Giants hitters hadn't produced one of those in six games, the largest such fallow stretch in the postseason in 41 years. They had not cleared a fence at AT&T Park since Sept. 28, when a player who's not on their postseason roster – Adam Duvall – connected on the last day of the season.
But once they rediscovered their power stroke – after 242 consecutive homerless plate appearances – the Giants demonstrated the most exquisite timing.
They banged out three home runs in Thursday's Game 5 of the National League Championship Series, the first one putting them ahead early, the second one tying the game in the eighth inning, and the most memorable blast – Travis Ishikawa's three-run walk-off shot in the ninth – catapulting them to the World Series with a 6-3 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals.
"I always say it doesn't matter how you score, you just have to score,'' said rookie Joe Panik, the author of the streak-busting homer in the third. "Today it was the longball. Baseball's so unpredictable, you just don't know when you're going to snap out of little slumps and droughts.''
Ishikawa's dramatic homer, the first one ever to conclude an NLCS, set off such a frenzied celebration that he had to bull his way to home plate as pitcher Jake Peavy jumped on him in jubilation between second and third.
Ishikawa, a career bench player who's back in San Francisco after a four-team pilgrimage the last three seasons, has been starting in left field while Michael Morse works his way back to form following an extended injury absence.
They slugged homers in the eighth and ninth to send the Giants to their ninth consecutive series win in the postseason, their 15th victory in their last 17 postseason games and, most important, their third World Series in the last five years.
"I just thought it was going to be a walk-off hit,'' Ishikawa said of his drive into the arcade in right off Michael Wacha, "so I was throwing my hands up in the air. … I remember the crowd just going crazy, and so my thought was, 'OK, if this gets out, it's going to be fantastic.'''
By disposing of the Cardinals 4-1 in the NLCS, the Giants passed them as the team with the most pennants in league history (20) and set up a World Series matchup with the Kansas City Royals in a meeting of wild-card teams.
The Giants were hardly a powerhouse during the regular season, ranking seventh in the NL with 132 home runs, but outslugging the Royals may be the most effective way to counter their scrappy style. Nobody outruns and out-small-balls Kansas City, as the Giants found out in getting swept in an early-August series at Kauffman Stadium.
The Royals outscored San Francisco 16-6 in that three-game set, stealing seven bases in the third game.
"We did not play well when we played them in August,'' reliever Javier Lopez said. "It's nice to have a little frame of reference, something to fall back on going into the series. They're scrappy. They're a tough club. They catch the ball. They're great defensively. They're pitching great. Their bullpen's been lights out.''
Those very words also describe the Giants, who had relied on all those resources to get this far despite being outhomered 10-2 in the playoffs.
That changed Thursday, when home runs by Panik and Morse as a pinch-hitter set up Ishikawa's heroics.
Panik put San Francisco ahead 2-1 in the third with a two-run shot off St. Louis ace Adam Wainwright.
The Cardinals retook the lead in the next inning on solo home runs by Matt Adams and Tony Cruz – all eight St. Louis homers in the series came with the bases empty – and stayed ahead as Wainwright found his groove. From the end of the fourth through the seventh, he retired 10 batters in a row.
But manager Mike Matheny replaced him with Pat Neshek to start the eighth, not exactly welcome news for Morse, who had only faced him once and drawn a walk, but did not relish seeing the side-armer come in.
"If there's one guy in that bullpen I didn't want to face this whole series,'' said Morse, "it was him.''
Morse had not homered since Aug. 15 and had just two in the second half of the season, much of which was ruined by an oblique strain that kept him out nearly all of September and into the early part of the playoffs.
Shortly before he went to the plate, Morse heard words of advice from Buster Posey that he put to good use.
"Buster told me, 'Hey man, just touch it. With your strength you can hit a homer,''' Morse said. "I was thinking in my head, 'I'm just going to try to touch it.'''
His "touch'' traveled over the left-field fence, tying the game 3-3 and representing the Giants' first hit since the fourth inning.
Neshek, whose only other run allowed in 7 2/3 playoff innings came in the form of a game-winning homer by Matt Kemp in the division series, acknowledged he threw Morse a slider that lacked snap.
What he rued just as much, though, was the Cardinals' inability to cash in on a great opportunity in the top of the ninth against Giants closer Santiago Casilla.
With one out and runners on first and second, Kolten Wong hit a sharp grounder that third baseman Pablo Sandoval dived for, redirecting it toward shortstop Brandon Crawford, who backhanded the ball and got the force out at second. After Casilla walked Cruz, Jeremy Affeldt retired pinch-hitter Oscar Taveras on a comebacker for his 18th consecutive scoreless outing in the postseason.
"It just seems like everything's bouncing their way,'' Neshek said. "When that ball at third base bounced into shortstop, you just go, 'God, everything. Give us one break here.'''
The Giants, who did not commit a single error in the series, naturally saw it differently.
Much like the team they'll be playing for the championship, the Giants made the most of their chances and provided their opponents few openings.
"Crawford's always doing wonders. That play saved a run,'' Sandoval said in Spanish. "Plays like that made the difference in the series. The defense we played was exceptional.''
Indeed, but the sight of their blasts finally sailing over the fence was a welcome change as well.