Post Game 5 thoughts:
The last time a GIANT pitcher threw a complete game shutout in the World Series was when Jack Sanford -- You ALL remember him, don't you? -- pitched a 1-0, 3 hit shutout against the Yankees in Game 2 of the 1962 World Series at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. That was 52 YEARS ago!
Unfortunately, the Giants lost the deciding 7th game of that series when Bobby Richardson (the Yankee's 2nd baseman) caught Willie McCovey's hard line drive between 1st and 2nd with 2 outs and Willie Mays and Matty Alou on 2nd and 3rd (following Alou's bunt single and Mays' double) in the bottom of the 9th to end the game with a 1-0 win for the Yankees that also gave them the series.
If that ball had NOT been caught, 2 runs would have scored and the Giants would have won the 1962 World Series and it wasn't until 2010 that the Giants were able to win their 1st World Series after moving to San Francisco. Before then, the last World Series that the Giants won was in New York in 1954. The SF Giants appeared in the 1989 and 2002 World Series but were swept by the A's in the 1989 series and lost in Game 7 of the 2002 Series to the Angels -- which was the last time that 2 wild card teams met in a World Series.
The last pitcher from ANY team in MLB to throw a complete game shut out in the World Series was when Josh Beckett -- What ever happened to him? Oh, yeah, he's playing for the DODGERS!!! -- threw a 2-0, 5 hit shutout for the Marlins vs the Yankees to win that series for the Marlins -- Couldn't happened to a better team TWICE!! -- at Yankee Stadium in 2003. And that was 11 years ago.
So, Bumgarner's complete game 5-0, 4 hit shutout vs the Royals yesterday is all that more amazing!!!
It bothered me to hear the Fox Broadcasters -- Joe Buck and Harold Reynolds -- say that the "right" thing for Bochy to do would have been to pull Bumgarner OUT of the game if the Giants scored some more go ahead runs in the 8th. That absolutely made NO sense to me.
Seems to me if that a pitcher is grooving and has the ability going into the 9th to throw a complete game w/a 5 RUN cushion, you should let him try do that because odds are that he'll continue to throw well and, even if he doesn't, you've a bullpen to bail him out. Bumgarner had only thrown 107 pitches up to that point, was still throwing good stuff that no one could touch and didn't looked gassed.
GIVE HIM THE BALL and let him pitch!!!! AND, that's exactly what Bochy did. Bochy lets Bumgarner hit in the bottom of the 8th, which means he's also letting Bumganer finish the game, and Bumgarner goes in to pitch the top of the 9th and needs only 10 more pitches to get the 3 outs to complete the shutout. FANTASTIC!!!!
Here's an interesting post game quote from Bochy about why he let Bumgarner pitch in the 9th:
"He was throwing too good. "Game's not over. I would have felt worse if I had taken him out and something would have happened, when you've got a guy out there rolling the way he was."
Bochy must have been thinking about Game 2 of the NLDS vs the Nationals, when Matt Williams took the ball out of Zimmerman's hands in the top of the 9th after throwing 8 2/3 shutout innings and leading 1-0 to bring in the "closer" Storen, who gave up the hits which allowed the Giants to tie the game 1-1 and led to the HR that Belt hit in the top of the 18th inning to win the game for the Giants 2-1. In fact, without that win, the Giants might not even be in the WS now.
Bochy just schooled Williams on why that it doesn't always pay to manage a baseball team BY THE BOOK (which is how Williams explained why he took Zimmerman out of the game w/only one on and one out to go -- "that's what we do in that situation") and just proved why he's a managerial genius, especially when it comes to the post season and the World Series.
Granted, the score in the Nationals game was 1-0 with the tying run on base and the winning run at the plate. So, the circumstances were a little different BUT sometimes it just doesn't pay to play by the book. Sometimes you just have to go w/your gut, which is what Bochy does more often than not.
Finally, here are some disturbing FACTS about the World Series published by the Kansas City Star last night:
"The winner of World Series game five Sunday will need just one victory in the final two games to take the championship, but recent history has favored game-five losers.
Seven of the last 11 teams to win a game five in a tied Series eventually lost: the 1982 Brewers, the 1986 Red Sox, the 1987 Cardinals, the 1991 Braves, the 2001 Yankees, the 2002 Giants and the 2011 Rangers. The last four winners: the 1996 Yankees, the 1997 and 2003 Marlins and the 2013 Red Sox.
Overall, however, game-five winners in a tied World Series have a 28-15 edge in winning the championship, or 65.1 percent.
The Giants have been tied at two games apiece in seven previous World Series and won the title only one time — in the 1921 Series over the Yankees, when it was a best-of-nine affair and the Giants won in eight." See:
Hope for Royals.
Let's hope that history doesn't repeat itself for this Giants team.
GO GIANTS!!!!