Give Padres an Assist for Giants Title

Give the Padres an assist for the Giants first World Series championship since 1954. San Francisco needed to remain sharp for 162 games in order to win the National League West title, and that edge allowed them to battle game after game and, when all was done, remain the last team standing.

The Giants played seven one-run games in the NL playoffs, and won six. It's how they won throughout most of the year. Just look at their September results. They played 10 one-run games, winning six. Seven other games finished with margins of two runs, and the Giants won four. Their season was very Padres-like, but they needed incentive to get there. It was provided by the Friars.

Bruce Bochy's and Tim Flannery's Giants blew apart their roster at mid-season because they started off 1-7 against San Diego and fell 7.5 games off the lead by Independence Day. The impact of those facts resulted in the promotion of C Buster Posey and P Madison Bumgarner, the signing of LF Pat Burrell, and the acquisitions of P Javier Lopez, OF and NLCS MVP Cody Ross, and RF Jose Guillen. Those guys were critical in helping Los Gigantes overcome the Padres, fight past Atlanta, outlast Philadelphia and, ultimately, humiliate a Texas Rangers team that came into the World Series having dominated its opponents.

As cool as it was for the low-budget Padres to play as well as they did for four and a half months, it's also kind of fun to see a team full of castoffs defeat the league's bigwigs. Forget the Yankees, the Giants were the best team money could buy in 2010, with a major assist from the Padres.

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Game 5 featured the best pitcher's duel in a clinching game, with Tim Lincecum and Cliff Lee, since Jack Morris of the Twins downed John Smoltz of the Braves 1-0 in Game 7 in 1991.

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Interesting Historical Tidbit:

In February 2004, the University of Washington came down to play a three-game series at USD, with the Huskies taking two-of-three games. With the Toreros program on an upswing, I remember being kind of annoyed at the result even though the Dogs had some pretty good pitchers.

In the Saturday game, a 10-6 loss, the Toreros knocked the UW starter out of the box in the fifth inning, having received five walks, collecting five hits and scoring two runs. It was Lincecum.

It turned out to be nothing special. USD beat him two years later, roughing Lincecum up for seven runs on eight hits in five innings in an 8-4 win.