I still don’t believe it, I really don’t. This entire postseason has been one big ball of tortured awesomeness, and I can’t even describe the feeling I had after seeing Brian Wilson throw that final strike to Ryan Howard last night. There’s just something about seeing two full-grown men embrace each other in front of a bunch of angry Philly fans. Now they can suck it.
In my experience as a baseball fan, really the only moment that I can compare to last night’s Giants victory was when I was six years old, watching Randy Johnson strike out the final batter in the ’95 one game playoff. I guess it’s because that was the first time “my team” had ever reached the playoffs, and this is the first time I’ve had “my team” reach the World Series. I know the Giants aren’t really my team, but it just makes me think how incredible it’ll be when the Mariners finally make it to the World Series, even if it’ll be a little like inviting an ex-girlfriend to your wedding.
So what now? Well the Giants will be playing the Texas Rangers in the World Series on Wednesday night. At this point I don’t think it’s even worth trying to predict how this match-up will turn out. The Rangers are probably a better all-around team, but as we’ve seen, this Giants team defies logic. Their line-up may be the equivalent of baseball’s unwanted scraps, but they’ve managed to come up with big hits time after time and right now this team feels unstoppable.
What we’ve seen throughout this whole season from the Giants of course is how far good pitching can get you, and last night’s game was just another example of how deep this Giants pitching staff is. Of course now the Giants will be going up against another solid pitching staff, this one being led by one Cliff Lee. I don’t know why, but when the Giants were going up against Halladay, I felt like they still had a chance, but the idea of that Giants line-up going against Cliff Lee kind of scares me. God I hate rooting against Cliff Lee.
Any way you look at it though, this is an exciting matchup. These are two fan bases that in the fifty years that their clubs have existed, neither of them have ever won a World Series. No Yankees, no Red Sox, no Phillies, none of that east coast bullshit. This is the kind of stuff that makes baseball the greatest game of them all. Now Go Giants!