image source: MLB.com
Last night, the San Francisco Giants won their seventh consecutive post game to sweep the Detroit Tigers in the 2012 World Series. As Giants fans like me never tire of hearing, this is the second World Series the Giants have won in 3 years, capturing their first title in San Francisco in 2010.
A typical baseball season is long and difficult. Probably the 2 biggest setbacks of 2012 - the season-ending injury to closing relief pitcher Brian Wilson, and the drug suspension of left fielder Melky Cabrera seemed to make the Giants resolve to play well only stronger.
I set up my Twitter updates to appear on this blog and Facebook. What astounds me is many of these tweets describe what the Giants did amazingly well throughout post-season. Here's the 2012 regular season (taken from my Facebook timeline), in tweets:
April 13:
(1) awesomely, stupendously, masterful, dominating 1-hit, 11K shutout by Giants opening day pitcher Matt Cain.
(2) watching encore presentation of SF Giants home opener. Face hurts from non-stop smiling of 1962 team escorted by current Giants players.
April 16: what should've been caught in right centerfield turns into a double. Top of 1st not even over and Phillies have 4-0 lead over Giants.
April 17: didn't start out well, but Giants pull it out with a 4-2 win over the Phillies. Nice D to end the game, Brandon Crawford.
April 21:
(1) Buster Posey shoots down 2 Mets runners in bottom of 8th inning. Giants just need to score some runs, down 4-1 going into 9th inning.
(2) full count, 2 outs in top 9th, Brandon Belt hits high fly ball in centerfield falls for double. Game tied! Giants 4, Mets 4 ***(final score Mets 5, Giants 4).
April 25: congrats to Pablo Sandoval for tying the Giants franchise record for consecutive hits at 18 games. Vamos Papi!
April 28: bottom 7th inning: Brandon Belt doubles to hit in Melky Cabrera and Nate Schierholtz to get Timmy L & SF Giants win, 2-1 vs. Padres.
May 8:
(1) top 2nd inning. 2 pitches, 2 hits, 2 runs. And off Clayton Kershaw. SF 2, LA 0.
(2) unlike last night, great pitching and defense to a get a big 2-1 V for Ryan Vogelsong 2-1 and BEAT LA.
May 12: Matt Cain, star of the game: 2 hits, 2 RBI's, takes out the D'backs shortstop as a baserunner, pitches 6 innings for a 5-2 W vs. D'backs.
May 24: Giants 12, Marlins 3, top 8th. So glad to see Ryan Vogelsong get run support long overdue for his awesome pitching.
May 25: Melky Cabrera's 41st hit (HR) for the month of May is only 8 hits from tying club record of 49 held by Willie Mays.
May 27: SF Giants Melky Cabrera now has 45 hits in May, tying Matt Williams. Needs 4 hits in 4 days left to break club record by Willie Mays.
May 29: another awesome outing by SF Giants pitcher Ryan Vogelsong: 7 IP, 6 hits, 3 BB's, 8 K's. Shame that it's another no decision.
June 3: Speed, pitching and defense. Giants now only 3 games back and nipping at the heels of the Dodgers.
June 4: Cubs' shortstop Starlin Castro brain fart, another Vogel-strong effort and defense gets the Giants a win 3-2 and series sweep.
June 7: Giants overcome 4 errors and take 2 of 3 from Padres to win 8-3. Next up, Texas Rangers.
June 13: MATT CAIN - WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! PERFECT GAME! Giants beat Astros 10-0. CONGRATULATIONS!
June 14: encore showing of Matt Cain's perfect game now on. Only saw final 3 innings last night.
June 19: another pathetic effort by the 76th highest paid athlete as listed by Forbes. Not even 2 innings and Angels have a 5-1 lead.
June 22: Timmy redeems himself with a no-decision with a come from behind win for the Giants in top of 9th vs A's to win 5-4.
June 27:
(1) Timmy L so far: 5 IP, 3 H, 1 BB, and best of all, 6 K's. Looking more like Vogey's chat in Oakland helped. Giants 2, Dodgers 0.
(2) SFGiants SWEEP Dodgers with 3-0 win today & tie for NL West lead. Dodgers score ZERO runs in series. Zito, Vogey, & Timmy!
June 28: FOUR CONSECUTIVE SHUTOUTS! SF Giants' Madison Bumgarner pitches 1-hit shutout to defeat Cincinnati Reds 5-0.
July 10:
(1) 2 SF Giants (Cabrera and Sandoval), 2 hits, 5 runs. NL 5, AL 0 after 1st inning.
(2) The Melkman Cometh, part II. Top of 4th inning, 2-run HR.
July 14: "There's the beer truck, Mikey..." - Duane Kuiper. Referring to Pablo Sandoval's run home to win in 12th inning vs. Astros.
July 17: Giants get 18th shutout of the season and win 9-0 versus the Braves.
July 20: Freak's mojo is back, got his 2nd consecutive win. Giants 7, Phillies, 2.
July 24: awesome Angel Pagan catch to double up Padres to end their inning sparks SF Giants to a walk-off win 3-2.
July 30: Giants have to play catch up again. Mets retake lead in top of 10th inning. Relievers aren't relieving very well.
July 31: Hunter Pence, newest SF Giant. Best of luck to Nate Schierholtz.
August 15: Man, this sucks beyond belief. IMO, Gregor Blanco in left field. Sandoval bats 3rd.
August 18: missed 3 innings of Giants-Padres game. Turn on TV, score is 1-1, Zito pitching. Hang up laundry, Padres now up 4-1. Figures.
August 22: Melky Cabrera, Bartolo Colon. As Yogi Berra once said, "it's deja vu all over again".
August 28: LA Dodgers lose, SF Giants win - now 3 game up in NL West.
September 3: magnifico Marco! Walk off single earns SF Giants 4 come from behind in last 6 wins. Vamos Gigantes!
September 7: Marco and an Angel in the outfield. Giants 5, Dodgers 2. SF Giants now 5.5 game lead in NL West. Sweet.
September 8: Oh Pablo. As the 3 hitter on a team that hits few HR's, take a few pitches. DP's you hit into stat may exceed your RBI total.
September 9: wow, miracles do happen. Pablo Sandoval just walked. He must have read my tweet from yesterday :)
September 11:
(1) tonight, Madison Bumgarner, struggling Giants pitcher and sometime power hitter. Swats a 3-run HR to tie Rockies 4-4, bottom 4th inning.
(2) SF Giants overcome 4-0 deficit to win 9-8 against Rockies. Dodgers lose. Giants now 6 game lead in NL West. Magic number - 16.
September 15: D'backs look like Rockies tonight. And congrats to Angel Pagan for breaking Giants club record for triples.
September 20: Nats 4, Dodgers 1, top 7. Subliminally whispering through the TV, "numero tres numero tres numero tres".
September 21: Vamos Papi! Vamos!
September 22:
(1) SF Giants magic # is now 1 and now lead Padres 5-1. Maintain lead for 3 more innings and G-men become 2012 NL West champs.
(2) even my web browser (Chrome) knows. Typed in "S" and the 1st website to show up is sfgiants.com.
Tweets on Giants post-season up next.
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