Giants Win The National League West

I'm very confused as to who won this baseball game

Narratives are often chastised by the stat community. And rightfully so most times. They’re usually just made up garbage that’s convenient for writers to apply to a given situation to justify something that happened. For a losing team, the narrative is that they didn’t have any leaders, or they didn’t have that winning mentality. I mean, I’ve played plenty of basketball games with winning spirit, but I always end up wondering where it all went wrong. There’s probably a little more to it than that narrative. When a team wins, one of the go to story lines is that the team “overcame adversity.” Probably the most cliché of them all. Our backs were against the wall. Nobody believed in us. That’s probably the case for 90% of playoff teams in baseball. Every team has had to fight threw some imaginary wall, and it’s probably a little lazy to just apply that to every winning team. But you know what, screw it. That's exactly what the 2012 Giants were. Resilient.

The 2012 Giants were done about 45 times this season. Finished. Counted out. And tonight, they are champions of the National League West. The Dodgers were somewhere in Cincinnati watching in their hotel rooms. That’s kinda nice to think about.

Here’s all the adversity the team endured this season:

- Brian Wilson out for the year

- The Dodgers acquired Hanley Ramirez Shane Victorino, Adrian Gonzalez and Josh Beckett

- Guillermo Mota drank his kid’s cough syrup. On accident. We’ve all been there.

- Tim Lincecum pitched literally like the worst pitcher in baseball. Literally.

- Pablo Sandoval missed over two months with injuries

- Emmanuel Burriss

- Melky Cabrera did some things.

- The Dodgers acquired Hanley Ramirez, Shane Victorino, Adrian Gonzalez and Josh Beckett.

But the main point is that the Dodgers acquired Hanley Ramirez, Shane Vic… yeah, okay sorry please keep reading. Yet it's impossible to emphasize just how glorious the Dodger aspect of this title was. The Dodgers had 200 billion dollars at their disposal. And they used it. They took advantage of every resource they had to win this season. They threw the kitchen sink. All hands on deck. The Dodgers traded for the Red Sox on August 26^th. Melky Cabrera was busted on August 15^th. Every thing was pointing towards Chavez Ravine. On the 26^th, the Dodgers were only 2.0 games back of the Giants. That was it. The Giants were out of Melk, and the Dodgers built this juggernaut in the National League. The fates of both club was etched in stone. The Dodgers were the ones that were supposed to clinch 2 weeks early. The Giants hitting was supposed to fall into a 2011 sized toilet hole, even though the pitching would tread water as much as it could.

As it turns out, the pitching didn’t even pitch lights out. It was extra mediocre, with hint of decency. Since the Dodgers made the trade, the Giants team ERA is 3.83. Also, Pablo Sandoval went into a 2010 like slump, and was hardly a factor most game. So just to get things straight, the Giants pitching wasn’t anything special, the offense didn’t have the batting title leader and their top hitter from 2011, and the Dodgers assembled a super team built to win in 2012. 

Thank all that is good for baseball. Weird, goofy baseball. Baseball reared it’s beaitful head and dropped off these gifts:

Angel Pagan and Marco Scutaro turned into “Andres Torres and Freddy Sanchez” 2.0, with new added features such as teleporting and more hits. Brandon Belt reverted back into good Brandon Belt. And then, Buster Posey turned into the second coming of Johnny Bench. I use hyperbole a lot in attempt at cheap humor in most of my post because that's really all I got. But this isn’t one of those hyperbolic moments. Nay, Buster Posey evolved into some type of super human life form sent to earth to be friendly, grow a neck beard and play baseball. It was the greatest non-Bonds season I've ever watched.

This was a great regular season. It’s been 9 years since the Giants have clinched this early in the season. For the first time since then, the Giants when into a season expected to win the division, and then proceeded to meet those expectations. And remember, at this time last season, we were complaining about Orlando Cabrera being prominently involved with the Giants. What a difference a year makes. Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

Say, Jon Miller and Dave Flemming, how did you feel about tonight's sports event: