Seriously?? Now we see Michael Wacha?
Oh, that’s just beautiful, isn’t it? Go GIANTS.
Congrats to the Giants.
Damn.
Travis Ishikawa.
This game makes no sense whatsoever.
Four more, Giants!
Joe’s Twitter bio says, “I root for all teams, except yours.” He hears it but I assume all the cash he gets drowns most of it out.
Omg! Omg! Omg!
Baseball is so wonderful.
I’m so glad we have 5 days until the World Series starts, because I am absolutely wiped out just from *watching *these last 5 games.
Love Bruce Bochy since his days as skipper of the SD Padres. Make it 3 WS wins in 5 years Bruce, we’re pulling for you.
I literally could not watch when Casilla loaded the bases. Fortunately I came back for the bottom of the 9th.
There couldn’t be more unlikely hero than Ishikawa.
Oh my god. I spent the top of the ninth in a sort of crouching fetal position whispering “please… please… please…”. That ball that bounced off Sandoval and went to Crawford. Affeldt. Travis Ishikawa. My god.
So who will Bochy start in left field in the World Series? Ishikawa the hero who launched them into the World Series, or Mike Morse the hero who launched them into the World Series?
Neither can play left field for shit, so that’s not a consideration.
Morse has been a powerhouse for the Giants through the regular season, but Ishikawa is on a huge roll. Both have to worry about the fact that noodle-bat Juan Perez can play left-field like a champ and has the advantage of having a surname starting with “P”. This is apparently a huge thing in the Giants organization.
I was at AT&T last night, 3 rows from the field and on the aisle. It was great! What a party scene, everyone high-fiving each other. When Ishikawa hit his Wacha-Walkoff, I was the first to the front row on the stairs, at the rail, and the celebration went on and on. I lost my voice, yelling so much.
With me was a coworker from St. Louis. He’s really a Cubs fan. He wore a Cubs jersey and a Cardinals hat - something he’d never do in the midwest. It was his first time at AT&T and he thought it was a gem of a park (it is, the best in all of baseball). He didn’t enjoy the game, though, but that’s okay. He did get a lot of love from some Giants fans who love the Cubs.
Sitting nearby were two ladies in Giants jerseys, and one had a 2002 World Series patch on hers. Earlier in the game we talked and remembered that misery and pain, especially Game 6, up 3 games to 2, 7th inning and leading 5-0 with only 8 outs left to win the Series; then Dusty pulling Ortiz to bring in Felix, and as Russ Ortiz walks to the dugout Dusty stops him and gives him the ball as a souvenir, what he thinks will be a World Series winning game ball. And they’re in Angels Stadium – OUCH. The Giants imploded, the Angels rallied, that stupid eff-ing rally monkey went wild… Oh the pain, the pain. It still hurts.
The Giants have a tough challenge in facing the red-hot Royals, but we’ve got Bochy, the best manager in all of baseball. He’s like a chess grand master, making all the right moves.
***GO GIANTS!!!
Bochy has a rule: Hit a home run, and you’re in the lineup for the next game. 
Rules aside, Ishikawa has played well in left these last 10 games. Yes, he badly misplayed that one ball last night, but overall he’s been solid…there were several balls that he ran down that Morse would never have reached simply due to having no speed whatsoever.
Also, there’s the old adage, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. They’ve made it this far with Ishikawa as their starting left fielder; I’d be shocked if anything changes for the World Series. Morse will be the DH for Games 1 and 2, which is probably the ‘correct’ position for him to play. Perez will be the late-inning defensive replacement/right-handed pinch hitter.
Ishikawa’s a decent outfielder, despite the error, and is incomparably better than Morse.
Bobby Thomson
Bill Mazeroski
Chris Chambliss
Joe Carter
Todd Pratt
Aaron Boone
David Ortiz
Chris Burke
Magglio Ordonez
Travis Ishikawa
Everyone who’s ever ended a series with a homer. It’s one way to become immortal.
His first few pre-season games with the Giants, Morse was absolutely horrible in the outfield. I suggest DHing him in Kansas City.
I like to rank these in terms of drama, with the highest ranking being for a walk-off HR in Game 7, with bonus points for reversing the score (trailing at the time). Mazeroski’s was Game 7, but broke a tie. Thomson’s was the equivalent of a Game 7 – game 3 of a tie-breaker playoff, and the Giants were trailing at the time. All of the others (I believe) came in Game 6’s or earlier.
So The Ultimate Walk-off: trailing in the 9th inning of Game 7 of a World Series – hasn’t happened yet.
Chris Hoiles hit the ONLY “cliche” HR in history. Cliche=walk-off grand slam, off a payoff pitch, to win a 1-run game.
Why is that the cliche?
I would have thought it would have been grand slam off payoff pitch to win a THREE run game?
Where did this definition of “cliche” come from?