The Neighborhood is Safe

In 2002, as David Bell skidded home to send San Francisco to the World Series, I heard a resounding "boom." What I initially thought was a fellow Giants fan setting off an impromptu celebration was, in fact, a home on the cul de sac behind my residence bursting into flame -- the victim of a bad fumigation effort.

On this night, no fireworks. The neighborhood survived. My wits, not so much.

Giants fans can describe a certain feeling in two words: "Game Six." It's a sense of impending doom, the knoweldge that the executioner has receieved his orders and we're hoping against hope for a call from the governor that we know will never come.

This time the phone rang. The Giants are World Series bound, winning a (what else?) torturous Game Six on enemy turf to set up a date with the Rangers and to send the Phillies off to make chalupa commericals with Girardi and Rivera.

It wasn't easy. It's never easy. A very flawed team displayed all of its weaknesses in Game Six. Jonathan Sanchez pulled another disappearing act. The Giants wasted baserunners - putting the leadoff man on in four of the first five innings but managing just one earned run. The heart of the order was non-existent. They ran themselves out of an inning. The bullpen tossed seven scoreless but had some high drama along the way, and Brian Wilson once again did his best to keep the final frame exciting.

The one thing they did right was refuse to quit.

No question this Giants team isn't as talented as the squad that came wihtin six outs of winning it all in 2002. I think the 1989 team had much more talent with Thompson, Clark, Mitchell and Williams. There are times the 2010 unit looked like it could fall short against a Junior Giants squad from Modesto.

They needed a hero. Tonight they got a couple.

Much will surely be said and written about Juan Uribe's opposite field shot, a ball that was but a hard breath from the fat guy in Row A away from staying in the park. Combine that shot with the Game Four winner and he's cemented cult hero status right next to Brian Johnson. But.....

My hero on this night is Jeremy Affeldt. I honestly believe he saved the Giants' season.

Sanchez was putrid, and his confrontation with Chase Utley told me all I needed to know. There was no call for his outburst. He simply lost his compusure. In crunch time, he folded. A great deal of what happens on the mound actually takes place between a guy's ears. Whatever that "it" factor is, he doesn't posess it.

Affledt had it last year, lost it, and found it just in time. Wading into Sanchez's mess, Affeldt restored order. Then Bochy, quite logically, kept his under-performing pen away from the game. Only Lopez was trusted, with Bochy instead turning to Bumgarner and Lincecum to get the game to his closer.

I know Wilson is weird. A mean, I see the guy on TV and I'm not certain if he's planning to pitch or to put a parrot on his shoulder and go out searching for buried treasure. But he did find one piece of pure gold, a backdoor cutter to Ryan Howard that no doubt sent people into histerics from the Haight to the Ferry Building.

The closest thing this team has to a star may be a rookie backstop and a 165-pound  pitcher who looks like a 12-year-old. Top to bottom, they don't do anything extremely well. If this were a prize fight, they'd be the guy throwing jabs and dashing from corner to corner while the big bad Phillies came in throwing haymakers.

What this team of unprovens, misfits, rejects and rodeo clowns reminded the baseball world is that you can win a fight on points. No gaping wounds were inflicted on the Phils. It was death by 1,000 paper cuts. But method matters not.

All that matters is this.