SAN FRANCISCO — Maybe it’s coincidental, but maybe it’s not. Maybe in this, the 21st century adaptation of the year of the pitcher, when pitching and defense have been as vital as hydrogen and oxygen, it wasn’t so much bound to happen as it was meant to be.
At any rate, it has come to this: the stoic craftsmanship of Roy Halladay vs. the wild-child dominance of Tim Lincecum. Halladay wins tonight and the Phillies live to play another day. Lincecum beats him, as he did in Game 1 of the NL Championship Series, and the Giants win the pennant.
We would reprise “The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant!” but that implies some sense of surprise. And at this point, after beating the Phillies 6-5 on Wednesday night in Game 4, the Giants are nobody’s surprise.
They’re the real deal, the genuine article, a team built to win in October. Filthy pitching. Check. Timely hitting. Check. A feeling of invincibility in their home park. Check. Other than that, we’re talking the ’62 Mets.
If Halladay, the NL Cy Young Award winner-in-waiting, is going to beat the Giants at AT&T Park, with two-time Cy Young Award winner Lin-cecum staring him down, he will have earned every nickel of that three-year, $60 million contract the Phillies gave him after acquiring him from the Blue Jays last winter.
“I know what I have to do,” said Halladay, Arvada’s own. “My job is to execute pitches. . . . It’s just a matter of going out and doing it.”
Executing pitches? Executing hitters, maybe. Halladay led the league in wins (21), innings (250 2/3), complete games (nine) and shutouts (four). And he was second in strikeouts with 219, 12 fewer than Lincecum, he of the high-voltage hair with a pitch repertoire to match.
It’s easy to assume there will be more zeros on the board tonight than on the set of “Revenge of the Nerds.” If so, you’ll have to excuse Lincecum for stifling a yawn. He’s used to walking the tightrope in close, low-scoring games. It’s what the Giants do. And for all the firepower in the Phillies’ lineup, it has become a Philadelphia specialty rivaling cheesesteaks.
The Giants are 5-1 in one-run games in these playoffs. The Phillies were 29-17 in such close encounters during the season, the best record in the bats-and-balls industry.
“As a team, we’re kind of used to it,” Lincecum said. “We know we’re going to play those close games and every run is going to matter and every zero is going to matter too. I’d say we play really well under those high-stress games.”
Wednesday’s game, for instance. The Phillies came in hitting .194 in the series, the Giants .189. Somehow, the teams combined for 20 hits and stood tied at 5-5 in the ninth inning before Juan Uribe’s game-winning sacrifice fly off Roy Oswalt, who came out of the bullpen on two days’ rest after winning Game 2 on Sunday night.
It didn’t seem right, a sacrifice fly being the difference in a game that ranked at the top of the food chain for postseason drama in 2010. But even a warning-track flyball like Uribe’s could be great theater tonight, when Halladay and Lincecum figure to be in lockdown mode.
Jim Armstrong: 303-954-1269 or jmarmstrong@denverpost.com
Star of the game
Buster Posey: He drove in the Giants’ first two runs with a single and a double, then saved a run in the fifth inning when he snagged a throw from Aaron Rowand on a short hop before tagging out a sliding Carlos Ruiz.
Key moment
With the Phillies’ Roy Oswalt gutting it out on two days’ rest, late-game replacement Juan Uribe sent a drive to deep left field with one out in the ninth inning for a game-winning sacrifice fly.
Jim Armstrong, The Denver
