SAN FRANCISCO — It was a timely ad-lib on yet another night of untimely hitting.
“Giants baseball,” Duane Kuiper deadpanned from the broadcast booth during a particularly long day at the yard this past summer. “It’s torture.”
“That really resonated with the fans,” said Jon Miller, Kuiper’s fellow broadcaster. “That’s exactly the way they felt.”
Fortunately for the offensively challenged San Francisco Giants — they finished seventh in the National League in hitting and ninth in runs — the agony has led to near ecstasy, as opposed to the sheer ecstasy that would have broken out if they had eliminated the Philadelphia Phillies in Game 5 of the NL Championship Series.
Kuiper’s one-liner has become more than an unofficial slogan for a memorable season. For the Giants, it’s a way of life. Winning low-scoring, tension-filled games is what they do. To wit: Six of their nine playoff games have come down to one run and they’ve won five.
That doesn’t make it any easier on their fans.
Was it any surprise, given the fault line they navigate seemingly every day, that they dropped a close game in Thursday night’s would-be series clincher?
“With this club, as you know, we don’t do anything easy,” Giants manager Bruce Bochy said. “With what we’ve been through, we’ll put it behind us. And believe me, under no illusion did we think this was going to be easy playing a great club.”
Great? At the moment, the Phillies are less great than relieved. The closest thing the National League has to an American League lineup didn’t do any dominating at AT&T Park. They were shut out in Game 3 and needed a third-inning defensive meltdown by the Giants on Thursday night to force today’s Game 6.
But they won, and now the Phillies have the Giants right where they want them: At Citizens Bank Park in Philly with Roy Oswalt today and, if all goes as planned, Cole Hamels, ready to deal in the final two games of the series.
“It didn’t matter how we won,” said Phillies closer Brad Lidge, a Cherry Creek High School graduate. “This whole season, when our backs have been against the wall, that’s when we’re at our best. We like our chances.”
They ought to. The Phillies are the class of the National League, having advanced to three consecutive league-championship series. They were supposed to be here, now more than ever after acquiring Roy Halladay during the offseason and Oswalt before the trading deadline.
The Giants? They have the pitching part of the equation down, with their starters having compiled a 1.93 ERA in the playoffs. Question is, will they hit enough to seal the deal?
This is a team that has hit .220 in the series, a team whose main offensive catalyst (Cody Ross) was snatched off the waiver wire in August. Ross has three home runs in 16 at-bats. The rest of the Giants have none in 148 at-bats.
Frankly, it’s not surprising. The Giants lost two games this season in which their pitchers allowed one hit. But they’re also one game away from winning a pennant, thanks to all those arms. Among them: Jonathan Sanchez, he of the two earned runs in six innings in Game 2, and the starter today, and prospective Game 7 starter Matt Cain, who shut out the Phillies through seven innings in Game 3.
Something has to give this weekend. At some point, a fascinating series filled with defensive gems and lapses, unlikely heroes and savvy managerial maneuverings has to end. There’s a World Series to be played and concluded, hopefully before the first snowflakes hit Pennsylvania.
So what’s it going to be? Tight and low scoring, more than likely.
Pure torture for Giants fans.
Jim Armstrong: 303-954-1269 or jmarmstrong@denverpost.com
