San Francisco Giants boast experience edge over Washington Nationals
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Version 0 of 1. ON BASEBALL | PITTSBURGH – There was the beer, and Madison Bumgarner held a Budweiser as he stood in a his soaked uniform late Wednesday night in the middle of the visitors’ clubhouse at PNC Park. There was, too, the plastic covering over the lockers of the San Francisco Giants’ players, and occasionally those players would burst forth with champagne. It was, indeed, a celebration. But there was a serenity about it. “Just knowing that you’ve been there before …” Bumgarner said, and it really didn’t matter what came out from behind his whiskers next. This is the card the Giants will play as they head to Washington for a National League Division Series matchup with the Nationals. They are hardened by their roads to World Series championships in 2010 and 2012. There is no situation which they have not seen, no adversity they have not handled. Don’t want to hear it? Turn off the TV. Think it’s bunk? Doesn’t matter. They believe. “Knowing the success that we’ve had, it made a big difference for me,” Bumgarner said after he shut out the Pittsburgh Pirates in the National League Wild Card Game. The Nationals, since baseball returned to Washington, have played five postseason games. Since 2010, Bumgarner’s rookie season, the Giants have played 32 such games – and never been eliminated. Wednesday night, they faced a game in which they had a chance to finish off an opponent, to send someone home. The result was rote, habit. They have won seven straight games in such a situation. “It’s a shootout, a do-or-die situation,” Giants Manager Bruce Bochy said. “But these guys have been there before. I think that experience really came into play today. The guys threw out some good at-bats. They looked very quiet up there.” Quiet. It is a central theme of postseason baseball, and it can be tiring to listen to: stay calm, and repeat the habits that got you there. Doing that in the tempest, though, can be difficult. When Bumgarner talks about being there before, he’s not talking about wild-card games. He has made two starts in the World Series, totaling 15 innings. He has not given up a run. When the Nationals lost Game 5 of their 2012 division series against St. Louis, blowing what was once a 6-0 lead, Cardinals players quietly said in the following days that they could see a few Nats fidgeting as the game grew later and closer. A contributing factor? Who knows? But players notice that stuff. The blowout of the Pirates, who rivaled the Nationals as baseball’s hottest team headed into October, is just the latest example that the Giants don’t let that happen. In 2012, they faced a three-games-to-one deficit at the hands to St. Louis, which hosted Game 5 of the NLCS. But they countered with resilient pitching performances from Barry Zito, Ryan Vogelsong and Matt Cain to win the pennant, then swept Detroit in the World Series. So the blueprint was there Wednesday, and it will be carried to Washington. “I think today’s a pretty good example of it,” said veteran right-hander Tim Hudson, who pitched with successful teams in Oakland and Atlanta before joining San Francisco this year. “A lot of people probably didn’t even give us a chance to even get in the playoffs, and these guys know how to win come playoff time. “It was a calmness all day here in the locker room. All in the dugout, there was just a calmness. We knew that we were gonna go out there and play our game.” A manager’s effect on all this is always nebulous, but there’s little doubting Bochy has handled the Giants’ past two postseason appearances brilliantly. The former catcher comes across as something of a lunkhead, his low grumble of a voice speaking most frequently in clichés and platitudes, and therefore isn’t generally regarded in the same way as the LaRussas and Torres, Coxes and Leylands of the world. But Bochy absolutely knows what he’s doing. The American League Wild Card Game between Oakland and Kansas City could be dissected for the errors made by managers Bob Melvin and Ned Yost, decisions that could have shaped their teams’ fates. The next postseason gaffe Bochy makes might be his first. More important: that we’ve-been-there tone starts with him and his calm tenor. Matt Williams can say a lot of things to his Nationals in the coming 24 hours. “I’ve been in this chair before, and I know what to expect,” is not one of them. So don’t fight it. The Giants are coming to Washington, and they’re bringing their experience – if not the hardware that came from it – with them. Wednesday’s celebration could be subdued, because they know what’s next. They expect a more vociferous one in the future. “We just felt like we were gonna do it,” Hudson said. “It wasn’t cocky. We just felt that, you know what? It’s time. The regular season’s over with. It’s playoff time. And these people in this locker room, they know how to get it done come this time of year.” |