NL West

It was a jolly good day at the ballpark last Sunday.

The Giants finally got to celebrate their first division title in seven years and it only took them three tries to do it.

For those of you who thought a playoff berth would come easy, you’ve just been reminded about what it means to be a Bay Area Sports fan. Exaltation never comes without enduring a little agony.

In Baseball Between the Numbers: Why Everything You Know About the Game is Wrong, Nate Silver and Dayn Perry tackled a question that had mystified fans and analysts for more than a century: What are the most important qualities for a team to have in the playoffs?

Through the magic of statistics, Silver and Perry found that only three aspects of the game had any correlation with teams doing well once they got to the postseason. The results: Good defense, a lights-out closer, and a pitching staff’s strikeout rate.

The Los Angeles Dodgers couldn't have summarized their disappointing season any better than manager Joe Torre's farewell speech Sunday, following a Dodgers win that allowed the team to finish a game under .500 for a fourth-place finish in the National League West.

Torre's speech seemed to stumble along in pleasantry, rambling while he searched for words to describe his tenure as Dodgers manager.

It would be easy, and appropriate, to enjoy the afterglow of the Giants' NL West division title by merely acknowledging the usual suspects: Aubrey Huff, Andres Torres, Brian Wilson, Buster Posey, Pat Burrell, Juan Uribe...

Wow. It is indeed a long list.

But it seems more suitable to tip the cap to two men who put that list of players together and made it click.

Bud Selig has not done much right in his tenure as commissioner of Major League Baseball.

He has overseen the first-ever cancellation of the World Series and the first ever tie in the All Star game (in his former team's venue, no less). His tenure brought the steroid era to a feverish pitch and damaged the hallowed records of baseball, as well as the worst disparity of the haves and have-nots the game has ever experienced.

It took until the last day of the season, but the Giants won the NL West. Their reward? A first round match-up against the Atlanta Braves.

The Braves will have a massive emotional investment in the postseason with Bobby Cox retiring at the year's end, and it gets no easier if they win. With a dynamic Reds offense and an uber-talented Phillies team waiting next round, a World Series victory seems a distant hope.

I have nothing against the San Francisco Giants—in fact, I don’t particularly care about them one way or the other. I’m sure they’re nice people, and they’re certainly a very good baseball team.

But, while San Francisco’s successes and failures don’t rouse my passions as an Indians and Red Sox fan, their victory Sunday afternoon irked me as a baseball fan because of the domino effect it had on the playoff scene.

For those who were concerned with Clayton Kershaw prior to the season, they certainly had their questions answered early and often in 2010.  While the Dodgers opted to shut him down early due to a heavy workload (he went from 171.0 innings in 2009 to 204.1 innings in 2010), that couldn’t put a damper on his amazing campaign.

Let’s take a look at the numbers before putting his success in perspective:

Finally. It's over.

It took until the last game of the season, but they did it.  Now, it’s the same as if they’d won the division by 10 games, so bring on the Braves!

It feels like it’s been more than six years since the last time the Giants made the playoffs.  We had to put up with some pretty bad seasons from 2005 through 2008, but it’s all worth it now.