San Francisco Giants

NLCS Game 2: San Francisco Giants vs. Philadelphia Phillies Live Blog

Salutations, Bleacher Bums!  Marc Juberg here, ready to bring a little West Coast flavor to the 2010 National League Championship Series, which the national media seemed determined to have us believe was over before it started. 

San Francisco Giants fans have to feel good about Tim Lincecum now. After a few rocky months, Lincecum is hitting the mid-90s again with his fastball and looking as dominant as he did during his two Cy Young years. I knew going into the game that, if they were both on, Lincecum would out-pitch Roy Halladay.

We panicked every year that they wouldn't win the division, but they did. We panicked during their July slump, but they overcame this by having a hot August and September.

Who were they?

The Philadelphia Phillies.

The panics have already started again in Philadelphia after a 4-3 loss to the San Fransisco Giants in Game 1 of the NLCS.

Regular season baseball is a funny game. Postseason baseball is knee-slapping, Will Ferrell in Anchorman game.

It’s easy to cheer when your team is the Giants, a town awaiting a charming moment, a town awaiting a miracle, a town awaiting a celebration in the Bay Area. Earlier this season, when a refreshing moment hardly seemed far-fetched, the San Francisco Giants mounted into a premier ballclub with the grandest turnaround as an uneventful sport enticed a large crowd near the Golden Gate Bridge.

Game 1 of the NLCS was supposed to be an epic pitchers duel between two-time Cy Young winner Tim Lincecum and no-hit wonder Roy Halladay. 

Instead, both pitchers did not have their best stuff, though Halladay continued where he left off with retiring the first seven Giants he faced. 

Then, No. 8 hitter Cody Ross stepped into the batter's box. 

Following Tim Lincecum's second masterful outing of the postseason against the Phillies in Game 1 of the NLCS Saturday, I scanned all the way back to 1958 when the Giants moved to San Francisco from New York to find the greatest pitching gems in SF Giants postseason history.

I found some obvious names, I found some surprise names, I found three names from this year's Giants squad (no, Barry Zito wasn't one of them).

Given what Giants starting pitchers have already done this postseason, there's a strong case to call them the best SF Giants starting rotation ever.

Game One of the NLCS featuring the San Francisco Giants and Philadelphia Phillies is set to begin in less than an hour. Tim Lincecum will lead the Giants against Roy Halladay and the Phillies in one of the most anticipated games in recent Playoff memory.

So now that we’ve regained our voices, nursed our bruises, and convinced our girlfriends that they’re more important to us than a Giants World Series, it’s time to look ahead to the next challenge. Beating the Philadelphia Phillies isn’t an easy task, especially when the national media has already started talking about a Philadelphia - New York World Series rematch.  

The 2010 NLCS begins this Saturday in Philadelphia between the Philadelphia Phillies and the San Francisco Giants. Both teams bring impressive pitching rotations into the series, highlighted by the Game 1 match-up between Roy Halladay and Tim Lincecum.

Impressive hardly describes each of their first postseason starts during the NLDS.