San Francisco Giants

We knew the Giants were not going to make it easy against the Braves. We knew postseason baseball for the Giants had to resemble the regular season—torturous.

San Francisco won their NL Divisional Series against Atlanta 3-1 and will face the Philadelphia Phillies starting on Saturday.

There were many things the Giants did well.

Starting pitching

The San Francisco Giants made short work of the Atlanta Braves in the National League Divisional Series.  Tim Lincecum and his teammates gave Braves manager Bobby Cox a rude farewell, winning the series three games to one.

Their reward?  They get to play the Philadelphia Phillies, who swept the Cincinnati Reds in their first round match-up.

But, that series won't start for a couple days, so let's take a look at five players who played key roles in the Giants' first round victory.

Marc Juberg here, excited to bring you moment-by-moment coverage of the most important game on the airwaves this evening.  It's a clash that promises to be as heartrending as action-packed, and comes complete with enough story lines and intrigue to make even the great William Shakespeare stir in his grave. 

This is NOT Monday Night Football.

Are the 2010 San Francisco Giants the new "Atlanta Braves" of the 90s and early 2000's? 

Maybe. Think about these:

1.) Buster Posey could potentially be the Giants' version of "Chipper Jones."

2.) Tim Lincecum could potentially be the Giants' version of "John Smoltz."

3.) Matt Cain could potentially be the Giants' version of "Gred Maddux."

     The Atlanta Braves were one out away from completing another storybook come from behind victory when things fell apart in the top of the ninth. Earlier, in the bottom of the eighth, Alex Gonzalez singled and Eric Hinske hit a pinch hit home run off of Sergio Romo to the Braves up by a score of 2-1. Hinke's homer was just the fourth Brave hit of the night but it came at such an opportune time.

San Francisco Giants Vs. Atlanta Braves: Game 3 Live Blog

Bennett Spector here, live-blogging all of the action from today's NLDS Game 3. Join me for 9 innings of playoff baseball LIVE from the ATL. Hummmmm baby!

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

Such is the masochistic pleasure of being a Giants fan. The only thing we enjoy doing more is pouring liquid rooter on ourselves or watching old reruns of “How I Met Your Mother.”

I love me some pain.  

It seemed all but over. The Giants were leading 4-1 with two innings to go.

San Francisco has one of the best bullpens in baseball, but there came the Atlanta Braves, and in the blink of an eye, the game was tied.

It marked the second time that night a team came back from a 4-0 deficit to win the game, as the Braves eventually won 5-4 in 11 innings thanks to a home run by Rick Ankiel.

Now the series moves back to Georgia tied at one.

This article is going to be more of a blog post than an article since I was talking on the telephone for the first five innings of the game.

Here are some of my exact thoughts as the game took place.

Cain in trouble. Gets strong and gets out of it.

Sanchez base hit. Nice. Huff strikes out, he's really not locked in.

[Girl continues to chatter.]

Burrell yanks one. Holy sh*$! It's outta here! Yes!! Yes!

[fist pumps in air]

The Atlanta Braves couldn't get anything started against the San Francisco Giants' vaunted pitching staff, so the home-standing Gents took an admittedly unorthodox approach.

They decided to start the Bravos' offense themselves—not the wisest thing to do for your World Series aspirations, but it sure makes for an exciting night of baseball.

And another significant challenge for emerging southpaw Jonathan Sanchez.