It only took 63 years to get Bobby Thomson a roommate in the exclusive penthouse he occupied in the franchise edifice. And when it happened, Thomson's roommate in that penthouse turns out to be a left-fielder who thought about retiring a year earlier. Who'd never hit a game-ending home run until Thursday night.
A left fielder who was a natural first baseman until he was needed to spell an oft-injured left fielder who'd strained an oblique. Hell, a left fielder who wasn't even a Giant when the season began.
Travis Ishikawa was a reserve on the Giants' 2010 World Series winner, but was on the Pittsburgh Pirates' 2014 Opening Day roster until cut. He re-signed with the Giants and went to the minors first before returning to the parent club. Right now he might be just about the biggest Giant on the block.
The only thing missing when Ishikawa swung his way into that penthouse with a 3-run homer to end the National League Championship Series was Russ Hodges on the radio screaming ,"The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant!" As it happens, Giants broadcaster Jon Miller damn near did and FOX Sports' Joe Buck hollered the sentence once. I'm not sure whether Miller restrained himself deliberately. I wouldn't have blamed him if he didn't.
If nothing else, Ishikawa and his Giants proved they actually do know how to win games with safe hits, period, never mind 3-run homers. They came into Game 5 having scored almost half their NLCS runs without them.
They don't have to hunt, peck, and run like lunatics over the other guys' mistakes. The Giants don't mind winning that way if they have to, and it probably won't hurt them against the Kansas City Royals in the World Series. But there's nothing like a little old-fashioned power hitting to break up the monotony and turn San Francisco into bedlam.
Hell, they even proved they could tie it up late and for the last time if they absolutely had to. Because Ishikawa might not have gotten his chance in the first place if Michael Morse — a talent whom injuries has reduced to a spare part for the most part, and whose oblique injury made a place for Ishikawa in the first place — hadn't drilled a cruise missile down the left field line an inning earlier to re-tie it at three each.
But how heartbreaking for the Cardinals that one of their 2013 postseason heroes, right-hander Michael Wacha, who went to the bullpen to recover from a shoulder stress fracture, and was still rusty enough (he hadn't worked from September's near-end until Thursday night), was brought out to work the bottom of the ninth with one mission — keep it tied, get it to the extras, give us a chance to bring it back to St. Louie.
How infuriating it will be for the second-guessers among Cardinal Country to ponder what went through manager Mike Matheny's mind when he reached for Wacha rather than Trevor Rosenthal, the bullet-throwing closer, if he absolutely had to send a right-hander out to face two left-handed hitters out of three to open the San Francisco ninth.
Pablo Sandoval opened with two foul-offs before singling to right, and Hunter Pence flied out to right on the first pitch. Wacha couldn't find the strike zone against Brandon Crawford and walked the Giants' shortstop on four straight pitches.The left-handed bullpen arms still waited.
After handing Ishikawa a 2-0 advantage, Wacha had no choice but to throw a strike. And Ishikawa had no choice but to launch it into the first row atop AT&T Park's Levi's Landing right field wall. How painful it must be for Wacha to end two consecutive Cardinal postseasons as the losing pitcher after having been just about untouchable for most of the 2013 postseason.
But how exhilarating for Ishikawa. "If there's an organization I'd want to do it for," he said when he managed to pry himself out of a mob of celebrating Giants, "it would be this one."
Just like that, Ishikawa vaporized a starting matchup between Adam Wainwright and Madison Bumgarner that turned into a lancer's duel after three and a half — including Wainwright striking out the side in the sixth with the kind of curve balls their victims (Buster Posey, Pablo Sandoval, and Hunter Pence, in this case) usually say should be illegal, and generally out-pitching the stout Bumgarner — went almost forgotten. Almost.
Just like that, Joe Panik's 2-run homer in the bottom of the second, giving the Giants a 2-1 lead, the first San Francisco bomb since Brandon Belt in the division series in an eighteenth inning, became a near non-topic. So did the long-enough-time 3-2 Cardinal lead.
Just like that, Matt Adams — atoning admirably for his sad Game Four — and his leadoff yank right over the Landing, and Tony Cruz's solo into the left field seats, two outs later, providing that 3-2 lead, disappeared faster than the balls they hit in the first place. So did Adams's breathtaking dive to stop Crawford's smash and throw out the Giants' shortstop to end the seventh.
Just like that, Sandoval's virtuoso double play turn to end a Cardinal threat in the top of the first — leaping like Brooks Robinson to spear Jhonny Peralta's rising liner, then whipping a throw to second to double off Jon Jay — seemed like a tiny radar reading. So did Kolten Wong's spear and flip of Brandon Belt's fourth-inning liner to double up Sandoval in sweet revenge.
Wainwright emerged from dubious health and a mechanical adjustment to keep the Giants at a pair and battle Bumgarner like a gladiator. Then Matheny decided enough was enough. He didn't want to break his reviving ace if he could avoid it.
So he opened the bottom of the eighth with Pat Neshek, a sinkerballer who hadn't surrendered a hit all postseason and had only given up four home runs on the regular season. And Giants manager Bruce Bochy sent Morse, reduced long enough to journeyman bombardier after assorted injuries going back to his minor league life, out to pinch hit for Bumgarner to open.
Neshek threw Morse a sinker that didn't quite reach the bottom of Morse's thigh, and Morse made sure it reached the left field seats. Game tied, Morse smothered in a hero's welcome when he returned to the dugout.
Showing their heart, the Cardinals shoved back in the top of the ninth and loaded the bases the hard way with two outs when Cruz — pressed into sad service since backbone catcher Yadier Molina's oblique took him out of the set and original substitute starter A.J. Pierzynski proved most useless in two fill-in starts — wrung a full count walk out of Santiago Casilla.
Showing heart and a little cunning of his own, Bochy lifted Casilla for Jeremy Affeldt to get the portside matchup against pinch hitter Oscar Taveras. And showing his own heart, Affeldt picked Taveras's chopper near the first base line and ran it to the pad for the side.
Showing what you can do when you hang in there just in case good things happen to you at long enough last, in a career described as journeyman in more than one way, Ishikawa probably prayed for a shot at redemption after his first inning misread in left allowed Jay an RBI double to open the game's scoring in the third.
If he did, he got better than he prayed for. That trip around the bases looked almost like a perfect impression of the grainy film image you've known of Bobby Thomson rounding the bases after his mythological yank into the Polo Grounds' left field seats. The swarm of Giants awaiting him at the plate, at least those Giants who hadn't bounded up the third base line to provide his escort home, looked just as thick and squirming and exuberant as the Giants who mobbed Thomson once upon a time.
"I think a lot of us forgot that we had to let him touch home plate," Bumgarner crowed amidst the celebration. "We wanted to run and tackle him around second base. We were excited."
Ishikawa's traveling in very exclusive company now. Bill Terry, Mel Ott, Johnny Mize, Willie Mays, Willie McCovey, and Barry Bonds, to name a few of the franchise's Goliaths over time, never won a pennant with one swing.
Maybe Ishikawa won't get to the Hall of Fame except with a visitors' pass. Neither did Bobby Thomson and Dusty Rhodes. (Until Morse, Rhodes was the only Giant ever to pinch hit a postseason bomb.) But he's got bragging rights over some very heavy hitters. For now, he'd probably settle for owning San Francisco.
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