Madison Bumgarner started, and though he has a year left on his contract, lots of speculation that it's his last year in San Francisco. That seems nearly certain for outfielder Hunter Pence, who has been making the best of his last few games with home runs and exciting play. He gave what may have been an exit interview about why SF fans are special.
Everyone expects a lot of changes, on the field and off, for the Giants for next year, as the championship seasons of 10, 12 and 14 become distant memories. Remaining players of those years--especially Pence--are still fan favorites.
And so the inexplicable season ends with only one obvious observation: it turned out after all that the vulnerability wasn't pitching--both the young starters and the bullpen did pretty well for the last part of the season--but hitting, especially hitting for power. That may turn out to be even harder to remedy than pitching.
The postseason is still undecided for a number of other teams--including the Dodgers--so it's time for my annual lecture on the proper use of the term "clinch." A team clinches something--a division championship, a wild card berth for instance--when they will win it at the end of the season even if they lose every game still to be played. The term only has meaning when there are games yet to play. Otherwise teams "win" championships etc.
Yet "clinched" is often misused when the proper term is "won." In other words, when a team wins the final game of a series, or in the NBA for example when they win four games in a playoff series so that the full seven are not played, they have won--not clinched--the championship. It is possible in the NBA to clinch a playoff spot in the regular season when there are games yet to be played, but a team can only win (or lose) a playoff series.
End of lecture about the end of the season. I must add that I've become a temporary Yankees fan since Andrew McCutchen has been playing left field for New York. He got a hit, scored and drove in a run in today's win over the Red Sox. I should give props to the SF Giants front office for making sure they traded Cutch to a contender, so that he can play in the postseason. In Pittsburgh he played in a couple of wild card games and one division championship series, but not beyond that.
I'm not yet sure however that my Yankeeness will overcome my Boston ties if and when they play each other for the division championship. Then again, the Yankees were the first AL team I followed as a kid, when they had Mantle, Maris, Moose Scowron etc. and one of my pitching heroes, Whitey Ford. But I think seeing Cutch get into the World Series will overcome my Boston reflex.
And with the end comes a beginning--of Golden State Warriors basketball! It should be an exciting season. It starts with nearly everybody healthy, a lot of young players who will get big minutes, and the integration of Boogie Cousins into the starting lineup, which may start sooner than later.
