Giants, Their Fans, Learn Thrill of Torture Yet Again in NLDS Clincher

ATLANTA – Aubrey Huff has been a key component of the Giants all season, but he didn't truly understand Giants baseball until the ninth inning on Monday, when he got to watch it from the dugout.

"Now I know how the fans feel," said Huff, who watched the taut conclusion of the Giants' 3-2 NLDS Game 4 clincher against the Braves after being removed for defense. "I don't know how you can be a fan of this team. It's a grind every day."

Huff spent 10 years in the majors, mostly with downtrodden organizations like the Rays and Orioles, dying to get in this spot. And, wouldn't you know it, the team that finally got him to the postseason would do this to him.

"You see the coaches pacing all the time and you don't understand why, then you are in (the dugout) and you get it," Huff said. "I just had my head buried in the water cooler when (Brian) Wilson was out there. I couldn't take it."

This was the perfect series to introduce baseball fans around the nation to a little catch-phrase the club adopted during the summer: "Giants baseball: torture."

It's because the Giants have fantastic pitching, from top to bottom, but they have an offense that is, well, inconsistent, which is a big upgrade from last year, when it was just awful. The result is that the Giants play a lot of games just like the four one-run games they played in this series.

"You knew this would be a one-run game," Huff said. "That's the way we've played all year long."

It was no surprise to anyone that the Giants couldn't knock out the Braves, couldn't end Bobby Cox's Hall of Fame managerial career, without wringing every last bit of drama out of the situation.

Wilson got the first out of the ninth, but then he walked Rick Ankiel on six pitches, barely missing the zone. Then he walked Eric Hinske -- the almost-hero of Game 3 -- on six pitches, his fastballs again on the fringes of the strike zone.

As the crowd of 44,532 roared -- they were eardrum-busting despite the 8,000-plus empty seats -- the coaches paced and Huff buried his head and Wilson simply exhaled. Been there before. Plenty.

"That's the beauty of baseball," Wilson said. "If I give in there or crack, that's the game. You have a chance to be a hero if you get the final three outs."

"You knew this would a one-run game. That's the way we've played all year long."
- Aubrey Huff With the tying and winning runs aboard, Wilson had All-Star Omar Infante stepping into the box. His fastballs not hitting the zone, Wilson went to sliders. He started Infante with two sliders for strikes, and he eventually struck him out with a fastball.

Two down.

Next was Melky Cabrera. (That the Braves' hopes were hanging on Cabrera tells you a little about the state of their injury-ravaged roster, but that's another story.) Wilson threw him a 2-1 slider and Cabrera bounced it to Juan Uribe at third. Uribe reached back and made the long throw across the infield, where defensive specialist Travis Ishikawa -- in for Huff -- elegantly switched his feet on the bag to make the play.

"I watched every millisecond of it," Wilson said. "Watched Ishikawa grab it, watched his foot stay on the bag, watched to make sure the umpire called him out. Then it was pandemonium."

And that was it. The Giants had won the series, scoring a grand total of 11 runs in four games, a feat possible because their pitchers gave up only nine.

"The offense really picked me up tonight," Giants starter Madison Bumgarner said on a night his team scored three runs. That pretty much tells you all you need to know about the Giants.

More accurate was the feeling of the hitters, who know full well that they've been carried for six weeks now by the pitching staff. During the Giants' season-ending 20-10 burst into the playoffs, they hit .235 and averaged 3.7 runs, but their ERA over that span was 1.91. The Giants hit .212 in the NLDS, but the Braves hit .175.

So deep was the Giants' staff that they could give the ball to Bumgarner, a 21-year-old rookie, in Game 4, and still get just what they expected. He outdueled Derek Lowe, giving up two runs in six innings, without a hint of nerves. Catcher Buster Posey said he briefly went to the mound to check on Bumgarner after an error in the second inning, but Bumgarner just smiled and said: "I got it."

So deep was the Giants' staff that they could give the ball in the seventh to Santiago Casilla, a reliever who hadn't even pitched so far in the series. Casilla, who was elevated because normal setup man Sergio Romo had struggled, retired five of the six batters he faced.

"Our pitchers were unbelievable," Freddy Sanchez said. "They've been unbelievable all year. What they did this postseason was amazing. Some of offensive guys were in awe. They battled and left it all on the field. You can't say enough."

All those 2-1 games, with the entire season hanging on each pitch, may be torture to those who have an emotional investment as they watch, but they are certainly happy that they'll be tortured some more.