Armour: Giants down but definitely not out
CHICAGO — Don’t start readying Wrigley Field for the NLCS quite yet.
Yes, the Chicago Cubs are heading to San Francisco with what sure looks like a commanding lead, up 2-0 in their best-of-five NLDS series with the Giants. They’ve got pitching, they’ve got power and they’ve got three games to play with.
Before anybody starts getting cocky, however, remember that these are the Giants, aka the team that will not die. Cincinnati and St. Louis thought they had San Francisco on the ropes in 2012, too, and we all know how that turned out.
With the Giants as World Series champions.
“You know that it can be done,” said catcher Buster Posey, one of 12 players from that 2012 team who is on the Giants' 25-man roster for the NLDS.
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The Cubs are better than either the Reds or the Cardinals were in 2012. They led the majors with 103 wins in the regular season and, fronted by Kyle Hendricks and Jon Lester, have the best pitching staff in baseball.
Pretty much anyone in the lineup can hurt you at the plate, be it NL MVP candidate Kris Bryant or Travis Wood, whose solo homer in the fourth was only the second by a relief pitcher in postseason history.
But so long as there’s another game to be played, the Giants aren’t going to count themselves out. And no one else should be foolish enough to do so, either.
The Giants are a record 9-0 in elimination games, with six coming in the 2012 NLDS and NLCS. In such a deep hole in both series they could barely see daylight, the Giants managed to claw their way out each time.
They won at home and on the road. They did it with tight games and blowouts. Some games it was the pitching staff that carried San Francisco, other times the offense.
The only common theme was the singular mindset the Giants had.
“It was pretty much just to play those games like that was the last one we were going to get to play,” said Matt Cain, who won both Game 5 in the NLDS and Game 7 in the NLCS.
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While several of the big names from that 2012 team – Ryan Vogelsong, Barry Zito, Pablo Sandoval – are gone, much of the core remains the same. Manager Bruce Bochy, Madison Bumgarner, Hunter Pence and Posey, he of the NLDS Game 5 heroics -- they all know how this works.
In fact, six of the starters Saturday night were 2012 holdovers.
“It’s tough to lose two here, but we have been down this road before,” Bochy said. “… It gives you a lot of confidence, the fact that you’ve been in this position before.”
As if that’s not enough, the Giants make the long flight to San Francisco knowing they’ve got Bumgarner, the most dominant postseason pitcher of his generation and maybe all others, taking the mound for Game 3 on Monday.
Bumgarner has a 0.79 ERA in his last nine postseason appearances. He’s got a 23-innning scoreless streak going, and his six career postseason starts without giving up a run tie Hall of Famer Tom Glavine’s record.
“We’ve got Madison going Monday, so that gives us a little bit of confidence, obviously,” second baseman Joe Panik said. “It’s just about taking it one game at a time. I know that’s clichéd, but you can’t worry about winning three games if you don’t take care of the first one.”
This is not a new mindset for the Giants, be it their rallies in 2012 or even this season.
The best team in baseball at the All-Star break, San Francisco went a dismal 30-42 in the second half. The collapse was so epic the Giants had to sweep the Dodgers the final weekend to preserve their playoff spot, then beat the Mets in a wild-card game.
“Going through the second half, this club has faced adversity,” Panik said. “We were able to get ourselves in there.”
And now they’re playing for their lives once again.
“Compartmentalize as much as you can,” Posey said. “No need to look any further than Monday.”
Down, yes. But the San Francisco Giants, of all teams, are definitely not out.
Follow USA TODAY Sports columnist Nancy Armour on Twitter @nrarmour
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