San Francisco Giants 2021 NL West Champions
Giants beat Padres in season’s final day
San Francisco Giants manager Gabe Kapler, removes Logan Webb, center, in the eighth inning of a baseball game against the San Diego Padres in San Francisco, Sunday, Oct. 3, 2021. (AP Photo/John Hefti)
2021.10.03 – The San Francisco Giants are the 2021 NL West Champions. The Giants have been the MLB’s hottest team for months, but needed to beat the San Diego Padres 11-4 on Sunday for a franchise-record 107th victory and hold off the 106 wins from the defending World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers.
The improbable, the inconceivable and the unprecedented became reality Sunday. A team comprised of players cast off, supposedly washed up, unproven and unknown was the best team in baseball over the seven- month haul that was the 2021 regular season.
It was so far-fetched at the beginning of the season that it still seems as if it didn’t actually happen. But the fashion in which they won 107 games and their first division title since 2012 makes the story even more special. Everyone loves an underdog — especially when they hold off a juggernaut for months.
Logan Webb secured his spot in Giants lore with far more than his dominance on the mound. He swung for the fences and sent San Francisco to an NL West title at last, without needing to wait for the rival Dodgers’ result on the season’s final day.
Webb (11-3) did it all in leading surprising San Francisco to its first division crown since 2012, delighting a delirious, deafening crowd of 36,901. Buster Posey had an incredible day, too.
“You’re going to be hard-pressed to see another race like this for quite a while,” Posey said.
Posey raised both arms into the air when Eric Hosmer struck out swinging to end it, and ran out to the mound to hug reliever Dominic Leone.
“Going into spring, it was our goal to win the West,” Giants shortstop and MVP candidate Brandon Crawford said. “ We knew that could be a kind of lofty goal and we knew where the projections were and everybody thought we were gonna end up, but that was our goal.
“Being able to play as well as we did, especially in the second half, to be able to hold off a team that gets to 106 wins and still win the division — it’s pretty awesome.”
2021.10.03 (SF Giants vs. SD Padres) See video Highlights
San Francisco Giants closing pitcher Dominic Leone, right, and catcher Buster Posey (28) react after defeating the San Diego Padres in a baseball game in San Francisco, Sunday, Oct. 3, 2021. (AP Photo/John Hefti)
2021.10.03 (SF Giants vs. SD Padres) See video Highlights
2021.10.03 (SF Giants vs. SD Padres) See video Highlights
Webb walked off to a roaring standing ovation when replaced in the eighth after allowing three straight singles. He struck out eight and didn’t walk a batter while pitching seven-plus stellar innings, and also hit a two-run homer in the fifth to clear the fences for his first time in his career — a pretty line drive to left.
“That was way more important,” Webb said, chuckling and sharing that he got the souvenir ball. “That was a special moment for sure. But we all knew the main thing was the pitching today.”
Posey drove in three runs on a pair of singles and got his 1,500th career hit as San Francisco’s division hopes came down to the final day. The Giants clinched the title in Game 162 after losing 3-2 in 10 innings a day earlier as Los Angeles won at night against NL Central champion Milwaukee.
“Well, it turned out that that was a very competitive 107 wins,” Giants president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi said. “We needed every one of them.”
While the Giants needed every single one of those wins to claim the division, that felt appropriate. Their rivals in Los Angeles, the Dodgers — the second-best team in baseball — pushed them until the final day of the season.
The Giants needed a win Sunday to claim the West. They took it behind Webb’s tremendous start on the mound, his two-run home run a the plate, and an offensive explosion from his teammates in the middle innings.
“It felt like we had to win every game for the last month,” said catcher Posey, now in position to win his fourth World Series. “It was a grind. It makes it all the more special.”
San Francisco wanted to earn it this way to dethrone the reigning champion Dodgers, who could have forced a Monday tiebreaker with a win and a Giants loss. The Dodgers had won the last eight NL West titles since San Francisco took the division nine years ago.
“The first thing that comes to mind for me is how proud I am of this group and what they accomplished,” Giants manager Gabe Kapler told fans from the field. “Part of the reason that I feel that way is because I think we all knew at the beginning of the season, or even dating back to the beginning of spring training, what the projections are and what the industry sort of thought of us as a club. What I realized is there are some intangibles that those projections and viewpoints failed to take into consideration.”
The Giants held baseball’s best record for 125 days and won on the last day of the regular season for the first time since 2017. The Giants accomplished that Sunday without first baseman and home run leader Brandon Belt, sidelined by a broken left thumb.
No matter the constant injury challenges or other circumstances, “This group always thought we were going to win the game. Always,” Kapler said.
2021.10.03 (Posey & Kapler react to NL West title) See video
San Francisco Giants manager Gabe Kapler addresses the fans and his team after they defeated the San Diego Padres in a baseball game in San Francisco, Sunday, Oct. 3, 2021. Giants won the National League West title. (AP Photo/John Hefti)
2021.10.03 (Posey & Kapler react to NL West title) See video
2021.10.03 (Posey & Kapler react to NL West title) See video
Manny Machado briefly made things interesting with a sacrifice fly in the fourth against Webb, who went unbeaten since May 5 at Colorado. He finished 10-0 after that loss but was coming off three straight no-decisions since beating the Cubs at Wrigley Field on Sept. 12.
There were so many big hits to back the right-hander’s latest gem. Mike Yastrzemski’s two-run double in the seventh made it 11-1.
Webb walked to load the bases with one out in the fourth and Tommy La Stella followed with an RBI single before Wilmer Flores singled in two more runs.
This one brought on some Oct. 3 memories for the storied franchise, now determined to create more in October like the 2010, ’12 and ’14 World Series champions with some of the same faces of today in Posey, Crawford and Belt.
Webb delivered just as Jonathan Sanchez did pitching the Giants past the Padres on the final day in 2010 to advance the club to its first playoff appearance in six years. San Francisco went on to capture the club’s first title since moving West in 1958.
Sanchez hit a key triple in the game — and Webb topped that with a mighty swing for his first homer since high school.
The reminiscing could even go way back to Bobby Thomson’s Shot Heard ’Round the World as Willie Mays and the New York Giants beat Brooklyn 5-4 to clinch the 1951 pennant before eventually losing the World Series.
These 2021 Giants completed a stunning turnaround in Kapler’s second year from a club that finished 29-31 for third place in the division during the coronavirus-shortened 2020 season.
Los Angeles and these Padres, after all, were the hands-down favorites to win the division when the season began six months ago.
Instead, this might have been Jayce Tingler’s final game managing disappointing San Diego (79-83), which had high hopes of contending for a championship behind stars Machado and Fernando Tatis Jr. and a $175 million payroll. The Padres lost eight of their final nine and finished below .500 for the 10th time in 11 years — they were 37-23 last season — after losing 13 of their last 15 to cap a second-half collapse.
“We never imagined being in this situation. It’s a little bit surprising, shocking, all those things,” Tingler said. “There’s a lot of reasons for it. … It’s miserable, it’s horrible, it’s all those things.”
Padres starter Reiss Knehr (1-2) worked three innings in his 12th major league appearance and fifth career start.
WOTUS HONORED
Longtime Giants coach Ron Wotus, who is retiring after 24 years, caught a ceremonial first pitch from his grand-nephew and was honored with a video tribute before the bottom of the fourth. He came out to coach third and tipped his cap as fans gave him a warm standing ovation.
TRAINER’S ROOM
Giants: Posey’s durability down the stretch has been quite a physical feat. He started behind the plate for the fifth time in six games. While he pinch hit Saturday, Posey caught a full game Sunday for the 10th time over the final 13 games — remarkable at age 34 in his 12th major league season.
UP NEXT
The Giants will host the winner of Wednesday night’s wild-card game between the Dodgers and Cardinals in Game 1 of an NL Division Series on Friday at Oracle Park. Kapler hadn’t picked a starter for the opener — saying he would weigh that decision Monday, ready for a tough choice between Webb and Kevin Gausman.
The results of the experiment that was the 2021 season are in. They were unexpected, but take the emotion out of it and the data is undeniable: These Giants are a juggernaut.
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Read more at: San Francisco Giants Media Services / More AP MLB
JEstevez@EMIsportsCentral.com
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Giants rout Dodgers and take SF three-game series