Instead Ishikawa blasted Wacha's offering over the right field wall for a three run homer,a 6-3 win and a trip to the World Series as the San Francisco Giants are on their way to Kansas City on Tuesday!
Joe Panik homered earlier in the game for the Giants first homer of the series in the victory.
Jeremy Affeldt was the winning pitcher after retiring the only batter he faced-Oscar Taveras with the bases loaded with Cardinals in the top of the ninth.
The Giants will now get some time off to rest until the first game of the world series in Kansas City...
Giant Steps
1) Madison Bumgarner was voted the MVP of the series,but when he left the game,Bumgarner was down 3-2.
Bumgarner deserved better though as after he allowed the two solo shots to Matt Adams and Tony Cruz in the fourth,he would not allow another hit through the eighth.
Bumgarner allowed Bruce Bochy the flexibility to keep his roster one step ahead of Mike Matheny because he was able to keep it together and keep the Giants in the game in a non-winning effort....
2) I've not always been in step with Bruce Bochy,but I loved his move to yank Santiago Casilla in the ninth,
Casilla has been out of this world in the postseason,but it was clear that he lacked his best command in loading the bases with two out in the ninth.
Many managers (including me at times) would have danced with the pitcher that helped get you there and there would have been a case for doing just that.
Instead,Bochy called for lefty Jeremy Affeldt to face lefty Oscar Taveras,likely expecting Taveras to be pinch hit for.
Mike Matheny stuck with his rookie lefty,who tapped the ball back to Affeldt to end the threat.
Sometimes you have to know your talent and Bochy knew that Casilla was not as sharp as usual.
Great call...
3) More Matheny.
My buddy Derreck has screaming all season about what a bad manager that Mike Matheny is and since I only see the Cardinals against either the Giants or Pirates,I could only take his word for it.
In this series,Matheny mishandled his bullpen on a consistent basis,made questionable strategy moves and seemed to make panicked moves before the game brought those moves to play.
I now can see Derreck's point and have a much better appreciation for Bruce Bochy.
4) Big fan of Joe Panik from his days at Richmond as a nice guy and I spent the early part of this game flipping back and forth between the Giants and the Devils game (recap coming later today),while watching the Giants on the internet stream.
So we see Panik's homer together and I turn to Rachel and say "Joe Panik! Great guy! that should be your favorite Giant".
Quietly,she shook her head no and I asked why not?
She just turned and said softly "Ranger fan"..
Broke me up laughing!
5) So I travel to the road office and after listening to the game on the road,I killed the 10 minutes between shifts until I can flip to the game.
I see that Michael Morse is pinch hitting for Madison Bumgarner against Trevor Rosenthal,hard throwing Cardinal reliever.
Rosenthal in for Adam Wainwright after a gutsy outing from the aching St.Louis Ace.
First pitch that I see-Bang! Morse takes Rosenthal deep for the tying homer!
6) Travis Ishikawa's story has been an interesting one from Pittsburgh to Fresno to left field and the Giants.
Ishikawa botched a flyball in the first inning that made me immediately say '"the Ishikawa Gambit" as Christina Kahrl has been calling the Bruce Bochy decision on Twitter, finally works against the Giants.
Cherie asks me why they would do that to Ishikawa in the playoffs,I explained the lefthanded bat need overweighed the need for the preferred glove.
The homer by Ishikawa made the gambit a success.....
7) If I was a Cardinal fan,I wouldn't have a vitriol at all towards Michael Wacha,who allowed the game winning bomb.
Wacha had not pitched in almost a month (literally) and here was Mike Matheny putting him in the game with the season on the line.
One can not rationally think that this was going to result in a sharp outing and it wasn't,
In any job that you work with people,your entire goal is to put people in a position to succeed.
Matheny did not put Wacha in that position...
8) Travis Ishikawa's walk off homer was the second post-season walkoff in Giants history.
The first? Dusty Rhodes (Not the American Dream) in the Polo Grounds in the 1954 World Series against Cleveland.
9) Underrated play because it happened early in the game? Pablo Sandoval's leaping snare of a Jhonny Peralta drive and resulting double off of Jon Jay at second was what allowed Madison Bumgarner to settle in and get into a groove.
The Panda may not always look the part but he's far from a bad fielder at third.
10) More Panda-Sandoval's dive to get just enough of the ball hit by Kolten Wong that seemed to be a certain hit,to deflect to Brandon Crawford to get a force at second for the second out of the ninth was huge.
If Sandoval doesn't dive,the ball easily goes into left and one run scores for sure .
Who know what happens after that,but it could have ended differently.
11) I've picked against the Giants in the last two series and it resulted in the Giants winning.
I'm very tempted to pick the Royals in order to keep that string going,but that would be superstitious.
I like the Giants in six.....
Back later with a look at the Devils loss in Washington...
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