Travis Ishikawa Makes History With One Swing

By Steve Ungrey on October 17, 2014

The celebration has just gotten underway for the San Francisco Giants, thanks to Travis Ishikawa.

Heck, even if you are reading this two days later, it still might be going on.

Ishikawa hit what may be the most famous Giants home run since Bobby Thomson cranked a playoff homer all the way back in 1951. It sent the Giants to a 6-3 win over the St. Louis Cardinals and a five-game win in the National League Championship Series.

Is it any accident Fox announcer Joe Buck said “The Giants win the pennant!” just after the home run?

This has been one of the more exciting postseasons in baseball history. Think about it. Did you have the Giants going to the World Series? Yet here they are, for the third time in five seasons, World Series bound.

The Giants got there with solid pitching. Madison Bumgarner has turned into the ace no one suspected he would be before this season. Bumgarner was a great pitcher, don’t get me wrong, but the ace of the staff?

Just a few years ago, Tim Lincecum held ace status. Where is he now? Chalk it up to the cyclical nature of the game.

The Giants also had timely hitting. A Brandon Crawford grand slam in the Wild Card round sent the Giants on to a date with the Washington Nationals. The Nationals were the team heavily favored to advance to the World Series, but San Francisco went instead.

The Cardinals put up a brave fight, but some holes were exposed. It turns out there are some issues with the bullpen the Cardinals might need to address. Their bullpen is nowhere as disastrous as, say, the Detroit Tigers, but St. Louis does need to address these issues if it is to make a fifth straight run at an NLCS.

St. Louis can’t leave the bases loaded with a tie game, either, but that’s another story.

The stage is now set, thanks to Ishikawa, for a World Series that no one predicted. For the first time in MLB history, two Wild Cards will meet in the Fall Classic. The Kansas City Royals, a team making its first appearance since 1985, will face San Francisco.

More on that later. For now, Ishikawa is still celebrating, and so are the Giants.

The party by the Bay has just started.