Due to the coronavirus outbreak suspending the 2020 MLB season, we’re rewatching the three San Francisco Giants postseason runs, game-by-game, on Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday nights at 6 p.m. PT, with a gamethread for each.
For the third time in five years, the San Francisco Giants are back in the postseason. And they’re hoping that their postseason run ends the same way it did the other two times: With a trophy and a celebration.
It all starts with a winner-take-all Wild Card game, in which the Giants will be on the road. The Giants and Pittsburgh Pirates finished with identical 88-74 records, but the Pirates owned the tiebreaker, meaning they get to host the single-elimination Wild Card round.
The Giants are kicking off the postseason by sending Madison Bumgarner to the mound. Bumgarner finished the season with an 18-10 record, a 2.98 ERA, a 3.05 FIP, and 219 strikeouts in 217.1 innings. He made the All-Star team and finished fourth in Cy Young voting.
Pittsburgh is countering with Edinson Volquez on the bump. Volquez finished the year with a 13-7 record, a 3.04 ERA, a 4.15 FIP, and 140 strikeouts in 192.2 innings.
We’re starting this rewatch at the same time as all the other ones: 6:00 p.m. PT. The good news is that the 2014 games are on YouTube by a different user than 2010 and 2012 were, and they A) don’t have commercial breaks, and B) are embeddable. The video is embedded at the bottom of the article, or you can find it at this link, or you can YouTube search “2014 NL Wild Card” and click the first link.
Here’s Clint Hurdle’s lineup for the must-win game:
- Josh Harrison — 3B
- Jordy Mercer — SS
- Andrew McCutchen — CF
- Russell Martin — C
- Starling Marte — LF
- Neil Walker — 2B
- Gaby Sanchez — 1B
- Travis Snider — RF
- Edinson Volquez — P
And Bruce Bochy’s squad:
- Gregor Blanco — CF
- Joe Panik — 2B
- Buster Posey — C
- Pablo Sandoval — 3B
- Hunter Pence — RF
- Brandon Belt — 1B
- Brandon Crawford — SS
- Travis Ishikawa — LF
- Madison Bumgarner — P