What Went Wrong: Giants Fall Short in an Epic Clash

Without question, there are three rivalries in baseball that just stand out the most: Yankees/Red Sox, Cubs/Cardinals, and Dodgers/Giants. The rivalry between the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox is actually the youngest of the three, but it's the most heated due to the Babe Ruth connection and the many decades they have spent battling each other for position. The Chicago Cubs and the St. Louis Cardinals have been rivals since 1882--the oldest of the three battles. The Giants and Dodgers' rivalry started in 1890, but it spans not only three different centuries, but also two coasts, as the teams were founded in New York and later moved to California in 1958.

As for the postseason, the Yankees and Red Sox have met five times--three ALCSes, the 2018 ALDS, and this year's Wild Card Game. The Cubs and Cards' lone postseason meeting finally came in the 2015, but the Dodgers and Giants? This year's NLDS was the first postseason meeting. Not surprisingly, this series truly delivered. The Giants won 107 games, a franchise record, this season. Yet because the Dodgers won 106 (the same total as their 2019 season), the Giants needed the final day to clinch the National League West. 213 regular season wins were in that NLDS, making this a very loaded series. So what exactly went wrong? Plain and simple, the Dodgers were just better, and the Giants stopped playing at the wrong time.

The Giants looked good at the start. They led 2-1 in the series, with both wins being shutouts. Their road shutout win in Game Three hit the Dodgers badly, especially since it came against Max Scherzer. So why couldn't the Giants repeat that same thing in Game Four? They just couldn't do a thing against that Dodger pitching. Three runs total in the final two games of that series. Two home losses, including the pivotal Game Five. While this series was a true clash of the titans, in the end, while the Dodgers were the better team, it could also be said that the Giants simply ran out of gas.

As a result of this loss, the Giants are now part of a club that they do not want to be in. They are the latest team in sports to have a record setting regular season, only to fizzle out in the postseason. We saw it happen to the Dodgers in 2019. The Seattle Mariners' 116-win 2001 season ended with them dominated in the ALCS by the New York Yankees. Examples in other sports include the 2019 Baltimore Ravens (14-2 after a 12-game winning streak, lost to the Tennessee Titans in the Divisional Playoff), the 73-9 Golden State Warriors (who lost the NBA Finals after leading 3-1), and of course, the 62-win Tampa Bay Lightning (we all know what happened there).

So with that, the field is complete and both League Championship Series are set. The Dodgers will face the Atlanta Braves in a rematch of last season's National League Championship Series, which saw the Dodgers come back from a 3-1 series deficit to win the pennant and go on to win their championship. The American League Championship Series will feature the Boston Red Sox and the Houston Astros in a rematch from 2018, where the Red Sox won in five games en route to their own championship. Without question, this year's LCSes will be very interesting, especially since the possibility of a "revenge" World Series rematch is quite immense.

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