The World Series is known as one of baseball’s greatest stages. It is the culmination of two baseball teams, the best of both American League and National League, who come together to see who is the best team in the world. This year the two teams were the Detroit Tigers from the American League and the San Francisco Giants from the National League.
The Detroit Tigers started their post-season against the Oakland Athletics during the American League Divisional Series where the Tigers won the best-of-five series three games to two. They continued onto the American League Championship Series against the New York Yankees where the Tigers won the best-of-seven series four games to none. They swept one of the strongest teams in the MLB like it was child’s play to advance to the World Series.
The San Francisco Giants started their post-season in the National League Divisional Series against the Cincinnati Reds where they fell to two games behind in the best-of-five series. They then came back to win three games straight away from home to win the NLDS. They proceeded to face the defending champions, the St. Louis Cardinals, in the National League Championship series. Just like in the Divisional Series, the Giants fell to three games back in the best-of-seven series. Like in the Division Series, they came back at the last minute to win the series four games to three to advance to the World Series on short rest.
On baseball’s biggest stage is where the two teams met. However, the outcome is one that very few people could have expected. People expected the Tigers to win the series because of the extra days of rest they got before the series, but the result couldn’t have been more different.
Ever since game one, the Giants were in complete control of the series, starting with a three home run game by Giants superstar Pablo Sandoval to lead the Giants to a game one victory by a score of 8-2. The Giants then proceeded to win games two, three and the final four to win the World Series in a sweeping fashion.
The Giants have been underrated since the beginning losing a lot of their players such as closer Brian Wilson and outfielder Melky Cabrera. Despite losing some star players, they were able to find a new star in pitcher Ryan Vogelsong and some retuning stars in Matt Cain, Tim Lincecum and Pablo Sandoval who went on to win the World Series Most Valuable Player honors.
This year’s post season was full of twists and turns along with one of the biggest Cinderella stories in baseball history. Congratulations to the San Francisco Giants for being the MLB’s 2012 World Series Champions.