Though not technically the postseason, today's Giants-Padres game is a playoff game, for all intents and purposes. And even though the Giants have a lead for the first time in this 3-game series, I'm not having any fun at all.
There really is nothing more excruciating in sports than playoff baseball, if your team happens to be in the playoffs. Every pitch is magnified. Every bad call (like the inexplicable "foul" call in the first inning of this game) sticks in your mind like a bad memory. Football is not so bad - maybe it's the physical nature of the game, maybe it's the structure of the game, which somehow leaves you thinking you always have a chance, even when you're trailing and it's deep into the fourth quarter.
But playoff baseball? Man, it's just torture. And "torture" is a word that has become synonymous with this Giants team, a team with so many flaws that I won't even try to list them all here. But this team has personality, and this team has character. The baseball Gods owe us one, so even though we're not there yet, and we're certainly not as good on paper as the Phillies, or the Yankees, or even the Rays (hell, maybe not even the Padres, for that matter), we're the kind of team that if we get hot, watch out.
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