By beating the Dodgers on Tuesday night, the Giants eliminated L.A. from the postseason and handed the second wild card to the Cardinals.
Don't think for a second that the Giants players, even though their fate has long since been clinched, didn't enjoy it either. They did.
And not just because running the Dodgers out of the postseason is fun (it is), but also because a heated game with their top rival is a pretty good warm up for the playoffs.
“It was like a playoff game,” Bruce Bochy said. “That was a good game for us to play in. These guys have continued to play the brand of baseball you need to play. This is a great game for them as they get ready for the playoffs.”
As Alex Pavlovic of the San Jose Mercury-News notes, one Giants player in particular was "geeked up." That would be George Kontos, who's vying for a spot on the playoff roster. Kontos (who was part of the Chris Stewart trade that feels like a million years ago) faced Matt Kemp in the seventh inning with two outs and the tying run on third base.
He K'd Kemp and went bananas (and then went extra bananas when Kemp threw his bat). Don't believe me? See for yourself:
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“I was pretty geeked up and I saw (Kemp’s reaction) and it fired me up even more,” Kontos said. “It was a great moment."
Kontos should've been geeked up. The Giants aren't fighting for a postseason spot anymore ... but neither are the Dodgers. They knocked their chief rival out of the playoffs and helped crank up their momentum heading into the postseason on Saturday.
You could tell how much it meant to them too, with Sergio Romo wagging his finger while Angel Pagan, who may or may not have made a throat-slash gesture, reeled in the final meaningful out of the Dodgers season.
“Beat L.A., that’s what they say," Pagan said. "We want to knock them out.”
