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Giants take care of business, win the NL West

If I were to briefly sum up the Giants strengths throughout this incredible season, I'd say the Giants utilized the home run ball and their terrific pitching to cruise to 107 regular season victories. In the final game of the season with the division on the line, they got both of those things.

Logan Webb, perhaps the most important man on that pitching staff moving forward, really had himself a day to finish off his terrific season. The 24 year-old righty pitched into the 8th inning, allowing just two runs (although he was charged with an additional 2 after leaving the game) to a very potent Padres offense. He punched out 8 and perhaps most impressively, didn't surrender a free pass all day long. He also helped himself out and really put the game out of reach with a 2-run big fly in the 5th inning. Webb has been putting forth performances like this one every since he really turned the corner back in May and he hasn't looked back. With the clutch outing Sunday, Webb caps off his 2021 regular season with a solid 11-3 record, backed by a 3.03 ERA, 1.11 WHIP and 158 K's over 148 innings. Needless to say, he's going to be a guy the Giants build their rotation around moving forward and would be my choice to get the ball in game two of the upcoming Division series vs. either Los Angeles or St. Louis.

Speaking of building their rotation, the win Sunday now allows the Giants to take a few days rest before they kick off the NLDS on Friday. The biggest benefactors of this rest will be the Giants bullpen and their all-star catcher Buster Posey. The Giants bullpen had been getting taxed pretty heavily over the last couple weeks of the season with every game mattering so much, now they get to regroup. One of those guys who's been in the mix a lot is their young potential closer of the future, and present, Camilo Doval. Like Webb, Doval has really come into his own, especially down the stretch. He didn't do it all season like Webb, but he saved a couple of very important victories this last week and likely enters the postseason as the favorite to pitch the 9th innings for the Giants. His incredible mix of his 100+ MPH heater and his filthy slider give the Giants a young weapon they haven't had in their bullpen in over a decade. The last time the Giants had a closer who had stuff anywhere near Doval's was when Brian Wilson was manning the 9th back at the start of the last decade.

I talked about it yesterday, getting the victory today was so huge for a number of reasons. They get to ride this momentum into the postseason, they're don't need to go win a 1-game playoff vs. one of the hottest teams on the planet to advance and they also now get to rest their rotation the way they'd like going into next weekend.

I think it's pretty safe to bet that Kevin Gausman will get the ball in game. How Kapler/Farhan decide to follow him up should be interesting though. I think Logan Webb has earned that two-spot, although the Giants could opt to go with the more seasoned Anthony DeSclafini. Alex Wood is also an option coming off a great last start of his season vs. Arizona earlier in the week, but my guess is that they'll choose to use him in a potential game four and have him available out of the bullpen if needed before that.

The excitement and adrenaline is kicking for me already. It's been a few years since they were in this position and it's been a few more years since I think we all felt as good about this team than we do right now. Much like their runs in the first half of the 2010's, this team is doing it with a different hero each night, terrific starting pitching and clutch bullpen performances. They may not have the biggest names in the postseason, or the highest expectations, but they have the recipe that's required to get deep into the postseason and nothing this team does at this point would surprise me. 

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