2014 World Series recap

Congratulations to the San Francisco Giants for winning their third World Series championship in five years - I wonder how Los Angeles Dodgers fans feel at the moment when they haven't won squat in nearly 30 years.

It's amazing that the Giants didn't have Matt Cain, a past his prime Tim Lincecum was mostly unused and both of their veteran pitchers [Jake Peavy and Tim Hudson] really stunk it up - I was hoping the Royals would have one more run [literally] in them to change things around in Game 7, but the Giants still had Madison Bumgarner to close things out on his way to being named World Series MVP.

To watch the Royals lose was mildly disappointing because they had come so far and even though they snuffed out the Angels early in the Division Series - how they kept surging on was pretty impressive.

2014 World Series blues

I have watched little of the 2014 World Series - I don't remember sitting around to watch any particular game on TV and I feel like I'm not really missing anything.

Maybe I check on the box score on ESPN when I can but I've pretty much set any interest aside besides bits and pieces I might find out - maybe I'm just weird, maybe I'm not a true baseball fan or maybe I'm just tired of all the narratives that would be pushed around the series by Fox perhaps, by the mainstream media and/or by the baseball analysts who focus on the numbers.

One thing is clear that San Francisco Giants starting pitcher Madison Bumgarner is just a beast - the guy might be some kind of country bumpkin [no offense] in more ways than one, but Bumgarner just takes the ball and sets batters down one-by-one like a machine.

In recent years, there was Tim Lincecum, Matt Cain and Tim Hudson in the Giants' rotation and while Bumgarner has always been well regarded - maybe the other guys have garnered much more of the attention.

Now it's kind of come to be that Bumgarner is the Giants' ace pitcher and there is a certain steeliness and confidence in which he pitches with that seems admirable - especially when he is only 25 years old.

2014 Topps Heritage blaster recap

I got $5 off with my Topps coupon book, though I didn't pull anything special - except for more redundant cards to go through and add to my 'can't really get them signed in-person' pile.

Pack one
#185 Matt Holliday
#27 Jarrod Saltalamacchia
#207 David Murphy
#358 Vernon Wells
#430 Justin Verlander - SP
#362 Eduardo Nunez
#414 Robin Ventura
#336 Andy Dirks
#38 Brett Lawrie

Pack two
#1 Miguel Cabrera / Mike Trout / Joe Mauer - 2013 American League Batting Leaders
#136 Jon Lester - 2013 World Series Game 5
#21 Jon Jay
#243 Billy Hamilton / Nick Castellanos - 2014 Rookie Stars
#Topps 65 MLB-GN Graig Nettles - 1st Draft insert
#86 Wei-Yin Chen
#423 Alex Wood
#7 Anibal Sanchez / Bartolo Colon - 2013 American League ERA Leaders
#83 Justin Smoak

Pack three
#288 Jhonny Peralta
#145 Juan Encarnacion
#212 Steve Cishek
#56 Alexi Ogando
#240 Jarred Cosart
#49 Xander Bogaerts / Jonathan Schoop - 2014 Rookie Stars
#142 Michael Saunders
#227 Jonny Venters
#111 Yunel Escobar

Pack four 
#22 A.J. Ellis
#235 Kevin Gregg
#160 Andrew McCutchen
#292 Jim Henderson

#489 Jean Segura - SP
#80 Brett Oberholtzer
#48 Marlon Byrd
#43 Carlos Beltran
#342 Matt Carpenter

Pack five
#241 Drew Stubbs
#299 Mike Moustakas
#178 Jose Quintana
#2 Michael Cuddyer / Chris Johnson / Freddie Freeman - 2013 National League Batting Leaders
#297 Khris Davis

#437 Hanley Ramirez - Red bordered parallel
#135 Jonny Gomes - 2013 World Series Game 4
#339 Zack Cozart
#23 Joaquin Benoit

Pack six
#33 Michael Cuddyer
#335 Tyler Pastornicky
#274 Ron Washington
#137 Koji Uehara - 2013 World Series Game 6
#322 Brandon Crawford
#NF-TSOM The Sound of Music - News Flashbacks insert
#161 Brett Gardner
#215 Matt Harrison
#398 Daniel Webb / Chris Robinson - 2014 Rookie Stars

Pack seven
#223 Miguel Gonzalez
#219 Michael Young
#311 Brandon Morrow
#366 A.J. Griffin

#428 Madison Bumgarner - SP
#NAP-WM Wil Myers - New Age Performers insert
#39 Chris Carter
#343 Russell Martin
#35 Ryan Vogelsong

Pack eight
#53 Giancarlo Stanton
#400 Bryce Harper
#296 Randall Delgado
#15 Asdrubal Cabrera
#120 Shin-Soo Choo
#202 Wade Miley
#396 Everth Cabrera
#294 David Robertson
#137 Anthony Gose

Ranking the 30 MLB teams on my watch - San Francisco Giants #11 of 30

Buster Posey's numbers at the plate fell off a bit after having an MVP season in 2012 - maybe he was a bit hurt or banged up, but a healthy Posey obviously goes a long way in dictating how the Giants do in the next few years.

Even when the Giants crashed in 2013, their front office has proven they can make some savvy moves with the money to make up for any mistakes in signing particular free agents that go bust - so they'll probably retool the pitching staff and try to contend with the Los Angeles Dodgers and Arizona Diamondbacks in 2014.

Starting pitcher Tim Lincecum was re-signed and has extended his stay in San Francisco - but may never get back into the superstar form that made him 'The Freak' and his numbers as he turns 30 maybe 'as is.'

Lincecum overpowered hitters in his prime - now it's about battling himself, battling his control and trying to keep things in check on a start by start basis.

The seemingly metronomic Matt Cain had an off year - though his numbers besides his wins/losses and overall ERA seem to indicate he didn't have such a terrible season, especially in the second half.

Out of some of the pitching woes the Giants suffered, soft spoken Madison Bumgarner emerged as their ace this past season - putting together a fine year with just over 200 innings pitched, with just about the same number of batters struck out while allowing only 146 hits.