How Vogelsong, Giants pitchers were offended by 2012 WS graphic originally appeared on NBC Sports Bayarea
The Giants made easy work of the Detroit Tigers during the 2012 World Series, sweeping the AL champions in four games.
For a team that had Justin Verlander and Miguel Cabrera, losing in four games was a surprise; however, the Tigers might have to place some blame on a FOX Sports graphic for providing San Francisco with bulletin board material.
As the Giants’ 2012 World Series team was honored on Saturday at Oracle Park before the 2-0 win over the Pittsburgh Pirates, plenty of stories surfaced from the iconic fall run nearly a decade ago.
Former Giants starting pitcher Ryan Vogelsong spoke with NBC Sports Bay Area’s Alex Pavlovic prior to the ceremony and was asked about the double check mark advantage that the FOX Sports graphic gave the Tigers’ starting rotation over the Giants.
“So, you know, down in our dugout over here,” Vogelsong told Pavlovic. “Well, bullpens underneath, so that TV is always on the game feed. I remember standing in that little tunnel there before Game 1, and that came up, and I saw that, and I just remember going, ‘oh, really?’ “
Furthermore, Vogelsong recalled discussing the graphic with former Giants starting pitcher Madison Bumgarner, who also took it as motivation ahead of Game 1 against the Tigers.
“I think [Bumgarner] was standing next to me because Barry [Zito] was pitching,” Vogelsong added. “And I was like, ‘You see that?’ And he was like, ‘yeah, I see it.’ We took offense to it because we knew how good we were.
“We knew that what we had done through the year, what we had done the previous year, and we knew how good we were, but we knew no one else knew how good we were because we’re a West Coast team.”
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The series eventually would see Detroit’s starting rotation struggle as Verlander recorded an 11.25 ERA, with Max Scherzer posting a 4.26 ERA in the four-game sweep. Meanwhile, Bumgarner and Vogelsong each had 0.00 ERAs, and the head-scratching graphic might have played some role in motivating each of their performances.
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