Even-Year Magic: The Giants Dynasty of the Early 2010s

Three World Series titles in five seasons, all in even years, built by a manager who trusted his gut and a cast of characters the city fell in love with.

The San Francisco Giants waited more than half a century for a World Series title after moving west from New York. Then, once the door finally opened, they walked through it three times in five years. The championships of 2010, 2012, and 2014 did not just end a drought. They created a dynasty, and they did it in the most Giants way imaginable: weird, stubborn, and impossible to count out.

2010: the drought ends

The 2010 team was a collection of castoffs and misfits that the city adored. They called themselves a band of nobodies, leaned on a starting rotation full of young arms, and rode it all the way to the franchise's first championship since 1954. In the World Series they beat the Texas Rangers in five games, with veteran Edgar Renteria delivering the decisive blow and taking home Series MVP honors. For a fan base that had suffered through so many near misses, the first parade down Market Street felt like something out of a dream.

At the center of it, quietly, was a rookie catcher named Buster Posey. He would become the face of the franchise, the steady hand behind the plate and in the clubhouse who tied all three of these teams together. If you want one thread running through the whole dynasty, it is number 28 crouched behind home plate, running the show.

2012: the comeback kids

If 2010 was a surprise, 2012 was a test of will. That team faced elimination again and again in the playoffs and simply refused to lose, storming back from the brink in both the division series and the championship series before reaching the World Series. Once there, they did not just win, they dominated, sweeping the Detroit Tigers in four straight.

The signature moment belonged to Pablo Sandoval, the beloved Kung Fu Panda, who launched three home runs in Game 1, two of them off the Tigers ace Justin Verlander, on the way to being named World Series MVP. It was the kind of performance that turns a good player into a folk hero, and it captured everything fans loved about those teams. They were loose, they were fearless, and the bigger the moment, the more fun they seemed to have.

2014: the legend of MadBum

The 2014 title might be the most impressive of the three, because of one man. Madison Bumgarner authored one of the greatest postseason pitching performances the sport has ever seen. He was untouchable in the earlier rounds, and then, in a World Series against the Kansas City Royals that went the full seven games, he came out of the bullpen on two days of rest to throw five shutout innings and slam the door in the deciding game. He was named Series MVP, and the performance instantly became part of baseball folklore.

That Game 7 save is the kind of thing that gets passed down. Grown fans in the Bay still talk about it the way earlier generations talked about famous World Series moments, with a mix of disbelief and pride. It was the perfect ending to a five-year run that nobody in San Francisco will ever forget.

The men who made it

You cannot tell this story without Bruce Bochy, the manager whose calm, old-school feel for the game guided all three championship clubs. He trusted his players, made the bold move when it counted, and got the absolute most out of rosters that were rarely the most talented on paper. Around him, Posey anchored, Bumgarner dominated in October, Sandoval and a rotating cast of lovable role players delivered the moments, and the whole thing added up to something far bigger than the sum of its parts.

The even-year pattern became a running joke and then a genuine piece of Bay Area folklore. Three titles in 2010, 2012, and 2014, each one built differently, each one delivered when it seemed least likely. Oracle Park has been chasing that feeling ever since, and every October the ghosts of that dynasty remind the city exactly how high the bar was set.

• 2010Beat the Texas Rangers in five, Edgar Renteria named Series MVP
• 2012Swept the Detroit Tigers, Pablo Sandoval’s three home runs in Game 1
• 2014Beat the Kansas City Royals in seven, Bumgarner’s Game 7 save

• First San Francisco World Series title since the move west
• Sandoval’s three-homer Game 1 in the 2012 World Series
• Bumgarner’s five scoreless innings on two days’ rest in Game 7
• Three championship parades in five seasons under Bruce Bochy

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