San Francisco Giants dangle on the precipice of clinching their first pennant since 2002. And tonight? Could be the night. National League Championship Series Game 5, set for a 4:57 first pitch, starts at 4:30 p.m. on FOX (Channel 2). And just like Game 1, Tim Lincecum will go up against Roy Halladay.

Speaking of Timmy, he has much of love for this ragtag city many of us call home. Behold:

"Even in my mistakes and my faults, the things I've said wrong or done wrong, they've accepted me and still rooted us on and rooted myself on," Lincecum said to Sports Illustrated. "I can't say enough about this city. It's been great to me, the way people have embraced me."

Not to be outdone, Brian "Fear the Beard" Wilson had this to say about San Francisco: "We represent this city ... It's bigger than ourselves."

Not sure where to watch the game? Go here, here, and here for answers. (Further suggestions are welcomed in the comments.)

Below: Live coverage on the street, interviews, fan reactions, etc. starting at 4 p.m.

A's 5 Red Sox 4- Let's see here, according to the paper, this game included: a Red Sox two-run two-out rally in the ninth, the A's blowing a bases loaded no-out situation in the ninth, Mark Ellis going for the cycle, Bobby Crosby throwing someone out at the plate in the 10th, and, finally, a walk-off home run by Eric Chavez in the 11th inning to finally win the game for the A's.

Phew.

Giants 8 Phillies 1- If you were to sum up the Giants offense these days, it would be the phrase "feast or famine." The team seems to either smack the ball around or go meekly into the good night. Yesterday, the Giants team feasted with eight runs, including an improbable (for them) five run, two-out rally in the fifth. The recipient of all this was Barry Zito who is now 6-5 and has an ERA of 3.87. It wasn't easy for Zito as he was pretty wild, but still managed to pull out of it. Kind of like when he dated Alyssa Milano.

Phillies 9 Giants 8- We were actually driving home when the ninth inning started with the Giants down by 1. Just as we were about to get to our garage, two Giants batters got on base and we were now faced with a decision between parking and missing the rest of the inning versus driving around and listening to the inning. So we drove around. When the Giants half of the inning was over and they had tied the game, we parked. But by the time we got to our apartment, a walk that only takes a few minutes, the game was over. Once again, the bullpen coughed up a hairball, blowing a 7-3 lead and thus ending a completely miserable road trip.

A's 4 Twins 2- Normally, you'd think that the anemic A's offense would wilt when facing Johan Santana but the A's somehow did what they do and muddled through and beat him. Chad Gaudin threw down for five innings and the A's bullpen held on for the rest of the game, pitching four innings of no-run ball-- pretty impressive considering two of their big hosses are still on the DL. Gaudin wasn't as sharp as he's been, but neither was Santana. As for the offense, it was Nick Swish who did the most damage.

We've given up our dislike of this whole interleague baseball thing years ago when we realized that things like the Yankees coming to town for a series against the Gints is a pretty cool thing. The same with a set in Fenway also coming this summer. As for the yearly Melee by the Bay, we've sort of acquired a feeling of meh towards the whole thing. It's done every year so there's really not that much of a difference between this series and, say, a Giants/Phillies series or an A's/Indians series.

Well, maybe it’s a bit more exciting than that.

Part of it is because there's no real animosity between fans of the teams or an intense rivalry going on between them. Sure, the front offices probably throw spitballs at each other at league meetings and, sure, Giants fans may think A's fans are non-existent at best and habitués of Antioch at the worst while A's fans think Giants fans are fair weather corporate Yuppies out schmoozing clients at the site of a team that hasn't won anything on this side of the Mississippi River, but it's not that intense. But who cares about us? As the stadiums are packed on both sides of the Bay, the front offices have to pretty happy with these things.

Needless to say, this should be an interesting series because, as we said earlier, both teams are in a way similar and completely dissimilar at the same time. Similar because they both feature excellent starting pitching and rather weak offenses (both teams seem to play one run games everytime they step on the field). Opposite because the A's philosophy is to go with a bunch of young kids and "who the hell is that guy" players while the Giants' philosophy is to go with a bunch of old geezers and "does he still play?" players and throw them on the back of Barry Lamar.

The real question for this series is will anyone actually score any runs. Both teams have their aces going and these look like the kind of games managers call for bunts in the early innings because one run could be enough to win the game. Our prediction? Offense galore just because whenever everyone talks about the pitching, the hitters go nuts. The other thing of interest is that, yes, tonight's game will have Barry Zito facing his old mates for the first time since he switched sides.

For those of you keeping score, here's the rotations for the series

Zito vs. Gaudin
Cain vs Haren
Morris vs. Kennedy

Let the games begin

You may not be interested in strategy, but strategy is interested in, you.
To a man we are told is the smartest man in baseball, Tony LaRussa, who finally overcame years of being the most annoying and most overrated manager in baseball to not choke and win a non-earthquake related World Championship.

Where force is necessary, there it must be applied boldly, decisively and completely. But one must know the limitations of force; one must know when to blend force with a maneuver, a blow with an agreement.
The Phillies, Mets and Indians all have kick-ass offenses yet questionable pitching. Didn't Marx say that good pitching beats good hitting everytime? Or was that Stengel.

Fascism is nothing but capitalist reaction.
Fascism comes out of a result of the failures of capitalism. True socialism could never approcah fascism because the fate of the working class is in their hands. Sort of like the collective bargaining agreement.

“Technique is noticed most markedly in the case of those who have not mastered it.”
Supposedly, the Detroit Tigers pitchers spent a lot of time this spring training learning how to cover the bag.

As this disheartening, dispiriting, and disillusioning Giants' baseball season comes to a close, it is quite possible that there is still a chance that this season could be saved, redeemed even. For all could be forgiven, all forgotten, with just one act, one thing, one simple, simple thing-- knocking the Dodgers out of the playoffs.

Here's the setup: The Dodgers are a game behind the Padres in the division, two games ahead of the Phillies in the Wild Card race. It's impossible to know what sort of combination of games that could happen that would lead to the elimination of the Dodgers but let's just say the Giants need to just win, baby. Anything else and a sight virtually anathema to Giants fans everywhere will happen, that being watching the Dodgers (and Jeff Kent!) celebrate in the Giants' yard.

This morning while drinking our coffee and surfing the Web, we went to Deadspin and saw this little blurb about Giants' fans treatment of Phillies pitcher Brett Myers. Myers was cited for taking a few swings at his wife and in typical jock-land style, was treated by kid gloves by his employers and the rest of Major League Baseball. Yesterday was Myers first day back from his tiny, tiny suspension and we guess didn't get booed vociferously enough for some people. Thus the Deadspin post, snarking on us Giants fans. That's followed by the usual snide comments about hippies, overwrought political correctness, and too many lame-ass corporate fans.

All this is fine and well except for the fact Myers did get booed. Pretty loudly too. Not Tommy Lasorda booed, but booed. How do we know this? Because we were at the game. And because we kept on wondering why Myers was getting booed until we remembered that one of the Phillies pitchers did a bad thing and the pitcher who did the bad thing was on the mound for the Phils.

So why didn't we boo as loudly as we apparently were supposed to? Well, you know how people in the East Coast keep on telling us West Coasters that if it doesn't happen on the North Eastern sea board, it doesn't matter to them? Well, two can play at that game-- if it doesn't happen within the Bay Area, it doesn't matter to us. Myers is merely a mediocre pitcher on a mediocre team-- why should we notice? It's not like what happened to Myers was that played up in the media either-- we only knew about it because Deadspin wrote about it. As far as we know, it wasn't plastered all over ESPN and endlessly discussed on "PTI" or "Around the Horn" (dear God, Larry Brown just spoke to the NY Post again!!!!!) or talked about that much in the local news media either. As it happened to somebody who doesn't play for the Yankees or Sox, nobody cares as much. And considering we dropped two more at home, our bullpen blew yet another game, and WWIII just broke out, we got bigger things to worry about than bringing justice to some random pitcher. No, we don't boo like they do on the East Coast but, well, we don't have winters or an overabundance of snotty Ivy Leaguers either. There are reasons why most of the people in the Bay Area are made up of people who originally came from the East Coast.

Besides, what were we supposed to do, greet Myers with pitchforks and torches? And isn't making fun of the fans at Phone Company Park our jobs?

PS-- if you haven't seen it, "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" is an evil gem of a TV show. It's brils.

SFist Jackson: I'm predicting Oakland and New York in the ALCS this year, and am looking for the Phillies to take on the Cardinals in the NLCS. Oakland looks really strong this year, and you can't keep Steinbrenner down for long (the rat bastard). The Phils have been pouring money into their team for a few years now, and along with the Cards have the most pop in the National League.

The two teams I'll be watching closest both look to have a long season ahead of them, and for entirely different reasons. Ichiro proved he's still the most exciting player in baseball at the WBC, but with chumps like Raul Ibanez and Carl Everett clogging the lineup and mucking around the outfield, a once solid pitching-and-defense small ball team is now a schizophrenic mess. The Giants, on the other hand, are going to be the Barry Bonds show, and not at all in the good way. As one of my old teammates joked when the coach reminded us there's no 'I' in team: "But there is a 'me.'" Plus their pitching, save for Schmidt, blows and the heart of the lineup is once again brought to you by the AARP.

Seriously, I'm looking at the A's to dominate the AL West assuming they can get off to a good start, and have a feeling that Milton Bradley is going to have a career year with the likes of Frank Thomas in the clubhouse, who I imagine was eating a lot of humble pie in the dugout during the World Series. Plus their pitching is the class of the league again, assuming Barry Zito can keep his head straight (and his curveball down). The only negative I see would be that if they did get to the playoffs, I wouldn't have a lot of confidence in Ken Macha's ability as a field general