Giants don't plan to rest on laurels

ARLINGTON, Texas

It is my favorite moment of the year, the moment when the pent-up emotion of 162 games and a month-long postseason leaves one team in a state of bliss.

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The champagne-soaked celebrations are fine — a silly but much-loved tradition — but the faces of the players after they return to the field to celebrate with friends and family are indelible.

Tired faces.

Faces that radiate joy, relief and accomplishment.

It is so hard to win. So hard to win a World Series, so hard to even win a single regular-season game. The Giants went 56 years without a Series title, 52 years without one in San Francisco. And who knows when their next one will be?

Leave it to rookie catcher Buster Posey, a 23-year-old who plays like he’s 33, to find the proper perspective. Posey, you see, grew up a Braves fan in Leesburg, Ga. He understands the vagaries of baseball, of postseason play.

“I watched the Braves win 14 division titles, but only one World Series,” Posey said. “Believe me, I realize what this means. I can’t put it into words, but I know exactly what it means.”

Tim Lincecum applied the final dagger to the Rangers on Monday night, pitching eight suffocating innings in the Game 5 clincher, a 3-1 victory over Cliff Lee. Matt Cain, Madison Bumgarner, Lincecum — each authored his own masterpiece in the Series, and Jonathan Sanchez might have, too, if only he had not worn down.

Get used to seeing these guys. They’re not going anywhere.

The Giants can keep Cain and Sanchez through 2012, Lincecum and closer Brian Wilson through ’13, Bumgarner and Posey through ’16. It’s a heck of a nucleus, the envy of rival clubs. But the Giants, better than most teams, understand that the future is not guaranteed.

It is so hard to win. It can take so long. The Giants lost the World Series in 1962, ’89 and 2002, the NLCS in 1971 and ’87, the Division Series in ’97, 2000 and ’03. All those other seasons in San Francisco, they didn’t even make the postseason.

Brian Sabean, the game’s longest-tenured general manager, took over in ’96. I asked him if there was added satisfaction knowing that he had built something to last. He said he appreciated the compliment, then flatly rejected the question’s premise.

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“We’ll see,” he said. “Every organization is year to year. You can’t be in this game, sit down and claim you’ve got a three-to-five year plan. You see how things evolve.”

They evolved in almost storybook fashion this season. Almost every move by Sabean produced an incremental benefit. Almost every decision by manager Bruce Bochy, particularly in the postseason, produced the desired result.

The Giants were lucky and good, the way a team needs to be in October. The “baseball wheel of fortune,” as Sabean calls it, can spin any which way. Sabean said it repeatedly: This was the Giants’ time.

Next season, who knows?

“Our job in the offseason and next year is to build on this,” owner Bill Neukom said. “All teams try to improve themselves significantly. Some fall back. Some build. We want to be builders.”

But inevitably, some tinkering must take place.

Three of the Giants’ Series heroes — shortstop Edgar Renteria, first baseman Aubrey Huff and infielder Juan Uribe — are free agents, as is outfielder Pat Burrell.

Outfielder Aaron Rowand, owed $27.2 million over the next two seasons, could be moved in the same type of deal that the Dodgers made with Juan Pierre last winter. The Giants also need to figure out what to do with their overweight third baseman, Pablo Sandoval.

Infielder/outfielder Mark DeRosa will return from injury. First-base prospect Brandon Belt, a gifted left-handed hitter, could make an impact. The Giants again will value the versatility that served them so well, seeking interchangeable parts.

The pitching staff, 11-4 with a 2.47 ERA in the postseason, will return almost entirely intact. But the bullpen might not be as good, given the volatility of relievers. And even the rotation might not be as effective, given the starters’ additional workloads. Lincecum ended up throwing 249 1/3 innings, Cain 244 2/3, Sanchez 213 1/3.

Then again, the Giants’ top four starters are all 27 and under. Cain and Sanchez are entering their primes; Bumgarner is in his pre-prime. Conceivably, each could get better, difficult as this is to imagine.

“What’s better mean?” pitching coach Dave Righetti asked. “You win a championship. That’s what you build everything for.

“I want each guy to enjoy his career, pitch eight to 10 years, make some money. I also want them to go through the trials and tribulations that a pitcher has to go through — getting kicked around, then being able to handle adversity.

“That’s all I hope for each guy. Then, when you catch lightning in a bottle team-wise, you can reap the benefits.”

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Which is exactly what happened to the 2010 Giants, who rallied to overtake the Padres in the NL West, beat the depleted Braves in the Division Series, then stymied two strong offensive clubs — the Phillies and Rangers — in the NLCS and World Series.

At the end, the scene was like none other.

The players returned to the field with the World Series trophy after the clubhouse celebration, talking with reporters, posing for photographs with family, lingering casually with friends.

A sizable contingent of Giants fans gathered behind the dugout, chanting, “Thank you Gi-ants!” and “Bus-ter Po-sey” in the way that Yankees fans chant, “De-rek Je-ter.”

Posey is the Giants’ Jeter, a rare talent who will set high standards, forcing others to follow his lead. The starting pitchers should, at the very least, keep the Giants competitive. But no rational baseball person thinks that way.

It’s so hard to win. When it happens, you don’t ask questions, you don’t forget the past, you don’t look into the future.

You just revel in the moment, knowing it is fleeting.

You just enjoy.