Let me preface all of this by saying that I am an A’s fan who grew up despising the San Francisco Giants. I still do. The only time I could ever possibly root for the Giants is if they play in a World Series against the Angels…and even that would be more of a ‘happy to see the Angels lose’ than a ‘happy to see the Giants win’ type of deal.

The Giants run over the past five seasons has been dreadful as an A’s fan. Seriously, they are the bane of my existence. Every insult you can try and throw at me for saying that is absolutely spot-on.

“You mad, bro?” Yep.

“Jealous much?” Absolutely.

“Don’t hate greatness.” Too late for that.

“The A’s suck.” Totes.

Watching the Giants be so successful over the last half decade hasn’t stopped being gut-wrenching. You want to know what my version of “torture” is? San Francisco, the now successful , older brother to Oakland has become nothing short of a dynasty while the A’s have become a MLB Postseason punch line. And it’s awful. I can’t even check social media without wanting to drop kick a small penguin off the top of the Golden Gate Bridge.

That being said…

The Giants run over the past five seasons has been absolutely incredible as a baseball fan.

I’m fairly certain that if I was not an A’s fan (or Dodgers fan), I would be in unabashed awe of this ball club.

While I can’t stand watching that team win, there’s a larger part of me that respects it to the fullest. They’ve built a dynasty from essentially the ground up. Everyone hates the Yankees because the Yankees “buy” their championships- the Giants have done just the opposite. Lots of home-grown talent, some minor free agent signings and 24 metric tons of team chemistry.

And what’s crazy (just regular crazy, not Hunter Pence crazy) is that this year’s team is even more impressive than either of their last two World Series champions.

They’ve managed to trek back to the World Series (as the second Wild Card team, mind you) without their starting centerfielder and one of their best two starting pitchers. Not to mention the fact Tim Lincecum has become a non-factor, bullpen or otherwise.

When Angel Pagan went down for the year, it looked like the Giants might be done. He really seemed like the catalyst for their success. They fell apart when he went down with a leg injury last year, and didn’t play particularly well without him this year. Certainly not well enough to go to the World Series, anyway.

Their rotation also looked shaky going in. Madison Bumgarner is nails, but with no Matt Cain, there were several question marks in Ryan Vogelsong, Jake Peavy and Tim Hudson. Surely if they couldn’t pitch, they wouldn’t be able to scrape enough runs together to win.

They also went without a starting second baseman for about half the year. That spot in their lineup was such an enormous heaping pile of dinosaur feces that they brought in Dan Uggla to fill the void. DAN. UGGLA. THE TEAM THAT WILLINGLY EMPLOYED DAN UGGLA AT ONE POINT IS IN THE WORLD SERIES. Alas, they settled on 2011 first round pick Joe Panik for the final 73 games.

A lot of things pointed towards the Giants not doing much in the postseason this year. But since they’re ridiculously good at pulling themselves up from the ashes (ask the 2012 Reds and Cardinals), they figured out a way to put it all together.

The starting rotation stepped up. Yusmeiro Petit, who was left out of the playoff rotation, was nothing short of magnificent in relief. He gave up 2 hits and 4 walks, with 11 strikeouts in 9 innings of work. Panik played solid defense and came up with a huge two-run home run in the clinching game of the NLCS.

And the loss of Angel Pagan proved not to be as big of a deal as Gregor Blanco manned centerfield and former Giants castoff turned Brewer turned Oriole turned Yankee turned Pirate turned Giant again, Travis Ishikawa, hit well enough to become the team’s left fielder. He played in 47 games for San Francisco this year, and went on to hit the walk-off home run that clinched the NL Pennant. Oh- and how did the Giants tie the game? A pinch-hit home run by Michael Morse who was coming off an injury, played one game in September and had just three previous at-bats in the postseason. Go figure.

That’s sort of the essence of what San Francisco has done over these five years. They are, as corny as this sounds, the embodiment of a winning as a team.

I haven’t been able to turn off a close Giants game in 5 years. I’m completely glued to the TV when it’s a two or three run game in the 9th. Granted, I’m typically rooting for them to lose, but they rarely do. But that’s not the point right now.

The point is that every night it’s somebody different for the Giants. Obviously you have your consistent performers like Buster Posey and Hunter Pence, but just look at the playoffs. The big blow in the Wild Card game came in the form of a Brandon Crawford grand slam.

The 18 inning marathon in game two of the division series against the Nationals saw Petit be lights out for 6 innings of relief and then Brandon Belt hit the game-winning home run.

The championship series it was Bumgarner’s stellar pitching in game one, Blanco hustling down the line to force an errant throw that scored the winning run in game three and, of course, Ishikawa in game five.

Like it or not, this is a well-built baseball team with a hall of fame manager and a bunch of guys that know how to put it together when it matters. As a baseball fan, whether you’re pulling for the Giants or not, it is captivating theater.

The San Francisco Giants are putting together a run that will be talked about forever, and as much as I may hate it, I respect the hell out of it.

Now- Go Royals.