Edgar Renteria, the Most Valuable Player of the World Series, kept coming back to the same one-word description after the Giants’ clinching victory Monday night.
“Unbelievable,” he said, over and over. “Unbelievable.”
All of it seemed like a hazy dream, from Renteria’s three-run home run in the seventh inning to the shiny MVP trophy dampened with his tears and smudged with his fingerprints — a scene dripping with emotion that nobody saw coming for a 35-year-old shortstop whose broken body looked as if it might not survive the season.
Turns out, Renteria’s story is more unbelievable than anyone knew.
Amid the dewy celebration, Giants trainer Dave Groeschner revealed that Renteria came within an eyelash of being replaced on the postseason roster after popping his left biceps tendon in Game 2 of the NL division series against the Atlanta Braves.
Renteria sat in an MRI chamber at 1:30 a.m. on Oct. 9, assuming his season — and probably his career — was over.
“We were talking about what we’d do on the roster,” Groeschner said. “It was torn all the way through.”
The circumstances of the injury made it seem all the more fated. Renteria initially sustained a partially torn biceps tendon Aug. 5 at Atlanta, when he took a swing and lined out on a 97 mph fastball from Braves closer Billy Wagner. Renteria tried to play despite the inflammation, but the injury sent him to the disabled list a few days later.
It was Renteria’s third trip to the D.L. this season, each time for a different reason. He also had a recurring hamstring pull, a strained groin and right-elbow inflammation at various points, limiting him to 62 starts. He even moved his locker to the other side of the clubhouse in July, hoping to change his mojo.
It seemed to be a lost season for Renteria. His only highlight was a scorching opening week in April that included a five-hit game at Houston and a tying, two-run home run in the ninth inning April 9 — off Wagner, of all people — to force extra innings in what became a dramatic, home-opening victory.
He talked openly of retirement, but when asked bluntly in July if he had anything left, he responded with a gleam in his eye.
“Myself, I am too proud,” he responded. “I always say if I can’t play this game, I’d be home. But I can help this team win.”
Renteria received a cortisone shot and came back from the biceps injury on Sept. 4, but he started only eight of the Giants’ final 27 games — mostly getting time against left-handers at the expense of third baseman Pablo Sandoval.
When Renteria pinch hit in the 10th inning of Game 2 against the Braves, he faced Wagner one more time. And in a magical coincidence, Renteria felt a searing pain while swinging through a first-pitch fastball. He had torn the tendon completely.
On the next pitch, Renteria put down a perfect bunt single — a play that fans and reporters lauded for its smarts even in the Giants’ eventual loss.
“But here’s the part that nobody knew,” Groeschner said. “He had to bunt. He couldn’t swing the bat.”
Making it all the stranger, Wagner’s career lasted one more batter; the retiring reliever injured his oblique muscle while making a pitch to Andres Torres. He did not pitch again.
The following morning might go down as the Giants’ greatest stroke of fortune since the Miracle of Coogan’s Bluff.
“Edgar came in and said, ‘You know, I don’t feel anything. I’m good to go.’ ” Groeschner said.
Is that a blessing? Magic? Some kind of cosmic force?
“Madness,” Groeschner said. “Just madness.”
Renteria’s left biceps now forms an unnatural bulge, but it’s a harmless curiosity. The tendon rolled down his forearm. No resistance, no pain. He was good to go.
But it took one more gutsy decision to get Renteria in the lineup. Giants manager Bruce Bochy benched Sandoval, deciding the club couldn’t risk his unpredictable defense at third base. Bochy gave a couple of playoff starts to Mike Fontenot, who proved to be fallible as well.
So Juan Uribe moved to third, and Renteria got a chance to be a World Series hero once more.
“It’s a twist of fate,” said Giants general manager Brian Sabean, who took so much grief for signing Renteria to a two-year, $18.5 million contract two winters ago. “He became the shortstop somewhat by default with Pablo’s failings.”
Bochy simply wanted a leader on the field.
“You know, he’s a guy all the players look up to,” Bochy said. “Once we got to that point, I knew I wanted to turn it over to him and put Juan at third base. That was our best club. I couldn’t have two better guys on the left side of the infield, the way they play, their experience, their composure. It’s all about winning with them.”
Renteria sent that message to his teammates Sept. 23 at Wrigley Field, when they stood a half-game back in the NL West and looked tight while scoring a total of one run in their previous two games.
In the cramped hitting cage beyond the ivy-covered wall and beneath the right-field bleachers, Renteria took the floor. He said it didn’t matter that he wasn’t playing every day. He would make any sacrifice to win another World Series, and he stood behind every person wearing a Giants uniform.
And he wept.
“He broke down, and we all broke down with him,” first baseman Aubrey Huff said. “Since then, I’ve wanted this more for him than anybody. What a leader he is.”
Renteria’s composure was challenged again as he took possession of perhaps the most unlikely MVP trophy in World Series history. During an interview with ESPN Deportes, he suddenly bent at the waist and covered his face, unable to hold back from sobbing.
Sabean, asked whom he was happiest for, mentioned Renteria’s name first, because “he deserves it. He’s a man’s man and as gracious as anyone could be in the clubhouse or on the field.”
But baseball is a business, and the Giants must make an emotional decision, if not a tactically difficult one. Less than 72 hours after Renteria hit the Giants’ biggest home run since Bobby Thomson’s “Shot Heard ‘Round the World,” they are expected to decline his $10.5 million option.
Renteria would receive a $500,000 buyout instead — a gold watch of sorts as he decides whether to retire and make what might rank as the grandest career exit in major league history.
Giants vice president Bobby Evans said the club would use every moment before Thursday’s 9 p.m. deadline before announcing the decision.
But Renteria is a Giant for at least one more day, and he will occupy a prime position in today’s parade down Market Street — an event that San Francisco fans have waited 53 years to witness.
Unbelievable.
For more on the Giants, see Andrew Baggarly’s Extra Baggs blog at blogs.mercurynews.com/extrabaggs.
