World Series legend and Baseball Tonight commentator Curt Schilling better go see a doctor today, because pigs are flying out of his butt.

Last night, Justin Verlander, Detroit Tigers ace and media darling, was shelled in Game 1 of the Fall Classic by a San Francisco Giants team that was all but dismissed by the baseball world heading into Wednesday’s showdown.

In the days leading up to last night’s severe beating at the hands of Giants’ third baseman Pablo Sandoval, a casual observer might have wondered why the rules allow a superior talent such as Verlander to throw to losers like the Giants.

 Immediately after San Francisco completed its pounding of the St. Louis Cardinals in Game 7 of the NLCS Monday night, Schilling let the fans know he couldn’t see a scenario in which the Giants could pull out a win. He even went so far as to say Game 1 was already in the bag for Detroit, since San Francisco’s lineup, apparently made up of third-grade T-ballers, wouldn’t be able to touch the superhuman Verlander.

“Justin Verlander has home-field advantage whenever he takes the ball. He has home-field advantage over whomever he is pitching against and whatever the opposing pitcher is,” Schilling said Monday. “You hear people use the term ‘once in a generation pitcher.’ That’s what we are watching now.”

MLB Network’s Harold Reynolds even said when he was interviewing Verlander early Wednesday he felt like he was “in the presence of greatness.”

Unfortunately for Schilling’s reputation, though, there’s a reason games are played on the field and not on paper.

Verlander suffered through the shortest outing of his season Wednesday as he was chased out after just the fourth inning, a frame in which he surrendered his second home run of the evening to Sandoval. The first came with two outs in the first inning on a 0-2 count when the Panda turned on a high-and-tight fastball. This wasn’t a mistake; Verlander was pitching specifically to the scouting report. Sandoval has had trouble turning on the escalator fastball all year long. Verlander just got beat.

I know, I couldn’t believe it, either.

The second was an opposite-field big fly on a pitch low and outside the zone. Not a bad pitch, just one that a hitter like Sandoval, who has so far made his name by expanding the strike zone, can handle with aplomb.

And that was the end of the night for the appointed king of this World Series. His final line? In 4.0 innings pitched, he gave up five earned runs on six hits.

This left it up to the Tigers’ bullpen, easily the shakiest part of their roster. Long story short, the team everyone on TV labeled as the “scrappy underdogs” came away with an 8-3 victory to take a 1-0 lead in the series.

After the game, the Baseball Tonight crew couldn’t believe what their eyes were taking in.

John Kruk, Schilling’s portly partner in crime, was thrilled San Francisco could find a way to get a win even though “they’re not even the most talented team left” in the postseason.

Where these guys get off disrespecting a team which has won the National League two of the past three years is beyond me. You would think from listening to these guys that the Giants don’t have a pitching staff anchored by two Cy Young award winners or a catcher in Buster Posey who’s a batting champion and presumptive MVP.

This is nothing new to long-time Giants fans, though. Anyone who remembers the 2010 World Series recalls how no one was supposed to beat then-Rangers’ lefty Cliff Lee, especially not the “gang of misfits” in the other dugout.

But Lee got bested by the Giants twice in five games.

Who knows where this pervasive anti-Giants attitude in the media comes from? Perhaps it really is the famous East Coast bias. Maybe people East of here think San Francisco is too liberal for anything manly like a championship-caliber baseball team to come out of it.

But with mere hours before the teams take the field for Game 2, I have a feeling the Giants are comfortable in the role they’ve always filled: the underdog.

Alex Grotewohl can be reached at [email protected].