Pitching and Defense Reign

First, congratulations to the 2010 San Francisco Giants on winning their first World Series since moving from New York in the 1950s.  Second, how?  I'm not a believer in the phrase 'pitching and defense win championships.'  I guess it worked for the Giants, though, who shut down the Rangers offense in this Series probably making that more important than anything either team did offensively.  Once in Texas, the Giants allowed only five runs in the three games, and the Giants won two of three of those.  The Giants also won the last two games, allowing only one run and scoring seven.  After being shut out only once in the regular season at home (to Dallas Braden of the Oakland A's) in 81 games, Madison Bumgarner shut out the Giants for eight innings before giving way to the bullpen.  The very next night was between Tim Lincecum and Cliff Lee and a pitching duel that ensued was supposed to happen in Game 1, but didn't.  Lincecum beat Lee for the second time thanks the Series MVP Edgar Renteria's three-run homer in the 7th inning which put the Rangers away.  The Rangers got one run back, but the bullpen contained the Texas offense that was so key against the Yankees.  Brian Wilson, the closer, came on and struck out Nelson Cruz on a high fastball to end it, doing his trademark cross hand finger pointing before celebrating on the mound with his mobbing teammates.

Main thought about this series and the Giants run: it came out of nowhere.  I didn't feel like the Giants were a serious contender to win it all in the beginning of the postseason, but they did win it with pitching.  This feeling can be compared to the 2006 Cardinals, a team that was awful late in the season and still squeezed into the playoffs.  Somehow, they beat San Diego, New York, and Detroit that fast and won the World Series, although they probably deserved it less than anyone else in the playoffs.  I didn't expect them to win but once they did they were off and running and the sports media swirled and swirled around them, much like the Giants.  They just kept winning and testing everyone's judgment to see how long this thing would keep going.  The Giants beat the Braves in what wasn't an upset, but a series with a lot of historical significance due to Bobby Cox retiring and such.  The Giants certainly upset the Phillies in six games and that was just incredible.  Sports analysts didn't give anyone else in the National League a chance because of the 'Big Three' of Roy Halladay, Cole Hamels, and Roy Oswalt.  However, this Giants team proved that a team doesn't need big names to pitch well; what they did using Matt Cain, Jonathan Sanchez, and Madison Bumgarner was just incredible.  And to that I salute them.  Something else the Giants did really well is come through late in the game in clutch at-bats.  San Francisco scored 12 in the 8th inning combined through the Series, tying the Rangers total output through all innings.  The Giants put up runs in the 7th and/or 8th in every game.  And while the Giants certainly have no stars on offense like the Rangers do in Josh Hamilton and more, it's just a great bunch of guys put together who have talent and give the team great at-bats and do their best to put something together.  It is an all-team production, also known as teamwork.  Plenty of teams in baseball should be taking notes on this, as the wisdom is clearly abundant.