I think you're rough riding over some significant details there to promote a cliche. Having a 23 year old college graduate in the AZL is likely to promote such results.  It does nothing however to suggest that in the long run (which is all the AZL is about) Wild will be a good pitcher.

Honestly, things happen in playoffs and "good pitching beats good hitting" doesn't really do a very thorough job of explaining it.  Would you really try to tell me the Cardinals (who's pitching staff wafted a toxic trail all over America for the final two months of the season last year) shut down the Mets because "good pitching beats good hitting"? Did Jeff Weaver magically transmogrify into a "good pitcher" for one month of the last two years?  

Baseball has been trending toward higher and higher run totals and higher and higher HR totals for decades now and trotting out cliches doesn't make it any easier to win without an offense.

Sometimes good pitching stops good hitting; other times good hitting stops good pitching.  It can work either way.

I've forgotten the details, but Bill James did a study of batter/pitcher matchups years ago, and found that the outcome of these matchups generally hewed closer to the batter's stats than the pitcher's. In other words, there's evidence that the cliché is entirely wrong, and in fact good hitting beats good pitching.

I'm sorry rx, but that's just insipid. Jeff Suppan is the definition of a league average pitcher in every way stats can measure (career 101 ERA+ is a good one though), and if he's the best manifestation of the trite "good pitching beats good hitting ever time" saying, my mind reels that any team's ever been able to score in postseason.  He was somehow not the embodiment of that saying while he was getting his brains beat in vs. the Red Sox in '04 I guess (nor while getting knocked around by the Pads in the series before the Mets).  The Mets were also shut down pretty well in that series by the immortal likes of Josh Kinney and Randy Flores.

Since you clearly don't like stats, let me pose this anecdotal question, how is it that the Atlanta Braves, running three consecutive HOF pitchers out in their rotation every year for over a decade managed to lose so many World Series?

The Cardinals also beat Detroit last year because they scored 21 runs in their four wins.

The Cardinals finished 9th in NL ERA during the regular season, so it could hardly be said that they had good pitching.  Their pitching merely got hot at the right time -- enabling one of the worst World Series teams of all time to become world champions.

In a best-of-seven tournament, the better team wins, what maybe 60% of the time?  This wasn't one of those times.

I would agree with you.  And the reason I would do so is that even the greatest lineups have a few spots that are less than great.

With Santana, one might have to worry about the relievers (although I could live with Joe Nathan :), but as long as Johan is pitching, the best pitcher in the game is on the hill.

Not every batter against him will be the best in the game -- or even the best at his position.

One thing of beauty for the Giants is that it is possible that five years from now we will feel similarly about Tim Lincecum as we now do about Johan Santana.

I would take Johan's 23-year-old season over Tim's season this year.  But Johan also had the advantage of making nearly half his appearances from the bullpen, where he didn't need to pace himself as much.  And his 23-year-old season was also the third year he had appeared in the majors.  Johan's ERA his two previous years had been 6.49 and 4.74.

Johan had a surprising 15 wild pitches in just 108 innings as a 23-year-old.  He has never had more than eight in any other season.  Yet he hit only one batter.  This season Tim has had 10 wild pitches in 130 innings -- and hit one batter.

Both pitchers did a great job of keeping hitters from getting hits and of striking batters out.  Tim actually walked slightly fewer hitters per nine innings, while giving up slighly more home runs.

Tim actually has the precise number of strikeouts as Santana had in Johan's 23-year-old season -- although he garnered them in 22 more innings.

If we compare Tim's first SEASON in the majors to that of Johan, there is little comparison.  But then, Johan was also two years younger.  Phil Hughes of the Yankees, generally thought of as the #1 pitching prospect entering this season, has struggled a bit at the age of 21.  And Homer Bailey, ranked #2 by most, has truly struggled.

And I think the Giants should GIVE that huge raise to Zito -- as soon as Barry repays his salary deficit prior to those three games.  :)