Why the Giants are awesome and can beat the Phillies

I've lurked for a long time here, but never posted -- hopefully this gets everyone a little more fired up!

Can the Giants beat the Phillies?

The sabermetrician in me says that the Phillies are better. That their "true talent level" is higher, that over the course of 162+ games, their second-order Pythagorean win percentage would be higher. That when you average each team’s starting lineup’s wOBA for this season, although the Phillies 8 position starters would have a .353 wOBA and the Giants starting 8 would remarkably boast a .351 wOBA (assuming, incorrectly, that Sandoval starts), that regression to the mean would hold true and that the Phillies’ starting wOBA would rise dramatically.

But the sabermetrician in me also screams small sample size. That anything can happen in a best-of-seven series. That while the Phillies will try to bludgeon us with their starting 8 and possibly a Ben Francisco sighting, plus-sized headed Bruce Bochy will utilize every Nate Schierholtz defensive replacement and Travis Ishikawa pinch appearance to eke out the maximal advantage for us. That Matt Cain’s and his career HR/FB rate’s (7.0%) refusal to regress to the established mean (~11%) may inspire the rest of the Giants to defy sabermetrics and pull off the upset.

Ah, but the Giants also have one additional element in their favor – the Giants are fucking awesome. Why are these Giants different from previous years’ Giants? Well, the Giants are fun to root for. We have overtaken Oregon as the highest per capita rate of bearded men. We somehow make torture fun. We have embraced a freaking Rally Thong. Bless Barry’s soul, because I inexplicably love him to death, but save one Paula Abdul sighting, can you ever see that happening a few years ago?

Instead, we have a bunch of loonies. Offensively, we have a pair of wily water buffalo. We have a gazelle who is like Shane Victorino, but better and less annoying. We may have the plumpest starting playoff SS of all-time, and yet we have a Panda who manages to make him look small. And best of all, we have the golden boy, who hits everything, handles the best staff in baseball, and does it all in his rookie season.

And that staff? We have a whole bullpen of bearded men, all of whom throw gas or Frisbee sliders and are allergic to giving up runs. We have an eccentric starter, who sucks, gets paid a ton of money, and cheerleads. We also have a more eccentric, FREAKier starter, who is FREAKing fantastic, gets paid a little less money, and who also cheerleads, but with more exciting f-bombs. We have our Southern, country strong starters who throw hard, don’t say much, and just care about winning. And then we have the wild card, who I think everyone initially didn’t really know how to feel about because he’s kind of aloof, but now he’s matured into someone just so damn scary good that we all love him.

So while the media drinks up the Phillies’ H2O (bad pun) starting trio and universally writes the Phillies into the World Series, it is time for every Giants player to play with the chip on the shoulder that they’ve carried throughout their careers (except for Buster Posey) -- too small, too wild, too fat, too old, too slow, too… crappy.

And the last element of Giants awesomeness? Us – the fans. I just moved home from six long, torturous years in Los Angeles. Let me tell you, those fans suck. Not simply because they’re Dodger fans who misguidedly root for Satan’s offspring, but because they attend four innings out of nine and are too concerned with beach balls and instigating gang wars than baseball. I move home and find the Bay Area rabid – beards and awesome YouTube remakes of Journey songs. We suffered. We endured. We want it. Let our boys hear it.

So why can’t this be the year of the Giants? Improbable, maybe. But impossible, no.

GO GIANTS!!!