FanPost

Did the Giants get lucky?

Before the start of the NLCS, every "expert" agreed that the Phillies would beat the Giants. They said their starting pitching was just a little bit better than the Giants starting pitching, and their hitting was light years better. So when the Giants won in 6, many experts tried to come up with a reason for the upset. The reason they came up with the most was that the Giants got lucky they played the Phillies at a time when their bats were struggling. It wasn't that the Giants pitchers dominated the Phillies hitters, it was that the Phillies hitters beat themselves. But the Giants won't get that lucky with the Rangers, who's bats have never been hotter.

So I decided to look at the numbers for the season, and see if their was any truth in that excuse. During the season the Phillies scored 772 runs, while the Rangers scored 787. So the Rangers did score more, but over a 162 game season, 15 more runs is so small it's almost negligible. Of course, how a team finishes the season can often mean more than what they did in April, so surely this is what the experts were referring to. In September, the Rangers scored 133 runs, while the Phillies scored 142. Not only was that more than the Rangers, but it turns out those 142 runs were the most runs the Phillies had scored during any month of the season. So the Phillies entered the playoffs with a hot bat.

So what about the playoffs? In the first round of the playoffs, the Phillies scored 13 runs in 3 games, while the Rangers scored 21 runs in 5 games. That means the Phillies averaged 4.3 runs per game in the first round, while the Rangers averaged slightly less with 4.2 runs per game. How about during the season? Maybe the Phillies had more ups and downs. Once again, the Phillies were a lot more consistent on a month to month bases than the Rangers. In their worst month the Phillies scored 118 runs, while in their best they scored 142. For the Rangers, their worst worst was 102, and their best was 178 (in June). In fact, two times the Rangers scored less in a month than the Phillies worst of 118.

So why do so many experts think the Rangers are so much stonger offensively than the Phillies? It's simple, they destroyed the Yankees. The Rangers scored 38 runs in 6 games against the Yankees for a 6.2 runs per game average. Meanwhile, the Giants have won 6 of their post season games by only 1 run. Since this is the first time many people have watched the Giants and Rangers extensively, they get the impression the Rangers are crushing teams while the Giants are just scraping by. But all of us Giants fans know, that's what they've been doing all year, and they've done it really well over their last 40 games in which they're 27-13 with a 2.08 ERA. But the Giants are lucky in one regard. They're lucky the games are decided on the field and not by the "experts".

This FanPost is reader-generated, and it does not necessarily reflect the views of McCovey Chronicles. If the author uses filler to achieve the minimum word requirement, a moderator may edit the FanPost for his or her own amusement.