A Cliche proven true

Clichés are everywhere in our everyday life and even more so in the sport's world, they range from un-needed and head scratching "We are going to learn a lot about these two teams today" to the hilarious "They are who we thought they were" to the incorrect "The best defense is a good offense", but this year's World Series did prove one long standing baseball cliché correct, good pitching does beat good hitting. The San Francisco Giants won this World Series with a lineup that was unfamiliar to everyone but your most die-hard NL only fantasy keeper league managers. Cast-offs from the Marlins (Cody Ross), Orioles (Aubrey Huff), and Pirates (Freddie Sanchez) joined platoon players Pat Burrell, Juan Uribe, and Andres Torres to form a lineup with more holes than the plot of a Matthew McConaughey movie (Sahara and Fool's Gold, really?). The Giants were underdogs to the Rangers who led the AL in batting average, featured the AL MVP in Josh Hamilton and had Cliff Lee lined up to start game 1. This is where the pundits lost sight of the good pitching cliché, after Lee the Rangers were left with a supporting cast that resembled "The Hills" supporting cast while the Giants had four pitchers who were historic in the 10' playoffs and are younger than some seasons of the "Real World". Tim Lincecum (26 yrs. old), Matt Cain (26), Jonathon Sanchez (27), and Madison Bumgarner (21) combined for 15 October starts with an ERA under 2. The Giants combined for four shutouts this postseason to tie the record held by the 98' Yankee's and 05, the 1905 Giants. They were also the first team since the 66' Orioles to pitch two shutouts in the World Series and were the only team in playoff history to have four pitchers (Cain 2x, Lincecum, and Bumgarner) pitch 7 shutout innings and give up less than four hits in those games. This is not a national league team like the 06' Cardinals and 90' Reds that upset a better American league team in a Cinderella type series, a better comparison would be the 03' Marlins who dominated the favored Yankee's behind a rotation of all power pitchers in Beckett, Penny, and Pavano. Like the 03' Marlins this Giant's team took away all the "underdog" storylines, and left no doubt that they were by far the better team. Unlike that Marlin team the Giants have contractual control over all four of their young pitchers until at least 2013 and an ownership group stable enough for Giants fans to envision this core missing bats together for a long time. Your local church softball team could fill up the positional lineup behind this staff and .500 would not be unreasonable. The Giants became an easy team to get behind as their overall good guy, cast off lineup and team atmosphere was a stark contrast from the last Giants team to make Series led by ultra villain Barry Bonds, who patented treating your teammates like the plaque. They also played a throwback type of game that relied on starting pitching and timely hitting that was unlike recent World Series teams that were mostly made up of softball type lineups that feasted on bad bullpen pitching. A clinching game time of 2.5 hours that featured power hitters bunting, and limited use of the bullpen also gave the Giants a 1954 type feel. World Series MVP Edgar Renteria (.412 avg, 6 RBI's) epitomized this Giants team and his series clinching three run 8th inning homer to clinch the series came 4,755 days after he clinched the 97' Series for the Marlins with a ninth inning hit. Two World Series clinching RBI's puts him on a list with Yogi Berra, Joe DiMaggio, and Lou Gehrig as the only players to accomplish that feat and reminded me of the "Seinfeld" episode when George gets a job with the Yankee's and Jerry says "Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio, Mantle, Constanza?". Yes, Renteria is on that list and I know when I think about his "professional" (I use the term professional in the highest regard in this instance) career, clutch performer and winner will be the first things that come to my mind. That is also what comes to mind when I think about this entire Giants team along with the cliché good pitching will always beat good hitting.