Well, the Phillies were 4th at $141 million at the start of the season. When they won the WS they were 13th at $98 million. The Giants were 10th at $98 million on opening day. The difference between the Phillies and Giants was less than the difference between the Phillies and Yankees. So, I don't see the Phillies as a big budget team and the Giants as a small budget team. And compared to the Yankees, the Phillies aren't huge spenders. The difference between the Phillies' and Yankees' budgets was greater than the Rangers' budget.

great game by Oswalt though. Lincecum better be on his best by Wednesday!

lol @ paying 25mm for a guy who didn't have a single postseason rbi

Fucking yes. This rocks so hard. JUAN URIBE!

Brian Wilson is a bad mamma jamma
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AE53NAC6JaU

dang, great offense from the Giants.

Earth to ESPN: Cliff Lee is mortal, apparently. So shut the hell up.

The Giants are the luckiest team I've ever seen in my entire life.

I'm so tired of hearing that the Giants have just been getting lucky this postseason. They had the lowest ERA in the regular season, it's not just luck that their postseason opponents have had such a hard time getting hits against them. And as far as their offense, it's not like they just have a bunch of nobodies who are suddenly getting lucky hits. A lot of the Giants postseason stars are established great hitters who all seemed to go through a slump at the same time in the beginning/middle of this season. Juan Uribe, Freddy Sanchez, and Edgar Renteria all have good hitting in their past, and they got out of their collective slump in the postseason. However, the Rangers appear to have a shitty bullpen, so that part is pretty lucky I guess.

Texas bullpen is . Seriously, how the hell do you let what could be a legit rally become a lost cause like that?

They lit up Cliff Lee, an experience WS pitcher, there's more to it than luck (I agree).

plus they beat the Phillies, and admittedly the Phillies made some pretty big mistakes, but guess who hasn't been making big mistakes.
The Giants have a bunch of good players and they're all stepping up for the big games.

Um I don't know if you've noticed but Lincecum pitched worse than Cliff Lee. In fact he pitched much worse but was bailed out by some timely defense and some luck. In the same fashion Cain pitched about the same as Wilson but was fortunate enough to have a home run (or what would be a homerun in any other park) bounce back into play. That isn't good pitching that is luck.

Meanwhile on offense I have to talk about broken bat doubles and Vlad Guerrero in outfield (admittedly the Rangers choice). Now none of this changes the margin in either game but the lucky plays early on is what got them to the points that changed the game.

Or they're getting lucky (a hot streak) and are due for an eventual fall. It isn't like the Rangers weren't making all the big plays just a series ago. The Rangers flat out dominated the Yankees (admittedly not a good team since the all star break). And you know what the Giants haven't significantly outdone them in any tangible stats. They keep winning close games and close game winning is not a repeatable statistical phenomenon. This suggests luck as a heavy explanatory factor. But really I don't have to do this exercise when I can point to broken bat doubles and home runs that somehow stay in the park when they bounce off the top of the wall. Or Bochy making some questionable tactical decisions that always seem to pay off.

As for Lincecum vs. Lee, they're both two of the best pitchers in the MLB, and if you're gonna say that the Giants were lucky to get a bunch of hits off Lee, I could also say the Rangers were lucky to get a bunch of hits off Lincecum. And the Giants pitching staff as a whole is way better than the Rangers.
The Giants good defense in the postseason isn't luck, they've had excellent fielding all year. I will admit that Cain got lucky with that near homerun, but still, Cain's been a great pitcher for a few years now, are you going to attribute a zero postseason ERA entirely to luck? And even if the Rangers had got that homerun, the Giants still would have had their way with the Texas bullpen, unless they were just planning on keeping Wilson in the entire game. The Giants just got 7 runs in one inning against the Texas bullpen.

I will agree that there is some luck involved in that they are facing an opponent who is (so far) choking. But I dunno, I'm not trying to vent against you or anything, I'm mostly just tired of the media treating the Giants like they never had a chance. They for sure had the best pitching all season and some of the best defense, even though they had some trouble getting hits. And they outplayed Roy Halladay and they got 7 runs off of Cliff Lee. But there were still headlines reading "The Phillies lost" instead of "The Giants won." I suppose by the end of the series we'll be able to tell just how lucky the Giants are, but I'm going to bet that they're just a really good team.

And this just isn't true. The Giants have outdone the Rangers in every tangible pitching statistic. Offensively you're right though.