Just in case you’ve been living under a rock for the past month, the San Francisco Giants pitched their way through the playoffs, defeating the Atlanta Braves three games to one, the Philadelphia Phillies four games to two, and finally the Texas Rangers four games to one. They won their first World Series since 1954 and their first since moving to the state of California 52 years ago. They won the World Series despite a relatively unimpressive 92-70 regular season record and a lineup that hardly struck fear into opposing pitchers.
Aubrey Huff led the team with 26 home runs and 86 RBI and only one other hitter even managed 20 home runs and 80 RBI (Juan Uribe with 24 and 85). Buster Posey was the only batter who qualified for the batting title to hit better than .300 and even if you included everyone, only two guys hit better than Posey and they combined for 6 at-bats this year.
- As a team, they scored 4.3 runs per game, good for 17th in baseball.
- Their .729 OPS also ranked 17th in the league.
- They hit 162 home runs, tied for 10th in the league.
- They stole 55 bases all season, tied with the Cubs for dead last.
- They grounded into 158 double plays, one behind the Twins for the most in baseball.
All of this adds up to the fact that they were not an offensive juggernaut and from the title of this post, you should have guessed that we weren’t here to talk about hitting.
- Their 3.36 ERA led the league (San Diego was second at 3.41).
- Their 121 ERA+ was five points better than Oakland for the best in the league.
- They allowed the fewest hits in the league (1279) and the fifth fewest home runs (134).
- They did walk the 4th most batters (578) but struck out the most (1331) and posted the 9th best K/BB ratio.
As dominant as they were throughout the regular season, their pitching staff hit an entirely new level in September. Their 19-10 record wasn’t even the best record of any month this season (they went 20-8 in July) but their 1.91 ERA was by far the lowest of any month they had. Their WHIP (0.945) and K/BB ratio (3.70) were also the best of any month the pitching staff had and opponents managed a pathetic .189/.251/.292 batting line against them.
Believe it or not, they weren’t done yet. The quartet of Tim Lincecum, Matt Cain, Jonathon Sanchez, and Madison Bumgarner combined for a 49-36 record in the regular season but won 8 of the 11 games won by the Giants in the postseason (and Sanchez was 0-2 in the postseason).
The Giants’ pitching staff combined on an ERA of 2.47 while allowing a ridiculous 94 hits in 134.0 innings. They also walked 43 and struck out 133, including 12 by Lincecum and Brian Wilson in the World Series clinching Game 5.
At one point during the World Series broadcast, Tim McCarver commented that the postseason run by the Giants’ pitching staff might just be one of the best in history and it got me wondering where it would rank and so, I decided to check it out. Before I go into the results, however, I have to lay out some ground rules.
THE RULES
First, I only considered the playoff teams of the past 16 years, or the wild card era. The biggest reason for that cutoff is that starting with 1995, all teams had to win 11 games to win the World Series and therefore, their starting pitchers had to undergo more work (also, the smaller sample size made number crunching less time consuming).
Secondly, to judge the pitching of these teams, I turned to my old standby, Game Score. Now, I understand this is used for starting pitchers and not entire teams but it still provides a good indication of how well a team pitched. Teams still got penalized for allowing runs and were credited for recording strikeouts.
That’s about it for the rules…
THE RESULTS
Since 1995 there have been 112 postseason series and 97 of them (86.6%) have been won by the team with the higher GS. This isn’t terribly surprising since this version of the Game Score statistic takes into account all pitchers, not just the starters. To me, it is actually more interesting that 13.4% of teams had better overall pitching and yet failed to win the series.
Three such instances took place in the World Series. They are as follows:
1996
Atlanta Braves – 64.8
New York Yankees – 56.0 (4-2)
1997
Cleveland Indians – 49.6
Florida Marlins – 49.6 (4-2)
2003
New York Yankees – 67.5
Florida Marlins – 60.8 (4-2)
This is easily explained by the fact that they play up to seven games. In the 1996 World Series, Atlanta won their two games by a combined score of 16-1. New York, on the other hand, won their four games by a combined score of 17-10. Hence, the Braves actually pitched significantly better but New York, dragged down largely by a 12-1 Game 1 loss, still won the series.
So where does the 2010 San Francisco Giants’ pitching staff rank? Amongst teams that actually played in the World Series, their 2.47 ERA ranks 6th. The best mark of 1.89 belongs to the 1996 Braves who would have easily won back to back World Series titles if their offense had played better.
In average GS, however, the Giants jump up to second, behind only the 2001 Arizona Diamondbacks team. The Giants staff pitched their way to a mark of 70.1, while the D’Backs stand at 71.0. Those are the only two teams to go through an entire postseason, including the World Series, with an average GS over 70. Was the Giants’ run historic? Not quite… but very close.
THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY
This past postseason, the Phillies actually came just as close to making postseason pitching history as the Giants did, posting the second best GS of any team in any individual series. What follow are the best three series (according to GS) this postseason.
Team – GS
(opponent)
IP-H-R-ER-BB-K
Philadelphia Phillies – 81.7
(Cincinnati Reds)
9.0-3.7-1.3-1.0-1.3-8.0
San Francisco Giants – 78.3
(Atlanta Braves)
9.5-6.0-2.3-1.8-1.8-11.5
Atlanta Braves – 71.8
(San Francisco Giants)
9.3-7.0-2.8-2.0-3.3-10.8
And now, the five best series pitching performances of the wildcard era:
1998 ALDS
New York Yankees – 84.7
(Texas Rangers)
9.0-4.3-0.3-0.3-1.3-9.0
2010 NLDS
Philadelphia Phillies – 81.7
(Cincinnati Reds)
9.0-3.7-1.3-1.0-1.3-8.0
1996 NLDS
Atlanta Braves – 80.7
(Los Angeles Dodgers)
9.3-4.7-1.7-1.0-2.3-9.7
1999 ALDS
New York Yankees – 79.0
(Texas Rangers)
9.0-4.7-0.3-0.3-3.0-5.7
2010 NLDS
San Francisco Giants – 78.3
(Atlanta Braves)
9.5-6.0-2.3-1.8-1.8-11.5
The highest ranked LCS performance ranks 9th overall when the 1995 Braves swept the Reds while posting a GS of 75.0. The highest ranked World Series performance ranks 11th overall. The 2001 Diamondbacks had an average GS of 74.6 when they defeated the Yankees in 7 games.
TRIVIALITY
I’ll finish up here with some interesting tidbits regarding team GS marks and the past 16 seasons worth of playoffs.
Worst performance in a World Series?
31.3 by the 2007 Colorado Rockies
Worst performance while winning the World Series?
44.4 by the 2002 Anaheim Angels
Best performance in a World Series?
74.6 by the 2001 Arizona Diamondbacks
Best performance while losing a World Series?
67.5 by the 2003 New York Yankees
Worst performance in any series?
27.3 by the 2002 Yankees (ALDS vs. Anaheim Angels)
Worst performance while winning a series?
43.0 by the Anaheim Angels (ALDS vs. New York Yankees)
Best performance in any series?
84.7 by the New York Yankees (1998 ALDS vs. Texas Rangers)
Best performance while losing a series?
71.8 by the Atlanta Braves (2010 NLDS vs. San Francisco Giants)
Highest Combined GS (any series)?
150.0 by San Francisco Giants (78.25) and Atlanta Braves (71.75) in the 2010 NLDS
Lowest Combined GS (any series)?
70.3 by the Anaheim Angels (43.0) and New York Yankees (27.3) in the 2002 ALDS
Largest GS Disparity (any series)?
37.8 by the Boston Red Sox (69.0) and Colorado Rockies (31.3) in the 2007 World Series
Lowest GS Disparity (any series)?
0.8 by the Oakland Athletics (64.8) and the Boston Red Sox (64.0) in the 2003 ALDS
Highest Combined GS (World Series)?
131.6 by the Arizona Diamondbacks (74.6) and New York Yankees (57.0) in 2001
Lowest Combined GS (World Series)?
86.3 by the Anaheim Angels (44.4) and the San Francisco Giants (41.9) in 2002
Largest GS Disparity (World Series)?
37.8 by the Boston Red Sox (69.0) and Colorado Rockies (31.3) in 2007
Lowest GS Disparity (World Series)?
2.6 by the Anaheim Angels (44.4) and the San Francisco Giants (41.9) in 2002
If that isn’t too much information about MLB playoff history and pitching performances, I’m not sure what is!
It’s going to be a long cold winter with no baseball but as sure as the sun retreats to the south every fall, it will come back. The snow and ice will melt and in four short months, pitchers and catchers will report to spring training.
Until next time…
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