Riding On The Shoulders Of Giants?

The San Francisco Giants did a terrific job down the stretch, pitching their way to the NL West crown and then a four-game dismantling of the Atlanta Braves in the NLDS.

The question that has come up most, in my mind, has been a chicken-and-egg thing:  Did the Giants pitch so well as to overwhelm their opponents' bats?  Or were the teams they faced down the stretch in batting funks of their own, which may have had as much to do with the Giants' success as anything the pitchers may have done?

Of course, the question was really spurred on by what happened to the Phils in May, June, and into July.  They couldn't hit.  If you recall, in one series, they made the Mets starting staff look like Spahn, Sain, Koufax, Gibson, and Mathewson, all rolled into one.  So, is it possible that the Giants benefitted in September, October, and the NLCS by playing weak-hitting teams that played into the Giants' strength?

I took the batting splits for September/October from Baseball-Reference.com and did some very base analysis, using a simple weighted-average method to determine whether the Giants, or even the Phils, may have had super stretch runs because of the batting woes of their stretch-run opponents.  Let's take a look at the Giants:

                   SEP/OCT
OPPONENT  GMS VS   OPP AVG    WEIGHTED
COL          4       .264       1.056
LA           6       .212       1.272
ARI          6       .235       1.410
SD           7       .230       1.610
MIL          3       .253        .759
CHI          3       .232        .696
ATL (NLDS)   4       .247        .988
TOTALS      33       .236       7.791

Games vs. teams hitting .250+ in SEP/OCT:  7
Games vs. teams hitting .240-.249:         4
Games vs. teams hitting .230-.239:         9
Games vs. teams hitting .220-.229:         7
Games vs. teams hitting .210-.219:         6

As you can see, the Giants played 22 games against teams hitting .239 or less in the stretch run.  The NL average for September and October regular season games was .247.  The Giants played teams that hit a combined 4 percent lower than the league average.  Obviously, that's not much; about two hits over a five-game series.  But, they still faced competition that hit lower than the average of all teams, including the Phils, who hit .285 in September and October.

Let's now turn our attention to the Phils ...

                SEP/OCT
OPPONENT GMS VS OPP AVG WEIGHTED
LA          1     .212     .212
COL         1     .264     .264
MIL         3     .253     .759
FLA         7     .246    1.722
NY          6     .252    1.512
WAS         6     .228    1.368
ATL         6     .247    1.482
CIN (NLDS)  3     .265     .795
TOTALS     33     .246    8.114

Games vs. teams hitting .250+ in SEP/OCT: 13
Games vs. teams hitting .240-.249:        13
Games vs. teams hitting .230-.239:         0
Games vs. teams hitting .220-.229:         6
Games vs. teams hitting .210-.219:         1


The Phils, on the other hand, played only seven games against teams that hit .239 or less in the months of September and October.  Their opponents' weighted-average of .246 is just one point less than the league average of .247.  Additionally, while the Giants faced only two opponents down the stretch with batting averages over .250 (Colorado and Milwaukee), the Phils faced four such teams (Colorado, Milwaukee, the Mets, and Cincinnati).

The Giants' record in those seven games?  4-3 (3-1 vs. COL, 1-2 vs. MIL)  And the Phillies?  9-4 (1-0 vs. COL, 2-1 vs. MIL, 3-3 vs. NY, 3-0 vs. CIN).

What does all this mean?  It simply means that the Phillies faced better-hitting (.250 or better) clubs down the stretch than the Giants did.  It means that the Phils handled those teams very well (9-4, including the sweep of the vaunted Reds' offense in the NLDS), but that the Giants were so-so at 4-3.

Does this translate into a Phillies series win?  On paper, it certainly makes a series win seem more likely.  As the series unfolds, we'll find out more about the true nature of the Giants' pitching staff down the stretch, and we'll finally be able to answer whether the Giants' staff is that good, or whether they took advantage of favorable opposing batting conditions to get themselves into the NLCS.