I must respectfully disagree on two of your points – first, “The idea that pitching beats hitting has been thoroughly debunked.” A sample size of one game is not really debunk-worthy, although I would welcome more data to advance that argument…

The second thing I would disagree about is your assertion that the Giants have “a really bad offense.” The 2009 Giants – now THAT offense sucked (except for Sandoval)! Weak, and if they were behind after the sixth, time to turn off the TV. This year’s offense is average (9th in the NL in BA), middle of the pack. Additionally, having the middle of the order hitting .290 (Huff), .292 (Sanchez), and .305 (Posey), with all three (and Ross as well) peaking at the right time, the offense is positively adequate! Sure, no pitcher will fear this lineup, but it’s pretty solid in its average-ness right now. We’ll just have to see if it’s enough…

Fact is, while the Giants have better pitching, they also have a really bad offense. The Rangers have much much better hitters, and their pitching isn’t as bad as the Giants hitting. Rangers pithers allowed the fourth fewest runs in the AL, which is the better league, and in a hitter’s park to boot.

Money’s gotta be on the Giants, of course, since it’s a lot easier to win 3 of 6 then 4 of 6, but the Rangers are far from screwed.

I think it’s because Cliff was supposed to be the X factor in this series. Let’s face it. The rest of SF’s pitching staff that’ll play the series is plain better than what the Rangers can trot out. Cliff was going to be the guy to shift that pitching edge to Texas. Now what? Texas is in more trouble now than they thought coming into this and SF now is riding the wave, it’s going to be tough to knock them off it too. And it’s not intellectually sloppy to think Texas is screwed because Lee didn’t beat SF. It’s kind of a realistic take on the situation imo.

(I still think there should be a demerit for allowing an AL pitcher to get a double off you.)

Now, that doesn’t strike me as all that fabulous either, and backs up what I thought I saw last night…

so why all the doom and gloom over Cliff? is it that he was so lights out in this postseason and last (until last night)? or that he’s the ace, and the starters behind him aren’t quite Matt Cain? This headline, and the blog entry on baseball reference, are all about how bad Cliff was, and it just didn’t seem like there was that huge a difference between them. Ten points on the game score. (don’t know where Tim ranks in all-time worst Game 1 scores, the baseball-reference list doesn’t go past 30). All the headlines are “Cliff is human” (well, yeah) and “Oh, noes! the rangers are screwed because Cliff didn’t annihilate the GIants!” I don’t quite get it. I guess it doesn’t matter, but it still seems like intellectual sloppiness.