In the wake of my latest Endeavour column where I explore the worthiness of the two unlikely World Series opponents, San Francisco Giants and Texas Rangers, the adage of pitching vs. hitting comes to mind for this series.

The Texas Rangers feature a batting order that poses all kinds of threats. At the top of their order they have Elvis Andrus – an obvious base-stealing threat. And with long-ball threats like Michael Young, Josh Hamilton, Nelson Cruz, Ian Kinsler and Vladimir Guerrero to follow, their order is more than capable of putting up a lot of runs.

The Giants don’t have the quality batting order like the Rangers do. However, it’s not as if the Rangers have the starting pitching to shut them down. Cliff Lee, the Rangers game 1 starter, has a post-season record of 7-0 for his career and may be the best post-season pitcher in baseball. But, after Lee, the Rangers don’t stack up as well as the Giants do in overall pitching.

The Giants boast one of the league’s premier pitchers in Tim Lincecum and quality #2 and #3 pitchers Matt Cain and Jonathan Sanchez, who propelled them to shut down a quality Philadelphia Phillies lineup.  

And when playoff games come down to the final few innings, the Giants possess a closer in Brian Wilson who is almost automatic. The Rangers have Neftali Feliz who is in his first full year in the big leagues, and while he had a great regular season, he may be too inexperienced to close out games in the pressure-filled World Series.  

The difference is that San Francisco has home-field advantage throughout this series. That means that Texas will not have the option of a designated hitter when they’re playing in the Giants ballpark. Therefore, Texas will not likely have Guerrero in their starting lineup because his fielding abilities have fallen off the charts.

The series will be a close one and a great one to watch, but with excellence in starting pitching and a dominant closer, the Giants will take the Series in 7 games.