Powering their way to the title

Tim Lincecum has led the National
League in strikeouts each of the
past three seasons.

Chalk one up for the theory that power arms are the key to October success.

The San Francisco Giants have some big arms in their starting rotation, to be sure.

The Giants pitching staff led all of baseball in strikeouts. And when they pared their rotation from  five to four for the postseason — pushing soft-tosser Barry Zito aside — they came at their opponents with a knack for missing bats.

• Tim Lincecum in the regular season struck out 231 batters in 212 innings.
• Matt Cain fanned 177 in 223.1 innings.
• Jonathan Sanchez whiffed 205 in 193.1 innings.
• Madison Bumgarner, who spent a good chunk of the season regaining his stuff in the minors, K'd 86 in 111 major league innings.

The four playoff starters in the regular season stuck out a total of 699 men in 739.2 innings — 8.5 K/9.

And that takes a lot of strain off the defense, which in the Giants case, isn't all that mobile.

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Yes, that's a new header up on top,  one I created during the summer to use during the offseason (thus the Rogers Hornsby quotation).  I have another lined up to impose on you during spring training. The caps will probably return when the 2011 regular season gets under way — "probably" giving me an out if something better comes to mind.

Feel free to tell me what you think of this one. Or,  if you remember it, what you thought of the Halloween special that was deployed on Sunday.