Matthew Leach  From pitching to defense, Giants did it all
Leach: Pitching to defense, Giants did it all  It's a football
coach's line, but it could have belonged to Giants manager Bruce
Bochy this week.  "Men, if they don't score," Bobby Bowden used
to say when his team had a lead at halftime, "we win."  Things
really were that simple for San Francisco in the World Series.
The Giants pitched and defended brilliantly for the bulk of the
Series, and as a result, they defeated the Texas Rangers in five
games. It's not always that cut-and-dried, but this time around,
it was all about the run prevention.  Baseball's best pitching
team just kept doing what it does, even as the calendar turned
to November. Lots of little things added up for the Giants, but
the biggest thing of all was what they leaned on: They received
three brilliant starts, one shaky one (in their only loss) and
one that was good enough. In short, when they had the better
starting pitching performance, they won.  "You can't say enough
about guys