I am curious though, I'll research this tomorrow. Can't do it now

Yeah hitting is important, but pitching dominates in the playoffs. Even those 2013 Red Sox... they were a very good offensive team, no doubt about it. They were more balanced. I think they only had two guys hit 20 HR during the season.

But in the playoffs, Lester went off. He went 4-1 and was lights out every start. Lackey was pretty effective too. The offense had a .609 team OPS in the ALCS, and a .621 team OPS in the World Series. The Cardinals scored 14 runs in 6 World Series games.

Exactly. He's quoting regular season statistics. Well yeah. It's important to score runs during the season to get to October ... But more often than not, dominant pitching wins in October. It's pitching weather. And teams stop letting Chris Young's start games. And you get to your bullpen faster. And you don't have Yohan Pino eating innings.

Great pitching always beats great hitting. It doesn't always take a great pitcher to pitch great, either. And October baseball favors pitching anyways. Not prime hitting weather

The Royals kind of gave everyone a blue print last year ... When the ball stops flying in October great pitching, defense and base running will do the trick. That started us 8-0 and then we ran into Bumgarner ... You know, a pitcher

...putting the ball in play helps, too. Again, tulo is an upgrade but who knows if he stays healthy. His road splits are ok, but he doesn't have the Coors field fall back crutch as a slump buster. So we'll see.

And those same Red Sox scored 67 runs in 16 postseason games, for an average of 4.2 compared to their regular season average of 5.2

And in those games they faced: Prime Verlander, Scherzer*2, Anibal Sanchez (in a career year), Wainwright*2, Wacha*2, Matt Moore (pre-injury) and David Price.

Why do you think that one year is a blueprint, and why do you think what Bumgarner did is repeatable?

Should every team aspire to be like the 2004 Pistons?

I'll look at the past 10 years tomorrow and admit if I'm wrong

Balbino is out 4 to 6 months with knee surgery.

I think Hootie actually made a good point. The playoffs are played in the Fall. Its less humid, colder and the ball doesn't fly as far. Advantage defense, disadvantage a team that relies on power. The bullpen comes in handy more then ever because that lends itself to closer and lower scoring games

Yeah, but the Red Sox thumped the Rays pretty good in the first round.

If you look at the ALCS and WS, they scored 3.3 earned runs a game in the last two rounds. That's probably not bad considering the pitching they faced. But Lester and Lackey out pitched them too. That Tigers offense was loaded, probably better than Boston. Cabrera, Fielder, Martinez, Hunter, Peralta, even Infante had a very good offensive year.

Well I can guarantee you runs are down in the postseason, that's just common sense. But I'd bet out of the last 10 world series champions, 8 of them leaned heavily on their pitching staffs in October ... Regardless of what it was that got them to the postseason in the regular season

Boston's offense was slightly better by wRC and #1 in baseball.

The '85 team got swept in a 4-game series at home by a horrible Seattle team late in September. CP would've been ready to dismantle the team.

Yep, and Tampa Bay want to Super Bowl with Trent Dilfer. So hey there's always hope.