Revisiting the Battle of the Big 3’s

The Phillies and the Giants both have a claim to having the best top 3 starters in Major League Baseball and now that they have squared up each other head to head it is time to revisit the two staffs.

Before the NLCS began I said that the Giants may not have the same love in the national media or have the cool nick name like H2O but in the postseason they have been just as impressive.

Well the Giants pitchers have not disappointed in the NLCS and have stood toe to toe with the defending champs and have put themselves in a great spot up 3-1.

All the talk about it was an illusion of facing the Braves and they would shrink when they faced "real" hitting has been proved false.

The Giants have shut down the potent Phillies offense and quited the haters at the same time.

Here are the updated numbers for each "Big 3":

	Giants	Phillies
ERA	1.26	2.42
WHIP	0.79	0.76
K/9	10.70	9.28
BB/9	2.73	1.21

The Giants have more then held there own and have excelled in keeping the Phillies off the scoreboard while racking up the strikeouts.

The Phillies have an edge in the walk rate but the WHIP is nearly identical due to the Giants giving up fewer hits.

You may miss this if you only listen to the national media but the Giants pitchers have matched everything the Phillies pitchers have done and have actually performed better then them in nearly every category.

Round two of the marquee matchups begins tonight with Tim Lincecum against Roy Hallady and the Giants just need to keep doing what they have done for the last 2 months.