How the Giants Can Win Without Too Much Power

The Giants have made this habit of winning World Series with employing players to power them through, people like Pat Burrell, Aubrey Huff, Pablo Sandoval and now Hunter Pence, to just keep pounding home runs until they win every last game, all while the hardest throwing pitchers in baseball keep battering everyone down.

Now...they've employed a new tactic- just keeping players that are really, really good at their jobs.

Their infield is one of the most insanely productive and near-mechanical of all the NL infields. Brandon Belt, Joe Panik, Brandon Crawford and Matt Duffy, when they're all on, can be some pretty impressive hitters, but most importantly they can all excel defensively, especially together. Last year we lost Panik in June, and Duffy didn't come into full force until after the All Star break, so we couldn't see all four in action, but now that we do...it can't stop!

Between that infield, Buster Posey, who doesn't have to hit many home runs to be awesome, and people like Denard Span, Angel Pagan and Gregor Blanco to play some nice outfield ball. Yes, Hunter Pence is also in this equation, and he also hits home runs, but the point here is that the Giants don't have to RELY on that sort of thing anymore. Pence is injured and they're doing just fine.

And I don't even have to talk about the pitching staff. Matt Cain aside, those guys are completely killing it over there. And yeah, Jake Peavy's not perfect, but he's still pretty good.

The fact is that the Giants have succeeded in improving their team by getting the best players, a great deal of them homegrown, to all play amazing baseball at the same time. Home runs aren't especially the priority anymore, even if people like Crawford and Belt CAN hit them every once and a while.

Whatever's gonna happen to this team, it'll be because they're stacked in the talent category, not the slugging category.

Coming Tomorrow- Finally getting his chance to be a starter, this pitcher's done a pretty nice job, even if his team's not doing as well as everyone thought.