They are both solid teams for sure.......
But I think that original assessment of the Giants being a hungry bunch of veterans being a deciding factor makes for better fiction than fact..........according to ESPN.
Are the Giants more hungry than the Yankees after losing the WS last year? Are they more hungry than the Twins? Do the Giants have more veterans on their team than the Yankees do? The "post-season experience" factor was put to bed in the ALDS...and I expect the "hungry veteran" factor will be in the WS.
And you want to talk about "peaking"? Here are the post-season stats so far...
Angels offense: .328/.365/.547, 17 HR, 60 Runs in 9 games
Giants offense: .247/.332/.417, 13 HR, 47 Runs in 10 games
That's no knock on the Giants...they've had to face some tough pitchers in Glavine, Maddux, Millwood, Williams and Morris. But is that group any more impressive than Clemens, Pettitte, Mussina, Hernandez, Radke, Milton, and Mays?
What about pitching?
Vs. Angels pitching: .254/.312/.369, 7 HR, 37 Runs in 9 Gms
Vs. Giants pitching: .258/.320/.411, 12 HR, 42 Runs in 10 Gms
For all intents and purposes, that's pretty even. Both teams have shut down some pretty good offenses in the Yankees, Twins, Braves, and Cardinals...but I still give the edge to the Angels because of them having to pitch to a DH instead of the pitcher.
There is no reason to believe it won't be an evenly matched series...but then again, there was no reason to believe that the Yankees wouldn't blow away the Angels and that the Twins wouldn't win the ALCS in another evenly matched series.
The only reason the Angels didn't sweep both series is because of Spiezio letting a Giambi groundball go off his glove and a career game pitched by Joe Mays.
If the same Angels team that showed up for the ALDS and ALCS shows up for the WS...I predict Angels in 5.