Davidoff: Giants' performance supports Alderson's words

ARLINGTON, TEXAS

When Sandy Alderson spoke Friday of probabilities, rather than results, defining a team's efforts to put together a winning run, he might as well have pointed west - to California's Bay Area, where the new Mets general manager established his reputation.

These Giants probably shouldn't be sniffing the 2010 World Series. But sometimes you benefit from a great run of luck, and bully for this storied franchise and its awesome city for making it this far.

What you saw in last night's Game 3, however? Consider it a crash into the wall of reality. The wall of probability.

The Fall Classic has new life because Yankees-killer Colby Lewis shut down the Giants, leading the Rangers to a 4-2 victory and cutting San Francisco's lead to 2-1 in games. With Tommy Hunter going against Madison Bumgarner Sunday night, Texas will try to even this up and make it a best-of-three series.

"They have good pitching over there, and we think our pitching is good, too, and this was a good ballgame," Giants manager Bruce Bochy said. ". . . We just didn't mount many rallies, because they pitched well."

Well, yeah . . . except that it's not as though the Giants score five or six runs in their average trip to the stadium. That they totaled 20 runs in this series' first two games represented a serious aberration.

Their five hits and two walks served as the sort of offensive performance you'd expect from a club, sooner than later, that was ninth in the lowly National League with 697 runs scored.

Alas, this explains why we regard the Giants as such a marvelous story. They've made it this far thanks to shockingly good performances by Aubrey Huff, Andres Torres, Pat Burrell and Cody Ross, the latter two of whom didn't even begin the season with San Francisco. And because relievers such as Sergio Romo and Santiago Casilla have emerged to pass the baton from the team's good starting pitchers to accomplished closer Brian Wilson.

You don't begrudge the Giants for it - but you wonder whether their front office will appreciate what they have here and, after this series concludes, will act accordingly.

If they, say, sign Huff and Burrell to multiyear deals, they'll provide further evidence that they lucked into this special spot. Burrell surely has helped the Giants see the light with his 0-for-9 Series showing, including four strikeouts in Game 3.

When Bochy lifted starting pitcher Jonathan Sanchez with two outs in the fifth and went to veteran reliever Guillermo Mota, it evoked the 2006 Mets and their pertinence to this discussion. What if Alderson, rather than Omar Minaya, had been running those '06 Mets when they came a Carlos Beltran third-strike-looking away from making the World Series?

Alderson surely wouldn't have brought back Mota for two years and $5 million, especially when Mota's failed test for illegal performance-enhancing drugs raised further questions about his future performance. He wouldn't have signed Orlando Hernandez to a two-year, $12-million deal.

For that matter, he wouldn't have leaned so heavily on John Maine and Oliver Perez in 2007, based on the small samples of the two pitchers' postseason successes. Yes, such faith paid off in '07, but it bit the Mets' decision-makers in the longer term.

You admire the Giants' starting rotation, and catcher Buster Posey seems legitimate, and there are some more prospects on the way. However, general manager Brian Sabean has a history of buying high rather than quitting while he's ahead.

We'll see how it plays out with the Giants. And while Mets fans should envy San Francisco's results, they should yearn to compile better probabilities.