The San Francisco Giants’ championship in 2010 was supposed to usher in a new era of pitching dominance. With offense levels reaching long-time lows, the conventional wisdom suggested that only with a strong starting rotation could a team hope to make the World Series. Then, 2011 happened.
The Texas Rangers and St. Louis Cardinals have each advanced to this year’s Fall Classic despite lackluster starting pitching. In fact, the teams’ respective rotation ERAs of 5.62 and 5.43 rank near the bottom among the field of eight that began the postseason. Even more incredibly, the two teams combined had only one starter go at least six innings (C.J. Wilson in game 5 of the ALCS) in their recent LCS triumphs, and the Cardinals actually logged more innings from the bullpen than the starting rotation (28 2/3 vs. 24 1/3) during its victory over the Milwaukee Brewers.
Postseason ERAs by Starting Rotation
| Team | G | Avg GSc | IP | ER | ERA |
| PHI | 5 | 57.8 | 34 | 14 | 3.71 |
| DET | 11 | 51.3 | 59 2/3 | 30 | 4.53 |
| ARI | 5 | 49.2 | 28 | 15 | 4.82 |
| NYY | 5 | 47.6 | 20 1/3 | 11 | 4.87 |
| TBR | 4 | 49.5 | 22 2/3 | 13 | 5.16 |
| STL | 11 | 45.5 | 54 2/3 | 33 | 5.43 |
| TEX | 10 | 45.0 | 49 2/3 | 31 | 5.62 |
| MIL | 11 | 40.3 | 55 1/3 | 43 | 6.99 |
| Total | 62 | 47.2 | 324 1/3 | 190 | 5.27 |
Source: Baseball-reference.com
