Here. We. Go.

Whether or not the Rangers are the best team in the American League or if the Giants are the best representative from the other league, these two teams will be facing each other in the World Series.

At this point, critiquing each team's regular season numbers in the lineup, rotation, and bullpen is almost completely irrelevant.  The Rangers may have only won 90 games, the fewest of the AL qualifiers, but how many games would they have won if they fielded their current team (what matters) for an entire season?  Nelson Cruz, Ian Kinsler, and Josh Hamilton were all banged up for parts (even large chunks) of the season.  Is it safe to add a few "wins" to this team if they were healthy?  I'm pretty sure it is, and I'm positive it's safe to say that an entire season of Cliff Lee would have made the Rangers record look closer to the Yankees, Rays, and Twins.  Would they have won 100 games?  I doubt it, but it's likely that their current team, which consists of a healthy Cruz, Kinsler and Hamilton as well as Cliff Lee, is good enough to have won the series without it being written as a "shocker" (no sexual reference).

As for the Giants, they defeated the #1 team in the National League, the infallible Philadelphia Phillies (how's that for alliteration?).  The Big 3 deserved their reputation, the Phillies' lineup did not.  A lot of the Phillies hitters had down years, and played that way in the postseason.  Ryan Howard had his worst year since being a regular and struck out 17 times in his 33 ABs in the playoffs.  If he did that over the course of the season he would have had over 280 strikeouts, sheesh.  Chase Utley and Victorino were hurt during parts of the year and in general had slight down years, both of them didn't hit in the playoffs.  Raul Ibanez and Jimmy Rollins both have/had reputations that far exceeded their performance, unsurprisingly, they didn't hit.  This isn't to say that the Phillies should have lost to the Giants, they are a good team and should be considered the favorites again heading into next year, just that we shouldn't build up a team as such a favorite and then be shocked they don't live up to the lofty expectations we gave them.

ANYWAYS, this series is really about the Rangers vs. Giants, not how they got here.  If we've learned anything from this postseason its that in a small sample size anything can happen.  It is definitely a  surprise that the Rangers and Giants are facing each other, so we shouldn't be surprised (again) when the favorite ends up being the loser.  I'll make what now seems like a utterly useless prediction and say that the Rangers will win in 6 games because I think they are the better team, but I really have no idea