The Giants and Phillies open the NLCS in Philadelphia Saturday night just a few minutes before 8 PM EDT. Here’s how the two offense compare:

There is one thing to take away from the above table, the Giants and Phillies are fairly even in power. I would argue that the Giants are actually the better home run hitting club, because they play in a tougher park. In head-to-head competition this season, the Phillies hit two home runs against the Giants at Citizen’s Bank Park. They hit one in San Francisco. The Giants hit five in Philadelphia, three at home in SF. The teams ended up splitting six games.

This is how the pitching and defense compare:

The Phillies, with their low walk rate, allowed a .311 OBP. The Giants pitchers walked more batters, but with their higher strikeout rate, gave up fewer hits, so their OBP allowed came in at .313. The Phillies and Giants don’t allow men on base, which makes it very difficult to score. To put this in perspective, in 62% of inning pitched by these teams, zero or one batter reach base. In other words, a team will be lucky to get two or three scoring opportunities a game against these teams. The front line pitchers are all better than this:

I suspect now that Tim developed a new pitch, his OBP is closer to Halladay’s than Sanchez’s.

When a team is going to be lucky to get two base runners in an inning, the hits better be big ones. That’s why I disagree a bit with Raising Matt Cain, who picks his team when no one at ESPN would:

The problem with the Giants, as we all know, is their lack of offensive firepower. They hit a lot of homers, especially late in the year, but they just don’t put enough guys on base and don’t sustain rallies, hitting into an average of one double play per game. The Phils are known for offense and they thrive in their bandbox park. So, how does a one-armed fighter win a match against a guy throwing combinations? For starters, you never let him land a punch. If the Giants want to win, they have to avoid mistakes. They have to make their pitches and field their positions. They absolutely cannot give away runs. The longer the games go without scoring, the longer the series goes toward seven games, the more the odds will swing in the Giants favor. The Giants win this series by a long, slow, attritional grind. They can’t slug it out, especially on the road. They have to wait for their opportunities and they have to seize them with the grace and sangfroid of a cat burglar.

The Giants don’t have to slug it out, they just have to slug a bit. They can’t win a slugfest, but they can out homer the Phillies in a low scoring game. The Phillies home runs are helped by their ballparks. The Giants, with more home runs on the road than the Philadelphia are the better home run hitting team. So I believe they can win this type of game, just like they did against Atlanta.

If Joe Blanton does indeed pitch game four, that’s a mismatch that favors the Giants. Lincecum against Halladay is 50-50 Hamels against Cain is 50-50. Oswalt probably has a bigger advantage over Sanchez, but the way the two pitched lately, that’s not a given. So if Bumgarner beats Blanton, then the six aces just need to walk away with a win each for the Giants to win the pennant.

Frankly, I like this scenario. I like it so much that I’m picking the Giants with a 53% chance of winning. The Philadelphia front three is terrific, but not that much better than the Giants front three. San Francisco batters have as much (if not a little more) pop than the Phillies. The teams are evenly matched in six of the pitching matchups, with the seventh decidedly in the Giants favor. That spells a San Francisco win to me.