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Go back and look at the 1988 season with Orel Hershiser again. [ . . . ]He did win two games in the World Series, but that looked very dominant because the series only went five games.

When I said he carried the team, I meant in the World Series, not against the Mets. He was the WP in HALF of the victories. He did it on VERY short rest as the Dodgers sweated against the Mets and the A's reclined in chaise lounges after sweeping the BoSox, coming back against the A's to pitch not just a win, but a 3 hit shut out. That combined with Gibson's HR in Game 1 completely but the heavily favored A's in a fog they couldn't escape. He followed up in game five with Four hitter, winning the deciding game, pitching on THREE DAYS REST. Today's pitchers who throw 95.3 pitches before they hit the showers compare poorly. He was also the first pitcher in our lifetimes to get three hits in a World Series game. He dominated. And yes, he and Gibson (in Game 1) carried the 1988 World Series Dodgers.

Good points. A better example of a World Series dominated by a couple of pitchers would be the prior year, when the Twins beat the Cardinals in seven games and Frank Viola was the starting pitcher in three games. Viola and Bert Blyleven started 9 of the Twins' 12 games that postseason, and the Twins were 7-2 in games those two started (and 1-2 in the others).

That ended what surely was one of the strangest seasons in terms of "success in mediocrity" -- and that was before the wild-card era. The Twins won only 85 games that year, with really only two starting pitchers of any note ... Viola won 17 games and Blyleven won 15 (Viola's 2.90 ERA for a team that played its home games in the Metrodome probably ranks among the greatest pitching statistics of that decade). Their #3 starter was the 8-10 Les Straker, whose 8 victories tied him for third in victories on that team with two relief pitchers (including closer Jeff Reardon).