The Future of Baseball: The San Francisco Giants' Rotation

Heading into this season, pretty much everyone would have put the San Francisco Giants near the bottom of the standings. A year removed from a 90-loss season, the only noteworthy addition the team made was the signing of 45-year old starting pitcher Randy Johnson.Fast forward to the All-Star break, and the Giants are a surprising 10 games over .500 with a two game lead in the Wild Card race. The somewhat premature emergence of the portly power hitting Pablo Sandoval has helped, but the main reason this Giants team is succeeding is their pitching staff.With a 3.49 ERA, San Francisco's starting rotation has the lowest ERA in baseball. That ERA is a fourth of a point better than Atlanta, the team in second place, and nearly a full point better than the major league average.But here's the kicker: The rotation is only going to get better.The Giants already boast arguably the top 1-2 punch in baseball with Tim Lincecum and Matt Cain. Lincecum, the 2008 NL Cy Young award winner...