The San Francisco Giants have had a rather quiet winter. Sure they made two trades in efforts to improve their weak offense, but acquiring outfielder Melky Cabrera for starter Jonathan Sanchez, and Angel Pagan for Andres Torres and Ramon Ramirez was hardly the moves fans were expecting. The Giants essentially said that they would be frugal this offseason and thus far, they’ve kept their word.

But nobody expected the club to struggle re-signing one of its coveted pitchers, especially the ace of the staff.

According to Jon Heyman of CBSSports.com, there is still a “sizable gap” in long-term contract talks between the Giants and Tim Lincecum. The club is believed to have improved upon its initial four-year offer from this summer, but Lincecum is thought to be seeking an eight-year deal.

Those close to the negotiations tell Heyman that both sides are weighing one-and-two-year contracts in case a long-term deal cannot be reached. Considering Lincecum already owns two Cy Young awards, helped the Giants win their first World Series title in San Francisco, and is coming off a season in which he posted a 2.74 ERA with 220 strikeouts, one would think San Francisco would jump at the chance to re-sign one of its prized pitching possessions. But apparently frugal is winning out at the moment.

The Giants also have a decision to make about No. 2 starter Matt Cain, who becomes a free agent at the end of the season. Cain posted career-highs in ERA (2.88) and WHIP (1.083), even though he only won 12 games last season. He’s been repeatedly burned by lack of run support over the years and if the Giants don’t want to pony up to keep him happy, maybe he’ll think about moving on after the 2012 season. He could potentially win 20 games with a team like the Yankees or Red Sox, who are constantly looking for good pitching.

If Buster Posey (leg) makes a full recovery, Pablo Sandoval keeps up on his offseason conditioning, and youngster Brandon Belt takes a major step in his development, the Giants’ offense won’t be as bad as it was in 2011. (Then again, how could be any worse?) But this club is built on its pitching so GM Brian Sabean has a lot of work to do in order to keep guys like Lincecum and Cain around long enough for the offense to finally blossom.

Following their 3-1 win in Game 5 of the World Series on Monday night, somewhere in this country someone started writing about how the 2010 San Francisco Giants were a team of destiny this postseason.

But their status as 2010 World Series Champions has nothing to do with destiny. They were just the better team.

In the NLCS, people expected the Giants to lose to the Phillies, who had the better offense, the better pitching, more experience, etc. But when the Giants knocked off the defending NL champs to reach the World Series, people expected them to succumb to the mighty Rangers, who had the better offense, a pitcher in Cliff Lee who never loses in the postseason, etc.

But it was the Giants who came up with the clutch hits. It was the Giants’ Bruce Bochy who outmanaged the Rangers’ Ron Washington. It was the Giants’ pitching staff that turned in one of the most dazzling performances that we’ll ever seen in a Fall Classic.

A team of destiny? The Giants were just flat out better. The Rangers, with all their power and with all their Cliff Lee, were absolutely dominated in four of five games. And that’s a good Rangers team, mind you. They didn’t get to the World Series by accident and something tells me that this won’t be this group’s last crack at a championship. They’re also a classy bunch from their manager (who heaped tons of praise on the Giants in his post-game presser), down to the grounds crew that let San Francisco fans celebrate on the field hours after the game.

But back to the Giants. It was rather humorous to listen to people use the term “lucky” when it came to this club in the postseason. Do you know what they had to do in order to get to this point? First off, they had to beat Mat Latos and the Padres on the final day of the regular season to clinch a playoff berth. There’s nothing lucky about winning 92 games, I don’t care if San Diego choked over the final two months or not.

There’s also nothing lucky about beating Derek Lowe (twice), Roy Halladay, Roy Oswalt, Cole Hamels, C.J. Wilson and Cliff Lee not once, but twice, including once with the series on the line.

Think about that for a second. The Giants, with their cast of misfits, went through some of the best pitchers from this decade in order to win a World Series. Luck had nothing to do with that. Luck also had nothing to do with this team being able to clinch every series on the road (Game 4 at Atlanta, Game 6 at Philadelphia, Game 5 at Texas).

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Here’s a six-pack of observations from the Giants’ 4-0 win over the Rangers in Game 4 of the World Series. San Fran is now just one win away from becoming World Champions.

1. It’s hard to oversell how good Bumgarner was.
Had Giants’ starter Madison Bumgarner walked onto the field in Game 4 and proceeded to give up five runs on eight hits to the Rangers in their home ballpark, people would have shrugged and said, “What did you expect from a rookie pitching in the World Series?” But the fact that he went eight innings without giving up a run and limited the Rangers to just three hits was unbelievable. The Rangers had only been shutout once at home this year. Once. Bumgarner faced the league’s top hitting team and completely dominated them for eight innings. He needed just 106 pitches to record 24 outs and struck out six while holding Texas without an extra-base hit. Think about that for a second: Josh Hamilton, Nelson Cruz, Vlad Guerrero, the seemingly unstoppable Mitch Moreland – zero extra-base hits. Unreal. Madison Bumgarner was unreal in the biggest start of his young career.

2. Bochy continues to make all the right decisions this postseason.
Every move that Giants’ manager Bruce Bochy has made this postseason – from changes to his lineup to handling the pitching staff to defensive adjustments in the later innings – has paid off. He made two underrated moves before Game 4 that will certainly be overlooked in the Giants’ victory. One was benching a highly ineffective Pat Burrell and replacing him with Nate Schierholtz, which forced Cody Ross to move to left field. The move gave the Giants a major lift defensively, as Ross made at least one great catch that would have surely fallen in front of Burrell for a base hit. And who knows, there may have been others that would have led to Rangers’ runs. Schierholtz wasn’t any better than Burrell at the plate, but it didn’t matter. Moving Ross over to left and getting Burrell out of the lineup was the key. The other move Bochy made was replacing Aubrey Huff with Travis Ishikawa, which gave the Giants a better defensive first baseman and allowed Huff to concentrate solely on his offense. The end result was that Huff hit a two-run homer in the third, which was really all the offense San Fran needed with how well Bumgarner was pitching. (Of course, the double Andres Torres hit to score Edgar Renteria in the seventh and the homer Buster Posey hit in the eighth certainly helped ease the tension for Bumgarner and the rest of the club.)

3. The Giants continue to get all the breaks, but…
From calls on the base paths to near home runs to balls that bounce off the top of the wall instead of into the stands (or over the wall for home runs), the Giants have gotten all the breaks in this series. That said, they’ve also made their own breaks too. Their starters have been better, their bullpen has been better, their offense has been more clutch and Bruce Bochy has outmanaged Ron Washington. So when it’s time for one team to catch breaks, it’s been the Giants who have been most deserving. That may be salt in the wounds of Rangers fans, but it’s true. The Giants have just been better.

4. Rangers need way more production out of the heart of their order.
The Giants’ pitching is outstanding – maybe even the best in baseball now. But there’s simply no excuse for this Texas team to have gotten shut out in two of the first four games in this series. Vladimir Guerrero’s at-bats on Sunday were putrid. Josh Hamilton has been nearly non-existent since his play in the ALCS. Nelson Cruz’s power…well, what power? The heart of the Rangers’ order has turned to mush since the start of the World Series and if it doesn’t come alive in less than 24 hours, then Texas will be watching the Giants celebrate on their home field Monday night. No offense to Mitch Moreland, but he can’t be your best hitter in a lineup that consists of guys like Hamilton, Guerrero, Cruz, Ian Kinsler and Michael Young.

5. The umpiring has been brutal thus far.
I can’t even begin to describe the zone that home plate umpire Mike Winters had on Sunday night. He was calling strikes high, low, inside, outside – it didn’t matter. Then he called balls that were high, low, inside and outside. He was all over the place and the fact that Madison Bumgarner went eight innings while only giving up three hits is a freaking miracle. It was bad on both sides and it only got worse as the game went on. Pitches that were called balls in the first three innings were called strikes in the last three innings. Winters’ performance was bad and unfortunately, it only fell in line with the rest of the home plate umpires this series. And the guys on the base paths weren’t any better, as replays showed that the Rangers got screwed on two bang-bang plays at first base. Major League Baseball can’t be too happy with these umpiring crew this series. This is the best the game has to offer?

6. It’s redemption time, Cliff Lee.
The Rangers are in a bad spot down 3-1 in the series, but they still have plenty of life left. First and foremost, they need to take it one game at a time because if they get caught looking ahead, they won’t make it past Monday night. They have their ace on the mound in Game 5, but unfortunately for them their ace was shelled in Game 1 and they’re also facing the Giants’ best pitcher in Tim Lincecum. That said, it’s highly unlikely that Lee has two bad games in a row and Lincecum doesn’t like pitching in warm climates (San Francisco hardly constitutes as a warm climate – especially at night), so if the Rangers’ bats come alive then there’s no doubt they can force a Game 6. Their backs are up against it, but they have the advantage in Game 5 and they need to keep that in mind.

Here’s a six pack of observations following the Giants’ dominating 9-0 win over the Rangers in Game 2 of the World Series on Thursday night. San Fran is now up 2-0 in the series.

1. America, meet Matt Cain.
Because the Giants play on the West Coast, there’s a good chance that the majority of the country hasn’t seen Matt Cain pitch. If you caught Game 2 of the World Series, then you realized what Giants fans have known for years: He can be every bit as good as ace Tim Lincecum. If baseball had a stat for hard-luck losers, Cain would be No. 1 on the list. He’s been a victim of horrendous run support for most of his career, but he’s stayed patient and is finally getting his due. Cain hasn’t allowed a run in three postseason starts this year and completely shut down the Rangers on Thursday night. He pitched 7.2 innings of shutout ball while allowing just four hits and striking out two. These weren’t the Mariners or Pirates he was facing; the Rangers led the league in batting average this season and finished fifth in runs scored. They’ve only been shutout six times this year (including Thursday night) and can beat you 1 through 8. But they couldn’t hit Cain tonight if they were notified what the pitch and location were going to be. He was brilliant.

2. What an embarrassing performance by the Rangers’ bullpen.
With his team only down 2-0 in the bottom of the eighth, Darren O’Day struck out Andres Torres and Freddy Sanchez to start the inning. But then rookie catcher Buster Posey singled to shallow center and O’Day was pulled for Derek Holland, who proceeded to walk Nate Schierholtz and Cody Ross on eight straight pitches, then walked Aubrey Huff to score Posey. Despite the first two walks, Rangers’ skipper Ron Washington failed to get another pitcher warmed up and by the time Mark Lowe came in, the Giants already had a 3-0 lead and the bases still loaded. Lowe then walked Uribe to score Schierholtz and gave up a single to Edgar Renteria (more on him next) to score Ross and Huff. Michael Kirkman, who was the fourth pitcher used in the inning, then relieved Lowe and promptly gave up a bases-clearing triple to Aaron Rowand and a double to Torres. By the time Sanchez came back around to strike out, the damage was done and the Giants had built a 9-0 lead. It was an inexcusable performance by the Rangers’ bullpen, which has looked horrendous two nights in a row now.

3. Edgar Renteria still has some postseason magic in him.
Renteria has certainly frustrated Giants fans over the last two years with his minimal range at short, his weak at-bats and his stints on the disabled list. But for at least one night, nobody is going to complain about how much money GM Brian Sabean foolishly gave the aging veteran two offseasons ago. Renteria hit an absolute bomb off Texas starter C.J. Wilson in the fifth to break a scoreless tie and then added a two-run single in the eighth, which essentially put the nail in the coffin. He’s also played tremendous defense thus far and has given the Giants’ professional at bats every time he walks to the plate (which is something they haven’t been getting out of more heralded hitters like Pat Burrell). Renteria won the World Series as a rookie back in 1997 and if he decides to retire at the end of the year, winning another championship would certainly be a sweet way to go out. He’s a class act and while his game has deteriorated over the years, he proved tonight that he’s clutch when it matters most.

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After failing to land Adam LaRoche in the offseason, the San Francisco Giants “settled” on Aubrey Huff, who nobody showed much interest in.

After a successful stint with the Giants in 2009, Juan Uribe didn’t garner much interest from other teams this offseason on the open market, so he re-signed with San Fran for one year on the cheap.

In fear that the Padres would pick him up, the Giants claimed Cody Ross off waivers from the Marlins, who wanted to save a measly $1 million so they basically gave him away for free.

It was Huff’s single in the third inning that put the Giants on the board after the Phillies had taken a 2-0 lead in Game 6 of the NCLS Saturday night. It was Uribe’s home run in the eighth that broke a 2-2 tie, and it was Ross’s MVP play throughout the entire series that helped the G-Men knock off the defending National League champions to earn a date with the Rangers in the 2010 World Series.

Of course, there were others that helped San Fran get to this point. After he was dumped midseason by the Rays and couldn’t find work, the Giants took a flier on Pat Burrell, who essentially took a hometown discount because nobody else showed any interest in the veteran. The club’s best hitter is rookie catcher Buster Posey, who started the year in Triple-A because the Giants were concerned that he couldn’t handle their outstanding pitching staff. Andres Torres is a 32-year-old lifelong journeyman who came out of nowhere to seize the leadoff spot in their lineup when Aaron Rowand was hurt and ineffective earlier in the year.

Manager Bruce Bochy calls this team the “Dirty Dozen” because it’s essentially a bunch of miscasts and misfits that came together to do something pretty amazing. The Giants’ pitching staff rivals that of anyone in the league (just ask the Phillies and Braves), but none of this would have been possible if guys like Huff, Burrell, Torres, Posey and Ross didn’t gel. Did the Giants catch some breaks along the way? Absolutely, but that doesn’t mean that they’re any less deserving. The resiliency that this team has shown throughout the year is impressive and just when you think they’re done, they find a way in the end.

They’ve tortured their fans throughout the year with too many one-run games to count. But alas, torture has never felt so good.