But before we get too giddy, some cautionary tales. This year's St. Louis Cardinals, despite three starters with earned run averages below 3.10, probably won't even make it to the postseason. You wonder if the fates might have changed if the Cardinals had been able to trade for Oswalt.
Then again, three aces should be enough, right?
The Phillies won the 2008 World Series with only one, really, with a starting staff that was, statistically at least, inferior to that of the Tampa Bay Rays. The 1988 Mets won 100 games and featured Dwight Gooden, David Cone, Ron Darling and Sid Fernandez. They lost in the National League Championship Series to the Los Angeles Dodgers and their sublime ace, Orel Hershiser.
The Dodgers' No.2 man in the postseason? Tim Belcher.
And then, of course, there were those great Braves teams that ruled the regular season for more than a decade. All together now: A team that featured three men headed to the Hall of Fame won just one World Series in the time they pitched together.
The Braves' postseason ledger is riddled with late-inning collapses. Mark Wohlers. John Rocker. In 1998, the Braves won 106 regular-season games and Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine and John Smoltz led a staff that completed 24 games. Key members of their bullpen included Kerry Ligtenberg, who led the team with 24 saves, 43-year-old Dennis Martinez and the 23-year-old Rocker.
In Game 1 of the NLCS with San Diego, Smoltz left a 1-1 game in the eighth, but Rocker, Martinez and Ligtenberg couldn't hold off the Padres, who won in 10, 3-2. Glavine allowed one run over six innings in Game 2 and lost, 3-0. Maddux made it through five innings in Game 3 and a 2-1 deficit became a 4-1 loss. The Braves even used Maddux in the ninth inning to stave off elimination in Game 5.
