ANAHEIM, Calif. -- Geography and the presence of two wild-card winners aren't the only things different about the 2002 World Series.

In direct contrast to recent Series that have featured dominant starters -- and certifiable aces -- such as Tom Glavine, Kevin Brown, Greg Maddux, Curt Schilling, Roger Clemens, David Cone and Randy Johnson, this Angels-Giants matchup features no such cast.

The Angels' top starter is Jarrod Washburn, who at 28 enjoyed a career year with an 18-6 mark and a 3.15 earned-run average. He may be evolving into a future No. 1, but with 46 career victories to his credit, he's not there yet.

San Francisco's top winners were righty Russ Ortiz and lefty Kirk Rueter, each of whom won 14 games. The Giants' choice for Game 1 starter, Jason Schmidt, won 13 games during the regular season, tying a career high. He takes the mound Saturday night with a career-record seven games over .500.

Washburn, in fact, is the only starting pitcher to win more than 15 games on either roster.

While Clemens, Johnson, Schilling, Andy Pettitte, Barry Zito, Mike Mussina, Matt Morris and others watch the Fall Classic from the comfort of their living rooms, Livan Hernandez (12-16, 4.38) and John Lackey (18 major league games) prepare to make World Series starts.

So much for the notion that a team needs a proven ace to ride through October the way the Los Angeles Dodgers did with Orel Hershiser in 1988 or the Minnesota Twins did with Jack Morris in 1991.

Is starting pitching, the cornerstone of so many championship teams, suddenly overrated?

Hardly. But this October, it doesn't seem as integral. Both the Giants and the Angels have arrived here thanks to balanced rosters, not pitching superstars.

"Obviously,'' said Anaheim pitching coach Bud Black, "there's no real dominant starter on either staff. But we feel we've got a capable staff, and so do they, I'm sure. We've got good starting pitching, but we've also got a strong bullpen.''

Indeed, while the Angels' starters had the fourth-best ERA in the American League, their bullpen was No. 1. Veteran closer Troy Percival was aided by Brendan Donnelly, who may have been the most dominant set-up man in the league with a .184 batting-average against and a success rate of nearly 91 percent in retiring first batters faced. In the postseason, the Angels have been further bolstered by the blossoming of Francisco Rodriguez, whose contributions have been every bit as critical as the work of starters such as Ramon Ortiz and Kevin Appier.

Going against type, the Angels have continued to prosper in the post-season despite, statistically at least, ordinary pitching. Their collective ERA is 4.10. But they've made up for that apparent deficiency with an offensive outpouring. In four Division Series games against the Yankees, the Angels never scored fewer than eight runs; in the LCS against the Twins, they scored six or more in three of the five contests.

"You just don't see that very often in the post-season,'' Black said, "but we've scored a lot of runs.''

"We got the best of the Yankees pitching,'' said GM Bill Stoneman, "and no one guy got them. The team got them.''

Depth -- throughout the batting order and in the starting rotation -- were two key components to the makeup of the Angels.

"The theory we had,'' explained Stoneman, "is that we were going to send a good starting pitcher out there every single day. The importance of a deep staff starts on April 1, not Oct. 1.''

Now that October's here, and so are the Angels, the theory continues to work.

The Giants aren't much different in their approach.

"Both teams,'' said San Francisco general manager Brian Sabean, "are living proof that, with a good bullpen, you can go a long way and win a lot of games.''

Like the Angels, the Giants are somewhat backloaded, with a proven closer (Robb Nen) aided by a journeyman castoff (Felix Rodriguez). And like the Angels, they have payroll parameters to observe, and stocking their staff with premier pitchers isn't financially feasible.

Instead, the Giants prefer deep to dominant. They're one of just five teams in modern history to reach the World Series without a 15-game winner. On the other hand, as Sabean points out, they had five starters who won at least 12.

"By and large, our starters gave us innings and quality starts,'' said Sabean. "Very rarely did we have to turn our bullpen upside down and go to them in the early innings. We could stay with our guys longer, and know that we had the people in the bullpen to stabilize things in the later innings and the ability to score runs.''

Baseball isn't the slave to trends that the NFL is, so there's no assurance that the presence of the Giants and the Angels in the World Series is going to force a game-wide re-examination of how to best construct a pitching staff.

But with more teams cost-conscious and unwilling to meet the asking price of such prospective big-ticket free agents like Glavine, Clemens and Maddux, others may pattern themselves after the two league champions if only out of financial necessity.

"Look at what it costs to have a top dog,'' Sabean said, "and what you have to pay per year, and what percentage of the payroll that takes up. It's a huge cost. Then look what happens when you have what LA went through (losing three well-paid starters, and Brown in particular, to long-term injury). Those guys become impossible to replace.

"You can't afford to go out and get someone else, and you also don't have the kind of depth to fill that void.''

Absent the kind of ace who typically stands out in October, one of these two teams will be crowned champions in the next week. Then, either the Giants or Angels will sit atop the baseball world, and it will almost go unnoticed that they got here without a King of the Hill.

Sean McAdam of the Providence Journal covers baseball for ESPN.com.