The linchpin of the team is Taro Aso, a charismatic former foreign minister who becomes secretary-general of the LDP.
He moved from midfield to his current position, center back, the linchpin of a team's defense.
Needing a win against Chile, he kept Costa in his lineup and omitted Xavi, hitherto the linchpin of the team.
Indisputably and evolutionary, in the past year he has taken over from Ian Bell as the batting linchpin of the team.
1. Jonathan Trott England's No 3 has been a linchpin of the team since his Test debut in 2009 but he faces his biggest challenge yet.
For Manchester City there is a more fundamental issue to contemplate: can Kompany really be the linchpin of the team in the new Guardiola era?
Last season he was a fringe player at Southampton, now he is the linchpin of the team, the player who, according to Claude Puel, "gives us our structure".
He has also been a good luck charm, and possibly the linchpin of a team turnaround: in the 10 games that Reyes has played, mostly as a late-inning pinch-hitter or substitute, the Mets have not lost.
But if any football analyst at the start of this season had said that a quarterback averaging under 140 yards of passing a game — that's Tebow's sorry statistic — would have a 6-1 record as a starter and be considered the linchpin of his team, few people would have bought it.
All eyes were on himwhenever he stepped out of the bullpen, though, because Riverawas the most successful relief pitcher in postseason history.The Yankees had won four World Series in five years from 1996to 2000, resurrecting the dormant franchise, and many opposingplayers thought Rivera was the linchpin of the team's success.
Kaplan says the linchpin of the team is Mark Levinson, a particle physicist from University of California, Berkeley, who has been directing the film since 2008.
