October 29th, 2014
World Series, Game 7
San Francisco Giants at Kansas City
Royals
Kaufman Stadium, Kansas City
In
their first postseason appearance since winning the World Series in 1985, the
Royals qualified as a wild card, came from behind to defeat Oakland in the Wild
Card Game, swept the Los Angeles Angels in the Division Series, then swept the
Baltimore Orioles in the ALCS. The Royals were led by catcher Salvador Perez,
outfielder Lorenzo Cain and first baseman Eric Hosmer.
The
San Francisco Giants were looking to capture their third World Series in five
years, having won the championship in 2010 and 2012. Their offense was led by
Buster Posey, Pablo Sandoval, Brandon Belt and Gregor Blanco. And they had
All-Star pitcher Madison Bumgarner, who was in the middle of one of the best
postseason pitching performances ever.
In
the National League Wild Card Game against the Pittsburgh Pirates, Bumgarner
pitched a four-hit shutout while striking out ten as the Giants won 8-0. He
lost his only start in the NLDS against Washington, giving up two earned runs
in seven innings, but the Giants won the series in four games. Then in the NLCS
against the St. Louis Cardinals, he pitched seven shutout innings in the first
game, a 3-0 San Fran win, then he got a no-decision in the clinching Game 5,
which the Giants won in the bottom of the ninth.
Now
it was on to the World Series. The first two games in Kansas City were split
with the Giants taking the first game 7-1—behind Bumgarner’s seven innings
giving up just one run—while the Royals took Game 2, 7-2. In AT & T Park in
San Francisco, KC won Game 3, 3-2, while the Giants took the fourth Game, 11-4.
Bumgarner
pitched a complete game shutout in Game 5 (5-0 was the final score) while the
Royals thrashed the Giants 10-0 to set up Game 7. The pitching matchup would be
Tim Hudson for San Francisco and Jeremy Guthrie for Kansas City.
The
Giants scored two runs in the top of the second, both on sacrifice flies. The
first came off the bat of Michael Morse, while Brandon Crawford was responsible
for the second. The Royals tied the game in the bottom half of the inning on an
RBI double by Alex Gordon and a sac fly by Omar Infante.
The
Giants regained the lead in the top of the fourth on Morse’s RBI single and San
Francisco manager, Bruce Bochy, called on Bumgarner in the fifth inning. The
left-hander continued his amazing World Series run as time and time again he
frustrated the Royals’ batters. But the Giants couldn’t add to their lead and
thus took the 3-2 lead to the bottom of the ninth. Bochy left Bumgarner on the
mound to finish the job.
After
getting the first two batters out rather easily, Bumgarner faced Alex Gordon,
the Royals’ last hope. Gordon singled to left-centre, but left-fielder, Juan
Perez, mis-played the ball and it got by him and rolled all the way to the wall.
If Gordon had been blessed with a little more speed he may have scored the
game-tying run, but instead he only made it to third.
That
brought Salvador Perez to the plate with the game-tying run only 90 feet away.
On the sixth pitch of the at-bat, Bumgarner got Perez to hit a high pop up in
foul territory on the third base side. Sandoval squeezed the ball for the final
out and the Giants were World Champions again.
For
the series, Bumgarner pitched 21 innings over three games, allowed only one run
for a 0.43 ERA, surrendered only nine hits and one walk and struck out 17 batters
while picking up two wins and one save. He was the obvious choice for the World
Series MVP Award.
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