After their offense goes quiet, Royals happily head home for Game 6
SAN FRANCISCO — The Kansas City Royals wanted out of AT&T Park on Sunday night, out of Giants country, out of a place where they had to adhere to National League rules and where they’d just lost again. They suited up in their fancy travel clothes, grumbled around the visitors’ clubhouse and bolted for the exits as quickly as they could.
Next stop: Kansas City — and they couldn’t be happier.
“Going back to the K, with those fans and that electricity,” said third baseman Mike Moustakas, 1-for-10 in the three World Series games in San Francisco. “We’re excited.”
The Royals arrived in the Bay Area, changed up their lineup, then went out and won Game 3. Manager Ned Yost looked like a smarty pants again. They jumped out to a 4-1 lead in Game 4, scoring four runs in the third inning. The Royals were rolling. And then they smacked face-first into a wall. Their offense vanished and so did their series lead.
In essence, that wall was a 6-foot-5 lefty from Hickory, N.C., whose prowess for postseason shutouts is nearing his prowess for snot rockets. The Royals haven’t scored in their last 15 innings, nine coming in Madison Bumgarner’s Game 5 shutout, a 5-0 Giants win. The way he’s pitching, you can’t give the Royals too much grief for not being able to hit Bumgarner. They had four hits, actually, but never more than one in any given inning.
After that third-inning rally in Game 4, the Royals didn’t plate another run. The Giants threw up 10 unanswered runs — sort of literally — and won 11-4. The Royals scored in just three of the 27 innings they played in San Francisco. Don’t matter if you’re facing Madison Bumgarner or Billy Madison, that’s not how you win a World Series.
Kansas City, though, offers renewed hope. Things can be normal again. Billy Butler can return as their designated hitter. Nori Aoki, displaced by Jarrod Dyson for defensive purposes in San Francisco, can return to right field. That’s a more potent lineup for Ned Yost to trot out in a must-win game.
“We’re going back to our home crowd,” Yost said. “The place is going to be absolutely crazy. We feel good about our matchups. We’ve got to walk the tightrope now without a net, but our guys aren’t afraid of walking the tightrope without a net. We fall off and we’re dead. But we win Tuesday, nobody’s got a net.”
The Royals face Jake Peavy in Game 6, who they tagged for six hits and four runs in their Game 2 win. Facing him again, that’s something to which they can look forward. If the Royals hold on for a Game 7, they’d face Tim Hudson — unless the Giants change their mind.
“We just gotta worry about Peavy and Game 6 right now,” said first baseman Eric Hosmer, who had five hits in San Francisco, most of anybody on his team.
And while they prep for Peavy, the Royals need to get on their plane, fly 1,800 miles, forget the last 15 innings and be thankful they’re still alive to play again in front of the Kansas City fans.
“They give us a lot of energy,” Hosmer says. “We feed off them.”
Here’s something to digest: The last time the hometown fans watched a Kansas City team in the World Series, those 1985 Royals returned home down three games to two, then won two straight and hoisted the trophy.
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Mike Oz is an editor for Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @MikeOz
