Giants hold off Royals to win World Series
Madison Bumgarner punctuated his World Series performance for the ages by pitching the San Francisco Giants to their third championship in five years with a 3-2 win over the Kansas City Royals on Wednesday night.
Bumgarner threw five scoreless innings on two days’ rest, saving a Series pushed to the limit. And by winning game seven on the road, Bumgarner and the Giants succeeded where no team had in three and a half decades.
“I wasn’t thinking about innings or pitch count. I was just thinking about getting outs, getting outs, until I couldn’t get them anymore and we needed someone else,” Bumgarner said in a monotone that made it sound as if he was talking about batting practice.
A two-out misplay in the ninth almost wrecked it for him.
Bumgarner had retired 14 in a row when Alex Gordon sent a drive to centre field. The pitcher pointed his glove in the air, thinking it could be the final out, but the ball fell in front of Gregor Blanco for a single.
Blanco allowed it to skip past him to the wall, and left fielder Juan Perez kicked the ball before throwing to shortstop Brandon Crawford in short left, holding Gordon at third.
“When it got by him, I had a smile on my face. I thought maybe I could score, but he got to it quickly enough,” Gordon said. “I just put my head down and ran, almost fell around second base, was just waiting for [third-base coach Mike Jirschele] to give me the signal. It was a good hold. He had the ball in plenty of time.”
From there, Blanco hoped for the best.
“We just need one more out. We got this. Let’s do it,” he said he thought to himself.
Bumgarner, the Series MVP, retired Salvador Perez on a foul-out to third baseman Pablo Sandoval near the Giants’ dugout. He was immediately embraced by catcher Buster Posey, and the rest of the Giants rushed to the mound to join the victory party.
San Francisco players tossed their gloves high in the air as they ran to the centre of the diamond.
“What a warrior he is, and truly incredible what he did throughout the post-season,” Giants manager Bruce Bochy said of Bumgarner. “I just told him I just can’t believe what he accomplished through all this. He’s such a humble guy, and we rode him pretty good.”
Three days after throwing 117 pitches in a four-hit shut-out to win game five, Bumgarner tossed 68 more. He has allowed one run and 14 hits in five outings covering 36 innings.
“Yeah, it was hopeless,” Royals manager Ned Yost said.
Bumgarner initially was credited with the win. But nearly an hour after the final out, the official scorers awarded it to Jeremy Affeldt, who was in the game when San Francisco took the lead.
Affeldt pitched two and a third innings of scoreless relief in his longest outing since July 2012.
Posey expected Bumgarner to throw three innings, then turn over the game to set-up man Sergio Romo and closer Santiago Casilla – who threw four pitches in the entire Series.
“But he just kept rolling,” Posey said. “I mean, it’s unbelievable.”
Home teams had won nine straight game sevens in the Series since Pittsburgh’s victory at Baltimore in 1979, including the Royals’ 11-0 rout of St. Louis in 1985. Teams hosting the first two games had won 23 of the previous 28 titles, including five in a row. And the Giants had lost all four of their previous World Series pushed to the limit.
The Giants, a 20-1 long shot when 2014 odds were first posted a year ago, won their eighth title and third since moving from New York to San Francisco after the 1957 season. They also have won 10 straight post-season rounds, one shy of the record set by the New York Yankees from 1998 to 2001.
Most of it this year was due to Bumgarner.
“He didn’t lose a bit of energy. He didn’t lose a bit of stuff,” injured teammate Matt Cain said. “Sometimes you wonder if he’s got a pulse.”
This article originally appeared on ESPN.com
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