Royals and Giants in World Series...who ya got?

My (hopeful) prediction for tonight:

Both Hudson and Guthrie run into trouble early, and Bumgarner and the Royals bullpen come in in relief. The game is close and both relief corps are shut down. Bumgarner throws ~6 in relief but is pulled in favor of Romo / Affeldt / Casilla as he's thrown way too many already. Lorenzo Cain singles in the bottom of the 9th, steals second, Hosmer lines out to 3rd, but then Butler singles and Cain scores, giving the Royals a walk off win.

Bottom line: Bumgarner wins MVP, even though his team loses.

Star wrote:

My call for tonight:

Close game through 6 innings.

Royals take a one run lead into the 7th to set up their three headed monster for the last three innings.

But the Giants get a run off of each of them and win buy one or two runs.

Lincecum will get in at some point and get credited for the win.

Hunter Pence will either score the game winning run or knock in the game winning run and be named series MVP.

And there will be a wild pitch or botched defensive play somewhere that has an effect on the game.

The losing manager will be criticized for a questionable decision.

Star is probably spot on but as a KC fan I hope he isn't.

My prediction is the Royals get an early lead like 3-1 but the Giants bring in Bumgarner to pitch the 5th and 6th and the Royals get nothing off of him. It is 3-2 going into the 9th inning and Holland gives up one run in the 9th. The Royals don't score and we go to extra innings. The Giants don't score in the 10th. The Royals get a double to lead off the 10th. A wild pitch moves the runner to 3rd. The Giants get 2 strikeouts and the runner is still on 3rd. The Royals beat out an infield single and the winning run scores. All of KC goes nuts and Salvi perez is voted MVP. Holland blows the save but is credited with the win. Romo takes the loss for the Giants.

Cardinals fan here. I'm pretty angry about losing to the Giants in 2012 and 2014 NLCS, and bitter about losing our future star Oscar Taveras. After seeing Ventura dominate last night with the O.T. memorial on his cap, I'm pulling for him and KC. They're on a mission. But I know first hand how gritty SF is. It'll be a nailbiter.

Close game through 6 as predicted. I regret not watching more of the series, it's been pretty good.

Actually most individual games have been blowouts despite going to game 7.

Will MadBum pitch the 9th? Crazy good in relief tonight.

down to a one swig game

I'll drink to that. Bottoms up!

Stinky McCheesefart wrote:

dial it up wrote:

Do people honestly still watch baseball?

Yes. About 10 million times as many as watch track.

Just checked the game 6 ratings, turns out the answer to my question is no haha

Suck it KC.

GIIIIIIIAAAAANNNNNTS!!!

mahedeine wrote:

My (hopeful) prediction for tonight:

Both Hudson and Guthrie run into trouble early, and Bumgarner and the Royals bullpen come in in relief. The game is close and both relief corps are shut down. Bumgarner throws ~6 in relief but is pulled in favor of Romo / Affeldt / Casilla as he's thrown way too many already. Lorenzo Cain singles in the bottom of the 9th, steals second, Hosmer lines out to 3rd, but then Butler singles and Cain scores, giving the Royals a walk off win.

Bottom line: Bumgarner wins MVP, even though his team loses.

Holy sh\it man, you almost had it! You doubted MadBum, though. He's a legend now. That's the greatest World Series performance in my lifetime. One of the greatest ever.

Don Larsen' Perfect game ranks real high on my list.

I think this is the first three-win performance by a pitcher in the Series since Mickey Lolich in 1968,

Wossamotta wrote:

I think this is the first three-win performance by a pitcher in the Series since Mickey Lolich in 1968,

They actually just changed the scoring about 30 minutes ago. Bumgarner is now credited with 2 wins and a 5 inning save. It doesn't matter either way. He freaking owned.

The guy has got to be on that HGH

dial it up wrote:

Stinky McCheesefart wrote:

Yes. About 10 million times as many as watch track.

Just checked the game 6 ratings, turns out the answer to my question is no haha

2014 MLB attendance: 73,739,622

13M viewers per game in the WS

Track attendance: 12,563 parents and 57 track nuts at 5000 meets.

Star wrote:

My call for tonight:

Close game through 6 innings.

Royals take a one run lead into the 7th to set up their three headed monster for the last three innings.

But the Giants get a run off of each of them and win buy one or two runs.

Lincecum will get in at some point and get credited for the win.

Hunter Pence will either score the game winning run or knock in the game winning run and be named series MVP.

And there will be a wild pitch or botched defensive play somewhere that has an effect on the game.

The losing manager will be criticized for a questionable decision.

I missed almost everything there except for the Giants winning.

But there was a botched defensive play for the Giants in the 9th that turned a single into a triple and almost an inside the park home run that would have tied the game.

The man on third with two outs made the game pretty intense at the end.

"The losing manager will be criticized for a questionable decision."

Wrong there. The managers were great in this game.

But if the Royals had hit a home run in that last at bat, the call to keep pitching Bumgarner would have been questioned.

This was just a great World Series. It's why you watch all of the games, to be totally involved in all of the possibilities for that last game.

Sorry to any of you that like baseball but weren't interested in watching this Series. You really missed something.

Star wrote:

Sorry to any of you that like baseball but weren't interested in watching this Series. You really missed something.

yeah, it was a great series. They say it' a "game of inches", and it's really true. While skill of course matters a ton and the most, just some basic breaks falling your way (bloopers falling in here or there, a couple good or bad strike calls, etc) matter a lot too. An inch here, and inch there, and the results are reversed.

The whole game turned on a few plays:

First, Panik's amazing double play. If he doesn't get to that ball, it's first and third, no outs, and quite likely the Royals get a run that inning. If he plays 2 feet to the right, it goes through.

Second, also at 2nd base, Infante *almost* makes a great play, but he slips! Instead of an out, Sandoval is lead-off man on. (And they showed an amazing stat: during the Series, when SF had lead-off man on in inning, they scored tons of runs. When no lead-off man on.....ZERO runs. The trend continued).

Third, Gordon does not make a good play on fly-ball. He goes back too slowly, then has to make an awkward, weak throw (this was no Puig throw, that's for sure), didn't appear to think Sandoval would tag, and Sandoval sneaks to 3rd base (Pablo can run for a pudgy ba$tard.) This leads to run on broken bat single.

Lastly, Aoki actually has a really nice hit on MadBum, but SF right fielder is positioned PERFECTLY, and gets great jump on ball, and makes great catch. This was a much better hit than Morse's game-winning broken bat RBI, but.....the ball fell in, and Aoki's did not.

That's the game. SF made the key few plays. KC *barely* did not. A game of literally inches.