Not every Cinderella story ends the way the real one did. And fewer than those end the way this World Series did. With the postseason's best pitcher striding in relief to pitch five shutout innings after a rookie second baseman made it necessary — thanks, Yogi Berra, and brother did you have it right! — to get him in there.
There was probably no way San Francisco Giants manager Bruce Bochy would have trusted anyone else, even one of his own stud bullpen, except Madison Bumgarner to secure a lead into a Game 7 win once the Giants had the lead and escaped losing it in less than a flash.
Bumgarner earned his Series MVP, no questions asked. He was Christy Mathewson, 1903; Babe Adams, 1906; Harry Brecheen, 1946; Lew Burdette, 1957; Sandy Koufax, 1965; Bob Gibson, 1967; Mickey Lolich, 1968; Rawly Eastwick, 1975; and, Randy Johnson, 2001.
Nitpick all you want that he didn't throw two or more complete game shutouts but it's falling on deaf ears in San Francisco and a lot of other places. Whomever else did whatever else Bumgarner was the World Series this year. Even Royals manager Ned Yost knows it. "Yeah," Yost said after the game. "It was hopeless."
Joe Panik helped phenomenally in Game 7. He should have gotten maybe the MVP(lay) award for the double play he launched in the bottom of the third. And out of kindness the Giants ought to hand Kansas City Royals first baseman Eric Hosmer an assist.
With Lorenzo Cain aboard on a line single with nobody out, Hosmer bounced one heading up the pipe and toward center field when Panik dove hard right. Somehow, Panik got his extended glove on the ball. Even more surrealistically, Panik glove-flipped the ball to shortstop Brandon Crawford at the pad, and Crawford whipped a throw on to first that got Hosmer by less than a hair.
The Royals called for and got a review. The out call stood. And all around Kansas City there went the cry: there comes a time when you don't dive into first base!
Because watching numerous replays you could get the idea that Hosmer would have been safe if he'd hit the pad on the dead run instead of trying to dive in. And with one man on now instead of the two who would have been aboard but for Panik's dialing his inner Michael Phelps, Billy Butler ended what might have been an heroic, 9-pitch at bat with a bouncer to shortstop so modest Crawford could have pulled up a chair to throw him out for the side.
Until then, the lead started with the Giants and turned into a tie that nudged starter Tim Hudson out and Jeremy Affeldt into the game. The Royals' starter Jeremy Guthrie lasted an inning longer than Hudson before yielding to Kelvim Herrera. The leadoff partner of H-D-H surrendered the lead run when Michael Morse — he who could be tied up on inside fastballs, supposedly — singled home Pablo Sandoval (leadoff single, taking third on a followup sinking-liner single from Hunter Pence) on an inside fastball, but kept the Giants quiet otherwise.
They could afford to be kept quiet. In for the fifth came Bumgarner. Omar Infante greeted him with a solid base hit. Bumgarner took umbrage enough to retire the next fourteen Royals he faced, right down to the Royals' final out.
Then Alex Gordon lofted a two-out riser that fell down for a base hit and turned into three bases when it skipped center fielder Gregor Blanco's glove, traveled to the fence, eluded Blanco, and got an inadvertent kick from left fielder Juan Perez, allowing Gordon to get 90 feet from tying the game.
Don't even think about bawling Gordon out for not trying to score on the play. The throw in to cutoff man Crawford was too perfect, and the only way Gordon could have scored on the play was Crawford throwing past catcher Buster Posey, which was about as likely as Bumgarner surrendering a 2-run homer on the next pitch, even to Royals catcher Salvador Perez.
The only thing he threw Perez was a high fastball that Butler fouled high off the third base line leaving plenty of room for Sandoval to get under it. Kung Fu Panda arched back as he caught it, and collapsed onto his back in glee with the final Series out in his clenched glove. And the only thing the Royals could do now was watch in muted anguish while the Giants celebrated their third World Series triumph in five years.
Only three previous times had the World Series ended with the tying run on third. In those moments, Harry Brecheen bagged Tom McBride on a ground out (1946), Willie McCovey hit a cruise missile right into Bobby Richardson's glove (1962), and Otis Nixon (1992) was out trying to bunt. Nixon's was the one that ended that Series in six.
When Sandoval hit the deck after snaring Perez's foul pop, Bumgarner was snared into a bear hug from Posey. "What a warrior he is, and truly incredible what he did throughout the postseason," Bochy said of Bumgarner after the game. "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."
Only five other pitchers have at least two wins and an ERA below 0.50 in a single series in which they pitched 20 innings or more. Bumgarner now holds hands in that wing with Koufax, Brecheen, Carl Hubbell, Waite Hoyt, and Mathewson. And he made the Giants only the second National League team other than the 1942-46 St. Louis Cardinals — led by a chap named Musial — to win three Series in five seasons.
He was the difference, too, among a starting staff who weren't even close to him collectively. He threw a third of an inning less than the rest of the staff, he held the Royals to a .151 batting average in his starts compared to their hitting .351 off the rest, and the rest of the staff was battered for a 9.51 ERA against the upstarts.
The Giants hoped Bumgarner could throw 50 pitches, maybe sixty. He threw 68. "Innings, I wasn't thinking about innings or pitch count," Bumgarner said amidst the celebrations. "I was just thinking about getting outs, getting outs until I couldn't get them anymore and we needed someone else."
They needed someone else like the proverbial hole in the head. It turned out the Royals needed someone else and didn't have him. Which didn't stop this from turning into a World Series that was exciting in spite of itself.
These were not great teams. The Giants went from dominating the none-too-threatening National League West by as many as 10 games in June before they sank long and loud into having to try for a wild card play-in game. The Royals managed to get from two games under .500 in July to hanging tight in an American League Central that wasn't as lame as the NL West but wasn't that much better before they, too, had to settle for a wild card play-in. Neither team won 90 games on the season.
And one of the major elements that got the Royals here in the first place — their cockroach running game — never even showed up in earnest. Both the Royals and the Giants tried only four steals throughout the Series. Each team stole one base. Each team was arrested once. At least half of the Royals' offensive attack went to sleep in the Series. Even if the Giants' team on-base percentage was better than the Royals' by 49 points, the Royals seemed unable to even think about pressuring the Giants' pitchers.
They had a shot at tying Game 7 on Bumgarner himself right off the bat. After Alcides Escobar sacrificed Omar Infante (leadoff single) to second, Nori Aoki lined out to left. Infante might have scored if he'd stolen third, which he was in a decent position to do even with the left-hander aboard. Instead, Infante could only watch when Bumgarner pounded Cain for an inning-ending strikeout.
After Morse's RBI single to greet him, Herrera kept the Giants scoreless. So did Wade Davis in the seventh and eighth. So did Greg Holland in the ninth. And all H-D-H get for that effort is to wonder, "Where did our love go?"
It probably won't go anywhere so far as Kansas City is concerned. That town waited 29 years to see their Royals get back to the World Series in the first place. (Boston waited a mere 21 between 1946 and 1967 for the Red Sox, who also lost an arduous seven-game Series.) They're not going to throw this team to one side.
But they know only too well why the Royals didn't recover the glass slipper. And the Royals know it, too."We probably would have won if they didn't have him," Cain said amidst the Royals' post mortems. "But they do have him."
"I'm guessing," said pitching coach Dave Righetti amidst the postgame party, "that some of these guys won't have to pay for a meal in San Francisco for a long time. And one thing I know for sure is, Madison Bumgarner won't."
Pay for a meal? Bumgarner's probably going to get partial title to every restaurant in town. And maybe two thirds of the Wharf.
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