Game 3's starting pitchers is a battle of two veteran right-handers, Jeremy Guthrie of the Royals and Tim Hudson of the Giants. Jerry Crasnick writes on Hudson, who will be making his first World Series start of his long and distinguished career: He had gone 15 consecutive seasons without a losing record before going 9-13 this year, the second-longest streak in major league history.
While Hudson quickly rose to the majors as a sixth-round pick out of Auburn in 1997 and has spent his career pitching for good teams, Guthrie took a while to get settled in the majors, and he spent his early seasons with bad teams in Baltimore, twice leading the American League in losses. Cleveland made him a first-round pick out of Stanford in 2002 and after a few appearances with the Indians in three seasons, they cut him and the Orioles claimed him on waivers. The Royals acquired him from the Rockies in July 2012 in a steal of a trade for Jonathan Sanchez. Guthrie has gone 28-23 with a 4.08 ERA the past two seasons, topping 200 innings both years.
As the numbers indicate, he's a back-of-the-rotation workhorse. As a fly ball pitcher, he's certainly helped by the Kansas City outfield defense. I'm a little surprised he got the start over Jason Vargas, considering the Giants can run out six left-handed batters and Guthrie has had extreme platoon splits this season:
vs. RHB: .238/.287/.311
vs. LHB: .296/.348/.476
With that in mind, how Guthrie goes after the Giants' lefty hitters will be key. His fastball averages 91.8 mph and he throws both a four-seamer and a two-seamer, although both tend to be thrown up in the zone. His changeup is his second pitch and he also has a curveball and slider. He uses the change more against lefties but also had success with it against right-handers (they've hit .176 against in 71 PAs ending with the pitch), so he may still throw it to Buster Posey and Hunter Pence.
While Guthrie prefers to work outside against lefties, note that he also tied for the league lead in hit batters with 14 -- with 13 of those coming on fastballs, all up in the zone. In other words, Guthrie will definitely pitch inside with a purpose to try and keep the hitter a little honest.
Considering that Madison Bumgarner's start looms in Game 5, I think Royals manager Ned Yost has to treat Games 3 and 4 with some urgency, especially this game. The Game 3 winner of a 1-1 World Series has gone on to win 71 percent of the time. Guthrie isn't a good match for this lineup so Yost should be ready to go quickly to one of his left-handers in the bullpen -- Danny Duffy, Brandon Finnegan, Tim Collins -- and not wait until the sixth inning, if Guthrie is looking shaky.
Hudson also had a platoon split this year, although not as large as Guthrie's:
vs. RHB: .258/.283/.384
vs. LHB: .281/.327/.428
As Jerry noted in his story, Hudson doesn't rely on his sinker as much as he once did:
Hudson's longevity is enhanced by his creativity and powers of reinvention. A decade ago, when he was pitching for the Athletics and then the Atlanta Braves, Hudson was content to throw sinkers 70 percent of the time, watch opposing hitters pound the ball into the ground and make a beeline for the dugout. This year, according to FanGraphs, he threw his sinking fastball 53.8 percent of the time and complemented it with a healthy mix of sliders, curveballs and splitters.
Hudson is the master at working the outside corner to both lefties and righties. Here's his heat map against left-handers:
The one to right-handers is similar, low and away. He pounds that corner with all of his pitches, which is why he annually ranks among the leaders in groundball percentage and doesn't allow many home runs.
After struggling in September (35 hits and 23 runs in 21.2 innings), Hudson has righted himself with two solid outings in the postseason, one run allowed in 7.1 innings against the Nationals and four runs in 6.1 innings against the Cardinals, with a combined 13 strikeouts and no walks. The extra days off between starts may have helped the 39-year-old and he'll be starting here on nine days of rest.
It's perhaps worth noting that in those two playoff starts he went back to his ol' bread-and-butter sinker more often, throwing it more than 60 percent of the time in both starts, which he hadn't done in any regular-season start (he maxed out at 59.5 percent in an Aug. 9 start against ... Kansas City).
Hudson has allowed 15 steals in 18 attempts this year, so look for the Royals to be aggressive in starting more baserunners -- either in straight steal attempts or hit-and-run players to help avoid double plays.
"Early in my career, I thought that I'd be here well before now -- there's no question about it," Hudson said Thursday. "But as your career creeps along and you're not able to get here to this big dance, you realize how hard it is. I've told some of these young guys who are rookies on our club, 'Soak it all in, man. Because you never know when you're going to be back.' "