|
The bottom of the second inning of Game 6 lasted 33 minutes and 41 pitches and somewhere between an eternity if you're a San Francisco Giants fan and perfection if you're a Kansas City Royals fan. In this World Series that has been more entertaining than the final scores would indicate -- only one game has been closer than five runs -- Kansas City's 10-0 victory on Tuesday gave us a Game 7, our first since 2011 and just the second in 12 years. Before the game, Royals manager Ned Yost was asked, "Since there is no tomorrow, if you will -- " and he quickly interrupted with "There is tomorrow." Hey, maybe he knew something. Five key moments: 1. Mike Moustakas gives the Royals the 1-0 lead. While the Royals pounded out eight hits in the second inning -- well, to be a little more precise, they had a bloop, a bleeder, a gork and a seeing-eye single mixed in -- Moustakas' double was the hit that really got the inning going. Alex Gordon led off with a blooper to center field. Salvador Perez then lined a base hit over second baseman Joe Panik -- a 2-0 four-seam fastball that caught way too much of the plate for a batter who has drawn two walks since the beginning of September. That brought up Moustakas with runners on the corners. I had suggested before the game that we'd probably see more cutters from Peavy. It has been a pitch he's used a lot more with the Giants than he earlier this season with the Red Sox, especially since the beginning of September and Peavy had fashioned a 2.15 ERA in eight starts since then. But he'd only thrown it eight times in Game 2. Moustakas took a fastball outside -- a good pitch by Peavy as Moustakas is prone to chase that pitch and not do much damage -- and then fouled off a 91-mph fastball down the middle that he should have crushed somewhere. He then got that cutter -- a little flat, not enough break, although inside. Moustakas hit just .170 on inside pitches, but he pulled this one past the diving Brandon Belt over the first-base bag, not hit hard but hard enough, into the corner for the RBI double and the game's first run. Little did we know that the fun was just beginning for the Royals. 2. Alcides Escobar reaches on a single, no fielder's choice, no single. Weird play here. The Giants were playing the infield halfway with the slow-moving Perez at third base. Peavy struck out Omar Infante and then threw two nice cutters but Escobar, protecting the plate more than anything, chopped a 1-2 cutter to the right of Belt. Perez took a step home, but quickly retreated. Belt had a momentary pause -- it looked like Peavy was telling him to go home -- enough of a delay to give Escobar enough time to scoot around Belt's tag. Belt actually could have flipped that ball to Panik, who has covering first base. They say it's a game of inches. Belt could have snagged Moustakas' grounder and he could have tagged out Escobar. He made neither play. (Escobar was originally given a hit, then the official scorer changed it to a fielder's choice and then it was changed back to a hit, which seems like the correct decision, since Belt didn't attempt to make a play on anyone else.) So the Royals had the bases loaded with one out. Peavy would get one more batter. 3. Norichika Aoki singles to left field. The bullpen was warming up here, as Bochy had right-hander Yusmeiro Petit and left-hander Javier Lopez getting loose. He wasn't fooling around and didn't want the game to get out of hand early. He could have brought in Lopez -- .200 batting average allowed versus lefties this season, .179 over the past three innings -- but elected to stick with Peavy. Aoki hit lefties better and doesn't have a platoon split over his career. Plus if you bring in Lopez, it was probably for just one batter with Lorenzo Cain on deck. Aoki had what they call a great at-bat. He fouled off four pitches, including two cutters with two strikes. Peavy then threw a 1-2 fastball and Aoki expertly went the opposite way, hitting a hard base hit past Pablo Sandoval to make the score 2-0, keeping the bases loaded and knocking Peavy out of the game. Before the game, Bochy had been asked about Peavy's thumb, which he apparently bruised while trying to catch a foul ball in the dugout in Game 3. He said it was fine, that pitching coach Dave Righetti and the trainer had looked at it and that he had talked with Peavy about it. Really, it was some bad luck for him: Gordon's blooper, the play on Moustakas' ball that could have been made, Escobar's little bouncer, Aoki's inside-out base hit. So some bad luck, but also an inability to put batters away. Peavy had a 2.12 ERA in his 12 regular-season starts with the Giants, but that masked a mediocre strikeout rate. The Royals put the ball in play and if you put enough balls in play, some are going to go for hits, no matter how weak the contact. Speaking of which ... 4. Eric Hosmer gets two hits in one at-bat! The Giants brought in Petit, their secret weapon. He had thrown 12 scoreless innings in the postseason, including three in Game 4. It seemed like the right move. It didn't work. Lorenzo Cain flared a soft single to center -- the baseball gods definitely wanted a Game 7 -- to score two runs as Escobar got a good read on the ball to score from second. With Cain running, Hosmer then grounded a hit up the middle. However, the umpire had called time right as Petit began his delivery. So, re-do. Cain moved up anyway on a wild pitch, forcing the Giants to bring the infield in. Hosmer then chopped a 1-2 fastball off the dirt and over shortstop Brandon Crawford's head for a two-run single to make it 6-0. Billy Butler would then get the roped hit of the inning, a double to right-center to make it 7-0. For longtime Royals fan, it brought back memories of Game 7 in 1985, when they scored six runs off the Cardinals in the fifth inning en route to an 11-0 blowout. Bochy pulled Petit after the inning mercifully ended, saving him for Game 7. But Madison Bumgarner will undoubtedly be Bochy's reliever of choice to go multiple innings if needed in relief of starter Tim Hudson. 5. Yordano Ventura delivers the goods. Lost in the offensive onslaught was Ventura's performance in the biggest game of his life. The 23-year-old right-hander was pitching with a heavy heart after the death of his friend Oscar Taveras in a car accident on Sunday. He went seven innings and allowed just three hits. It wasn't a brilliant outing -- he walked five batters -- but he kept the Giants off the board and kept the Kansas City bullpen rested. Give the kid credit. He had two challenging innings. In the second, Hunter Pence doubled over first base with one out. Ventura then struck out Belt on a 97-mph heater out of the zone; Belt tried to hold up but couldn't. Mike Morse then hit a fly ball to the right-field corner that Aoki took his usual around-the-world adventure to get to, but he hauled it in. In the top of third, the Giants loaded the bases with one out after three walks. Buster Posey was up. It was 7-0, but if Posey drills a double in the gap it's 3-0 and the Royals' bullpen has to start scrambling. Posey, still without an extra-base hit this postseason, swung at the first pitch and grounded into an inning-ending double play. Yes, you can debate the merits of that. If he hits a double or a home run we'd be saying what a great idea it was to attack the first pitch. Anyway, potential disaster averted, a few more runs tacked on and we have one game of baseball left this season. Let's make it a good one.
|
