"Underdog" World Series showdown

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- The Kansas City Royals have spent the past few days trying to return to normalcy -- no small feat when their city is draped in blue balloons and team memorabilia from the moment visitors hit the airport. They've caught up on their sleep, enjoyed a team dinner with their spouses at a suburban restaurant Sunday night and tried to keep a sufficiently low profile to avoid being back-slapped and high-fived into a state of catatonic bliss.

The biggest shock to the Royals' system came when they awoke and saw that the Las Vegas oddsmakers have installed them as slight favorites over the San Francisco Giants in the 110th World Series, which begins Tuesday night at Kauffman Stadium with a mound matchup of James Shields versus Madison Bumgarner. For die-hard Royals watchers, that's more improbable than actor Paul Rudd inviting everyone to an American League pennant-clinching keg party at his mom's house.

"In each series we've played, nobody picked us to win," Royals designated hitter Billy Butler said. "We've been underdogs the whole time. Now, we're favored for the first time. I saw that and I was like, 'Oh man, is that our bad-luck charm?' I just think we have a small advantage with four games at home if need be. That's what we get for the American League winning the All-Star Game."

This World Series will feature all sorts of entertaining contrasts. It matches the Giants, those inveterate October sofa-crashers, versus the Royals, who show up for the postseason once every three decades. It pits San Francisco's Bruce Bochy, practicing the managerial equivalent of nuclear fusion, against Kansas City's Ned Yost, infuriating baseball deep thinkers by either ordering up bunts or refusing to order his players to refrain from them.

And on a culturally disparate note, we have sophisticated, cosmopolitan and scenically breathtaking San Francisco versus unassuming Kansas City, serving up heaping plates of ribs and heartland sincerity, in no particular order.

The one common thread: two teams who traveled very difficult routes to this point and take pride in making the prognosticators and "experts" look like poseurs and frauds. The Giants and Royals have spent October trying to out-underdog each other, and now things come to a head.

"I think we notice sometimes when people don't pick us, and that does drive us a little bit," San Francisco first baseman Brandon Belt said. "We're a bunch of competitors in here. We want to be the best, and we know we have a team to be the best. When we have a lot of people picking against us, we want to show them a little bit."

The Giants are long on fortitude and the ability to adapt to changing circumstances. They finished second to the Dodgers by six games in the National League West while navigating the loss of staff ace Matt Cain and center fielder Angel Pagan to season-ending injuries. They also changed closers from Sergio Romo to Santiago Casilla and demoted Tim Lincecum from the rotation to the bullpen two months after he threw a no-hitter against the San Diego Padres.

During their playoff run, the Giants beat the Pittsburgh Pirates 8-0 in the wild-card game on a bravura performance by Bumgarner, outlasted the Washington Nationals in the Division Series and eliminated the defending NL champion St. Louis Cardinals in five games for their third pennant since 2010.

The Giants have developed their own baseball "brand" in recent years as close-knit teammates who keep their pulse rates low and find a way to thrive on the October stage. But statistically, they're a hard group to categorize. They ranked 12th in the majors in runs and 14th in OPS while looking like world-beaters in April and May, chumps in June and July and finally rallying to salvage their season in August and September.

Buster Posey and Pablo Sandoval are the team's marquee position players, but it's only fitting that Brandon Crawford, Belt, Michael Morse and Travis Ishikawa have hit the Giants' most noteworthy October home runs. When people refer to the San Francisco players as "cockroaches" -- a description first coined by general manager Brian Sabean several years ago -- the Giants take no offense.

"It's kind of funny," Crawford said. "We never give up, and we're hard to kill. I think it's a compliment."

The Royals have carved out their own niche as a young, largely homegrown team that's revived a franchise tradition after too many fallow seasons. They finished second to the Detroit Tigers in the AL Central with 89 wins, then rallied to defeat Jon Lester and the Oakland Athletics 9-8 in 11 innings in the wild-card play-in game before sweeping the Los Angeles Angels and Baltimore Orioles on their way to the pennant.

The Royals ranked fourth in the majors in Defensive Runs Saved, finished last in home runs and walks drawn and were the only team in baseball to strike out fewer than 1,000 times. Like the 1990 Cincinnati Reds, they rely on a nasty, three-man bullpen contingent (Kelvin Herrera, Wade Davis and Greg Holland) to make opponents antsy once the fifth and sixth innings roll around. And, like the 2003 Florida Marlins, they're too starry-eyed and clueless to realize it's natural to be uptight in these games.

"We're not the most recognizable team," Butler said. "We're in the Midwest. Small payroll. Small market. But we beat all the big markets to get here. We've competed the whole time. Yeah, we're young and we have no playoff experience, but it hasn't been a factor to this point at all. We've done our job."

If October proves anything, it's the danger of making assumptions. The Nationals, Tigers and Dodgers, teams with the power pitching that typically serves as the blueprint for October success, failed to survive the first round. And while Matt Williams and Mike Matheny were excoriated for their managerial missteps, Buck Showalter's perceived edge over Yost as a strategist certainly didn't matter much in the ALCS.

For what it's worth, Kansas City outscored San Francisco 16-6 on the way to a three-game series sweep at Kauffman Stadium in August. The Royals beat Bumgarner 4-2 in the series opener. Shields followed up with a complete-game, 5-0 shutout, and the Royals thumped Lincecum on Alex Gordon bobblehead night in the series finale. But no one expects that three-game interlude to matter an iota when the two teams meet for the ultimate prize.