Scott Miller's Starting 9 (+9): Who Has Edge in Giants-Royals World Series?
KANSAS CITY — Matching 'em up, from top to bottom, left to right, north to south and right-side-up to upside-down: The teams, the cities, the drama. First pitch, Tuesday night at 8:07 p.m. ET on Fox. Clear your schedule, this World Series is going to be fun.
1. Momentum: Who's Got It?
The Kansas City Royals, buoyed by key homers (hello, Mike Moustakas, Eric Hosmer and Alex Gordon) and a killer bullpen (please do not feed Kelvin Herrera, Wade Davis and Greg Holland) are the first team ever to start a postseason by winning eight consecutive games.
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The way the Royals are rolling, the temptation is to pick them to win this World Series in three games.
The San Francisco Giants, keyed by buoyant Travis Ishikawa joining Bobby Thomson as the only men ever to hit a home run to put the Giants into a World Series, were as opportunistic as an embezzler in dusting the Washington Nationals and St. Louis Cardinals. Ishikawa was released by the Pittsburgh Pirates in April, reclaimed by the Giants, spent much of the summer at Triple-A Fresno and now is a hero in San Francisco.
Edge: Royals
2. History: What About It?
The Royals currently are rocking an October winning streak of 11 consecutive games, tracing back 29 years to George Brett, Willie Wilson, Frank White and Bret Saberhagen leading the way to the 1985 title.
It's the second-longest postseason winning streak in MLB history. The longest? The Yankees, of course, who won 12 in a row twice (1927-32 and 1998-99). If you want, we could veer into another farewell to Derek Jeter...nah, let's not.
The current Giants' lineage traces back to 2010, when this wacky, every-other-year thing began. Bruce Bochy's club is gunning for its third World Series title in five seasons. What have you done for me lately, indeed.
Edge: Giants
3. Aces Are Wild
Madison Bumgarner is a secret ace who finally is on the national stage. Secret? Heck yes: Though he has helped the Giants win two previous World Series (2010 and 2012), he was a supporting player then to Matt Cain and Tim Lincecum.
The guy's never even pitched in an All-Star Game (though he's made two). That will change in 2015.
James Shields, expected to start Game 1 for the Royals, is one of the final moves in general manager Dayton Moore's K.C. masterpiece. When Shields and Davis came over from Tampa Bay for Wil Myers in December 2012, it set the stage for the entire baseball world traveling to Kansas City this week.
Shields, whose best pitch is a changeup, is more substance over style: He hasn't been very good this postseason (5.63 ERA in three starts), but he's managed to get the baton to the bullpen before any fatal damage has occurred.
Edge: Giants
4. Wild Cards Are Aces
This is only the second all-Wild Card World Series, following the Giants-Angels in 2002 (and if Dusty Baker emerges from the dugout to take the ball from Russ Ortiz again, beware, Giants fans). With the Royals at 89-73 (.549) this season and the Giants at 88-74 (.543), it's also the first World Series ever in which the winning percentage of each club is worse than .550.
And get this: The last time two clubs with fewer than 90 wins met in the World Series in a non-strike-shortened season? Try 1918, when the Red Sox (75-51) beat the Cubs (84-45). And there was good reason for those two recording fewer than 90 wins, too: The U.S. government asked baseball to finish its season early that summer because World War I was stirring.
So baseball abbreviated its schedule, wrapping on Sept. 1, and staged the only all-September World Series ever played.
Edge: Outgoing commissioner Bud Selig (hey, the wild-card slots were his idea)
5. Rotations: Country Strong
Rumor has it Jake Peavy, Tim Hudson and Ryan Vogelsong will follow Bumgarner, but Missouri state troopers are expected to work extra patrols this week to make sure nobody goes missing: By the time Game 1 concludes Tuesday, Bumgarner will have started five of the Giants' first 11 postseason games.
If Bochy allows anyone else to pitch, Hudson will make his first career appearance in a World Series. We can all continue sharpening our lip-reading skills as the entertainingly emotional Peavy shouts things between pitches ("Daggone it, Jake, you didn't mail a birthday card to Mama!"—or something like that).
Behind Shields, Yordano Ventura scared the Royals when his forearm tightened in the American League Division Series, and Jeremy Guthrie wore an ill-advised T-shirt that teed off the Orioles. Maybe pitching coach Dave Eiland can get some peace when Jason Vargas starts. Never a dull moment.
Edge: Giants
6. Lockdown Bullpens: Escape from Alcatraz
This just in: The threat level has been raised to red when tasked with chewing through Herrera, Davis and Holland. The way they're going, it's only a matter of time until they dispatch the Giants, solve global warming and find a cure for whooping cough. Over 35 postseason innings, the Royals bullpen has racked up a 1.80 ERA.
But...wait! The Giants bullpen has rolled through 35.1 postseason innings with a 1.78 ERA. Isn't that...better? And yet all we keep hearing about is Kansas City's modern-day Nasty Boys?
Over their careers with the Giants, here are the postseason ERAs of three key relievers: 0.87 (Jeremy Affeldt, in 20.2 innings pitched), 0.98 (closer Santiago Casilla, 18.1) and 0.84 (Javier Lopez, 10.2). And Yusmeiro Petit is key as a long man.
Edge: Royals
7. Celebrity Mascots
Steve Perry, who inexplicably left long ago as the lead singer of the rock band Journey to, apparently, become a baseball groupie, loves his hometown Giants. But you would expect more rhythm from a rock star, wouldn't you?
Actor Paul Rudd has been so excited for his Royals that he invited fans back to his mother's house for a kegger after the ALCS.
Edge: Royals
8. The Managers (Hey! Stop Laughing!)
The Giants' Bochy owns two World Series rings and is authoring a Hall of Fame resume.
The Royals' Ned Yost surely owned a ring from a quarter gumball machine at some point in his life.
Bochy schooled the Nationals' Matt Williams and the Cardinals' Mike Matheny in the first two rounds, especially in bullpen management.
Yost went up against the Orioles' Buck Showalter...and schooled all of the social media armchair managers that perhaps he's not as dumb as they think.
"I don't need vindication," Yost said after the Royals whipped Balitmore, and maybe the fact that he's now the only manager in major league history to win his first eight postseason games backs him up just a wee bit. "I'm comfortable with who I am. And everything that I look at...I don't look at much, but I'm the dumbest guy on the face of the earth. But I know that's not true. I am smart enough to hire really, really good coaches and use them."
All true. Still. Bochy is aiming to become only the 10th manager ever to earn three World Series rings. The first nine? Every one is a Hall of Famer.
Edge: Giants
9. Lineups
Very similar. Both are well-rounded, neither employs many sledgehammers.
In postseason play, the Royals rank third among the 10 clubs in on-base percentage (.331), the Giants fourth (.313). In OPS, the Royals rank fourth (.721), the Giants seventh (.638). The Royals have scored 42 runs in eight postseason games, the Giants 41 in 10.
Alcides Escobar (.317 on-base percentage during the regular season) and Nori Aoki (.349) get things started for the Royals. Gregor Blanco (.333) and Joe Panik (.343) do so for the Giants. Meat of the order? Lorenzo Cain, Hosmer and Billy Butler are solid for the Royals. Pablo Sandoval, Buster Posey and Hunter Pence get things done for the Giants.
In Kansas City, the Giants likely will slot in Michael Morse as their designated hitter, which will help them.
In San Francisco, the Royals likely will lose DH Billy Butler, which handicaps them.
However...the Royals went 15-5 in interleague games this season, including 8-2 on the road.
The Royals ranked last in the majors with only 95 homers during the regular season but have rediscovered the long ball this postseason at the most opportune of times: Four of their eight homers have arrived in extra innings.
The Giants didn't put a ball out of the park in any of the first four games of the division series against the Cardinals, then suddenly popped three in Game 5: Ishikawa, Morse and Panik. Brandon Belt also rocked one in the 18th inning against the Nationals.
Edge: Royals
10. Cities
San Francisco is known internationally as one of the finest cities in the world.
Kansas City is known domestically as a friendly city in the Midwest with spectacular fountains and even more spectacular barbecue.
Edge: Giants (but, the barbecue makes it awfully close to a dead heat!)
11. X-Factors
Kansas City: Speed, which especially factors in on the basepaths and in outfield defense. When Terrance Gore enters the game as a pinch runner, everyone knows he's going to swipe second base...and he's always safe anyway.
If the Royals shift their running game into high gear, beep, beep, look out—though Bumgarner, a lefty, should keep things in check in Game 1.
San Francisco: Opportunism. Before their three homers to clinch Game 5 against the Cardinals, the Giants had scored 12 of their previous 22 runs without a hit.
These guys are the kings of the bases-loaded walk, scoring on a wild pitch, pushing a run across via a ground ball or sac fly.
Edge: Royals
12. Battle for Mr. October: Pablo Sandoval vs. Lorenzo Cain
Sandoval now has reached base safely in 23 consecutive postseason games, which, according to STATS LLC, is a franchise record and the longest active streak in the majors. This, remember, is the Kung Fu Panda who hammered three home runs in Game 1 of the 2012 World Series against the Tigers. More eucalyptus leaves, please!
Cain has been a one-man highlight reel this October, especially in the outfield where he's making cheetahs seem slow. Teammate Hosmer says this is the best he's ever seen Cain play.
Edge: Even
13. The Layoff
The fact the Royals have not played since Wednesday and the Giants haven't played since Thursday likely will mess with timing and, perhaps, dull things right out of the gate. Hope not. But layoffs do quell momentum.
This Kansas City run is frequently compared to that of the 2007 Colorado Rockies. Well, the Rockies clinched the NLCS on Oct. 15, opened the World Series on Oct. 24 and were swept by the Red Sox.
Two recent vintage Tigers teams met similar fates: The 2006 Tabbies clinched the AL crown on Oct. 14 and didn't open the World Series until Oct. 21. St. Louis needed just five games to beat them. And Jim Leyland's 2012 club clinched the AL title on a Thursday, opened the World Series the following Wednesday (same layoff as the current Royals) and were swept by the Giants.
Flip side: Kansas City's vaunted bullpen has worked in every postseason game so far, so perhaps a few days off could do it some good. And Shields' early command in Game 1 will be worth watching. He will be pitching on 10 days' rest.
The only other pitcher ever to start a World Series Game 1 with more than 10 days' rest between postseason starts is the Rockies' Jeff Francis in 2007, and Boston clubbed him for six earned runs and 10 hits in four innings (Francis also walked three).
Edge: Giants
14. Ballparks
AT&T Park is a spectacular venue with the gorgeous water of McCovey Cove sparkling beyond the right field fence.
Kauffman Stadium long has been the most underrated park in baseball, with visionaries far ahead of their time doing a fabulous job (and hey, there's water here, too: The fountains in center field).
Edge: Giants
15. Ballpark Staples
AT&T Park: Garlic Fries.
Kauffman Stadium: Barbecue.
Edge: Royals
16. Recent History
These two teams met in Kauffman Stadium in a three-game series Aug. 8-10. Kansas City swept it.
The Royals beat Bumgarner in the opener Friday night, rode Shields to victory Saturday and then staged a track meet Sunday, swiping seven bases against the hapless Giants battery of Lincecum and Andrew Susac.
The Royals were in the midst of a scorching-hot 24-6 streak at the time, while the Giants were stumbling through a 5-13 streak that would sock them in for a time at six games under .500.
Edge: Royals
17. Music
In AT&T Park, you hear the melodic voice of Tony Bennett singing "I Left My Heart in San Francisco."
In Kansas City, home to America's thriving jazz and blues scene in the 1930s and 1940s, you hear Wilbert Harrison (and many others) with rollicking versions of "Goin' to Kansas City."
Edge: Royals
18. Final Pitch
While the Royals have won 11 consecutive postseason games, the first three go back 25 years to 1985.
The Giants, playing in their third World Series in five seasons, have won 15 of their past 17 postseason games, including nine of their past 10 at AT&T Park.
I like that the Royals' young core has grown up together and won at every minor league level and now is winning at the major league level.
But it's difficult not to be highly impressed with what the current Giants are doing and have done since 2010. These guys are October-tested and know how to win.
On paper (ooooh, that's always a dangerous preface, isn't it?), this should be a close and exciting series. It should go seven. It should be memorable. So?
Prediction: Giants in six
Scott Miller covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report. He has over two decades of experience covering MLB, including 14 years as a national baseball columnist at CBSSports.com.
Follow Scott on Twitter and talk baseball @ScottMillerBbl.
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