It's Far from Panic Time for Giants in World Series Despite Game 2 Loss

The San Francisco Giants had a chance to head home from Kansas City with a 2-0 lead over the Royals in the World Series, otherwise known as a pretty good spot to be in.

Well, they're not. But things could be worse. Heck, a lot worse.

If you missed what happened Wednesday night, the Giants went from watching Madison Bumgarner spearhead a resounding 7-1 victory in Game 1 to watching the Royals return the favor with a 7-2 victory in Game 2. Things were fine until the sixth inning, but that's when Jake Peavy stopped fooling hitters and set the stage for Jean Machi and Hunter Strickland to turn a 2-2 tie into a 7-2 deficit.

Matt Slocum/Associated Press

After an RBI single by Billy Butler and a two-run double by Salvador Perez, Omar Infante's two-run homer off Strickland was the killing blow. It also succeeded in turning the hard-throwing right-hander into a hot-headed dingbat for a few moments of bonus entertainment.

That was pretty much that. The Giants tried to stage a rally in the seventh, but Kelvin Herrera shut it down, and Wade Davis and Greg Holland took it from there to secure the series-tying win.

It's a loss the Giants are going to want to forget—particularly Bruce Bochy, whose bullpen management in the sixth inning was uncharacteristically sloppy. Barry Svrluga of The Washington Post nailed it here:

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And oddly, in the mess there, were Bochy’s fingerprints. He is likely going to the Hall of Fame as a manager, whether he wins his third World Series in five years or not. But for all the grief Kansas City Manager Ned Yost has taken this October — best version: he’s not very good; worst version: the Royals are here despite him — Yost (gasp) out-managed Bochy on Wednesday night.

"

And yet, you're not likely to find anybody in orange and black panicking. Beyond the Giants being an awfully composed bunch, surely they're on board with the idea that splitting the first two games of the World Series on the road is hardly a bad outcome.

Per Newsday's Erik Boland, Bochy sure is:

Things look even less dire if the Giants realize that they just played 18 innings in Kansas City, and the only one in which the Royals looked like clearly the better team was their five-run sixth Wednesday night.

Then there's how the Giants can now look at this series as a best-of-five in which they have home-field advantage, as Games 3, 4 and 5 will be played at AT&T Park over the weekend.

And looking at the matchups that lie ahead, there's plenty more for the Giants to like.

Harry How/Getty Images

In the interests of full disclosure, I will now note that I picked the Royals to win the World Series in five games.

This was partially because I thought James Shields would be a good matchup for Bumgarner, and partially because I figured Royals skipper Ned Yost would read the signs and choose Jason Vargas as his Game 3 starter.

Vargas is, after all, a left-handed starter and a fly-ball pitcher. These are two things the Giants did not handle well in the regular season, finishing 25th in OPS against lefty starters and 27th in OPS against fly-ball pitchers. For them, Vargas is the worst of both worlds.

Well, that was then. This is now. We know after his Game 1 debacle and poor postseason in general that Shields is not a good matchup for Bumgarner, and also that Vargas will not be starting Game 3.

As Yost announced hours before Game 1, veteran right-hander Jeremy Guthrie will be getting the ball for the Royals in Game 3, with Vargas going in Game 4. That sets up a matchup between Guthrie and Tim Hudson on Friday, and that's a matchup that favors the Giants.

Guthrie was a fly-ball pitcher once, but FanGraphs can vouch that he's been much more of a ground-ball pitcher since the All-Star break. That's normally a fine transition to make, but it doesn't make for an ideal matchup against the Giants.

Orlin Wagner/Associated Press/Associated Press

The Giants tied for the fifth-highest OPS against ground-ball pitchers this season, and there's no small-sample-size flukiness going on there. No team logged more plate appearances against ground-ball pitchers this season.

On the flip-side, there are the Royals against Hudson. That's the American League's second-most ground-ball-happy team going up against a notorious ground-ball artist. That bodes about as ill as you'd think, as the Royals tied for 26th in OPS against ground-ball pitchers in 2014.

There's a decent chance of the Giants getting a good performance out of their Game 3 starter while the Royals may be forced to go to their bullpen early. That's not how they want to kick off a stretch of three games without off days, especially if it means asking a lot of Herrera, Davis and/or Holland.

Beyond that potentially dicey situation, there are two things the Giants know for sure about the three games in San Francisco that must sound like music to their ears.

One is that the Royals will have to sit Billy Butler, which now looks like a substantial loss. The burly designated hitter was right in the thick of things in Game 2 with a couple of hits and two RBI, and overall he's a .350 hitter in the Royals' last six games.

The second is that, assuming neither of them is brought back on three days' rest for Game 4 on Saturday, a rematch between Bumgarner and Shields is going to happen in Game 5.

Given the way the two of them have thrown the sphere this October—one has a 7.11 ERA and the other has a 1.40 ERA—that's a huge edge in the Giants' favor. And like with Guthrie vs. Hudson in Game 3, the Giants have to like it as a possible bullpen-draining matchup for the Royals if Game 6 is on the horizon.

The one thing the Giants don't have after their loss in Game 2 is momentum. But that's OK. The Royals just showed that you don't need momentum to win World Series games, and going back home for three straight with a handful of matchup advantages trumps momentum anyway.

The Giants no doubt would have preferred to leave Kansas City needing just two more wins to earn their third World Series title in the last five years. But the way things are set up, getting three wins instead really isn't too tall a task for these Giants.

Note: Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference unless otherwise noted/linked.

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