Royals' Mighty Bullpen Finally Looks Fallible in World Series Game 5 Loss

Finally, there is a chink in the armor.

The vaunted Kansas City Royals bullpen is arguably the best in baseball, and up until this past weekend, it was dominant in this postseason.

Then Games 4 and 5 happened, and that once devastating core of relievers now looks vulnerable after the San Francisco Giants beat the Royals 5-0 Sunday night at AT&T Park to take a 3-2 World Series lead.

The relievers as a whole are good, but the back end of the bullpen known as “HDH”—Kelvin Herrera, Wade Davis and Greg Holland—had been nearly unhittable in the playoffs. Going into Game 5, that trio had combined to pitch 32.2 innings, allow three runs and strike out 39.

In fact, the only complaint when it came to those three was that, at times, they weren’t being used more often. Those numbers tell you why.

But in the eighth inning of Game 5, the Giants finally tagged Herrera and Davis. After pitching a scoreless seventh, Herrera gave up back-to-back singles to Pablo Sandoval and Hunter Pence to start the bottom of the eighth.

Manager Ned Yost removed Herrera and gave the ball to Davis, who struck out Brandon Belt, but he then threw a center-cut fastball to light-hitting Juan Perez, who smoked it off the top of the wall in center field to score both runners. It was the seventh pitch of the at-bat, which started with two strikes. YCPB noted Perez's extra-base hit:

"

Juan Perez had an XBH off Wade Davis.

— YCPB (@cantpredictball) October 27, 2014"

With the stadium rocking, Brandon Crawford singled home Perez. And just like that, Herrera and Davis became human.

“That’s a tough pitcher [Perez] was facing,” Giants manager Bruce Bochy said in his postgame press conference. “Great at-bat.”

The hits Herrera allowed came on two pitches that caught all strike zone, and when you miss like that to Sandoval and Pence, you tend to pay a penalty.

The balls Perez and Crawford hit were even fatter. Davis could not command his cutter, and the one time he threw it in the strike zone, it was middle-middle to Crawford. Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports highlighted the Royals' "fissures": 

"

Last night it was the dregs of the Royals' bullpen imploding. Tonight it's Kelvin Herrera and Wade Davis. Fissures in the Royals' formula.

— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) October 27, 2014"

A night earlier, the Giants tuned up the rest of the Kansas City relievers for eight runs in four innings. Five of those came against rookie lefty Brandon Finnegan, who had allowed two runs in six previous postseason outings and was blossoming into quite the reliable arm in the bullpen before the three-headed monster that is “HDH.”

That bullpen is a critical part of the Royals’ success, especially since the rotation has been disappointing in this series. Only once, in Game 5, has a Royals starter completed six innings, leaving plenty of work for the bullpen.

“It's always apparent that you have a much shorter leash with your starting pitching [in the postseason],” Royals manager Ned Yost said in his pregame press conference Sunday.

“I mean, I've watched every playoff game, for the most part, and every World Series game for the last four or five years. You know, I've seen how managers have a bit of a shorter leash, especially when you have a really, really good bullpen, and we have a really, really good bullpen.”

But those innings pile up, and with Yost apparently unable to trust a chunk of that really, really good bullpen—three relievers have fewer than five innings in this postseason—it was bound to eventually show some signs of fatigue.

Yost praised his bullpen for its ability to pitch on consecutive days and bounce back, but he may be pushing the limits. Herrera has thrown 83 pitches in his three World Series outings. He also has pitched more than one inning or been asked to in each of those appearances. Three of his five walks and his only two hits allowed in this series have come in the second frame of work.

While it is nice that Yost is using him with a sense of urgency, stretching Herrera that long is something Yost did only 11 times during the six-month regular season.

Matt Slocum/Associated Press

The Royals will tell you that the runs scored off Finnegan, Herrera and Davis while in San Francisco were just blips. Yost will give you the nothing-to-see-here answers, but it is quite possible there is something to the Giants finally cracking the best parts of that bullpen.

It could be something of a psychological edge for the Giants hitters. Those incredible relievers are fallible. They can be had. They can be hit. They can be hit hard.

Then again, if Finnegan, Herrera and Davis find their command back in Kansas City, that psychological gain will be nixed. Physical, well-placed, high-90s fastballs can have that effect.

There is no doubt the Royals would not be at this point of their season if it wasn’t for the bullpen’s effectiveness, but if they're going to win the next two games to capture their first World Series title since 1985, those relievers will have to regain their dominance.

Anthony Witrado covers Major League Baseball for Bleacher Report. He spent the previous three seasons as the national baseball columnist at Sporting News, and four years before that as the Brewers beat writer for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Follow Anthony on Twitter @awitrado and talk baseball here.