Royals' Yordano Ventura Delivers Ace Performance to Push World Series to Game 7

In Game 6 of the World Series, a literal must-win affair for the Kansas City Royals, starter Yordano Ventura delivered the kind of dominant outing that the club hadn't had this postseason—and so very badly needed to prevent the Fall Classic and their season from ending. The blanking of the San Francisco Giants 10-0 ensured that wouldn't happen.

Through Kansas City's 13 playoff contests entering Game 6, Ventura remained the lone pitcher to make it through seven innings—he did so in Game 2 of the division series—and no Royals hurler had put together a scoreless start over the entire month.

On Tuesday night, with his team trailing the Giants three games to two and back in front of the home crowd, Ventura did both.

In doing so, the 23-year-old rookie, who owns a triple-digit fastball and whose nickname is "Ace" because of his last name, showed he can be one by delivering his—and his team's—biggest start on the franchise's biggest stage in 29 long years.

Having become the first Royals rookie to start a World Series game at any position in Game 2, Ventura topped that solid-yet-unspectacular outing (5.1 IP, 8 H, 2 ER, 2:0 K:BB) by twirling seven scoreless frames while allowing only three hits.

In doing so, Ventura became the seventh rookie ever to win an elimination game in the World Series and first since John Lackey pulled the feat in 2002.

It wasn't the cleanest of efforts, as the flame-throwing Ventura did walk five against four strikeouts in throwing 58 of his 100 pitches for strikes. But it was a heck of a time for the Royals' best start of October.

All the more so because Ventura still is dealing with all kinds of emotions in the wake of the death of Oscar Taveras, the St. Louis Cardinals rookie who suffered fatal injuries in a car accident over the weekend.

Ventura did his part by dedicating his outing to his fellow Dominican Republic native and friend:

"He's fearless out there," Royals first baseman Eric Hosmer said of Ventura in his on-field interview after the game. "Obviously, he was pitching with more than just this game on his mind."

Even still, the only time Ventura really faced any trouble came in the top of the third.

After sitting in the dugout for 33 minutes while Kansas City hung a seven-run inning in the bottom of the second to more or less remove all doubt, he nearly let the Giants back into the game by walking the bases loaded to bring up Buster Posey.

But Ventura got the overeager Giants star to swing at the first pitch and ground into an inning-ending double play.

From there, Ventura cruised, showing some panache and flair along the way, hitting 100-plus miles per hour multiple times on the radar gun as the game progressed and even making a few nice defensive stabs.

"He's always awesome," center fielder Lorenzo Cain said on the broadcast. "I've been watching him do that all year long, keeping guys off-balance. He stepped up in a huge way tonight."

So great was Ventura that it's raised an intriguing possibility that the rookie right-hander just might have put himself into the World Series MVP discussion should the Royals pull this comeback off:

The thought here is that as good as Ventura was Tuesday night, it's still Madison Bumgarner's award to lose, depending on how (or if) he pitches in Game 7 and how it plays out. Given how utterly dominant the Giants ace was in his two starts so far, it's hard to imagine anyone else winning the honor—even if San Francisco loses.

And yes, there is a precedent for the MVP going to the non-winning team in the Fall Classic, but it's happened only once.

In the 1960 World Series, New York Yankees' second baseman Bobby Richardson was named MVP for hitting .367 with five extra-base hits, including one homer, and driving in a record 12 runs in 1960, even though the Pittsburgh Pirates wound up winning the World Series on Bill Mazeroski's famous walk-off homer in the seventh game.

Potential World Series MVP or not, Ventura has been focused on the bigger picture.

"The biggest goal is to not leave anything behind," Ventura said via Anthony Castrovince of MLB.com before Game 6. "To give everything you have, knowing that that could be the last game."

Well, Game 6 wasn't the last game. And now, it's only fitting that two teams that began this October with a do-or-die game will finish it the same way.

The Royals have a chance to win it all in the most dramatic fashion possible, playing Game 7 at home in front of a Kansas City crowd that has been waiting for this since 1985.

Because of Ventura, the ace.

Statistics are accurate through Oct. 28 and courtesy of MLB.com, Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs, unless otherwise noted.

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