Now that was a World Series Game 7. After a combined four blowout victories and just two close games, the San Francisco Giants win third World Series in five years tonight by beating the Kansas City Royals 3-2 in the final game of the 2014 World Series.
The Giants struck first with a two-run second, but the Royals continued their Cinderella run by driving in two runs of their own in the bottom of that same inning. San Francisco managed to score another in the fourth inning, but the Royals were unable to match it for the next five, clinching the Giants’ World Series crown.
As expected, the Giants’ ace pitcher Madison Bumgarner made a relief appearance for starter Tim Hudson. Before Game 7 fans had called for Bumgarner to start, though with just two days’ rest even San Francisco’s manager said that wasn’t going to happen.
Hudson pitched four full innings before Bumgarner left the bullpen and entered the game in the fifth. With the Giants hanging onto a 3-2 lead at that point, Bumgarner was able to cap his postseason fairy tale by holding the Royals scoreless through the rest of the game.
The San Francisco Giants’ Game 7 victory marked Bumgarner’s third win the 2014 World Series.
In losing, the Kansas City Royals also entered the history books, though not in the fashion they would have liked. Before tonight’s deciding game, World Series home teams had been 23-3 in World Series Games 6 and 7, and the previous eight home teams that won Game 6 to even the Series also went on to win Game 7.
After sweeping their way through the playoffs and into the World Series, the Royals and their all-star pitching corps just couldn’t overcome the Giants’ powerful bats and a solid bullpen of its own. Kansas City hadn’t appeared in the MLB playoffs for 29 years, which coincidentally was the year they last won the World Series.
Both the San Francisco Giants and Kansas City Royals were wild card teams headed into the playoffs.