The Kansas City Royals, not the New York Mets, are your 2015 World Series Champions.
And that’s as it should be – the Royals were the better team. They made fewer mistakes and capitalized on the chances the Mets gave them. When they trailed, they never gave up. They wanted it more and they had the talent to back it up.
I bet the Kansas City Royals are a lot of fun to watch when they’re not playing against your favorite team.
Last night, the San Francisco Giants and Kansas City Royals played what was the most exciting game of the World Series so far to even things up at two games apiece.
For me, the most interesting part of the game was learning that Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica writer/producer Ronald D. Moore is a baseball fan. He was keeping score throughout the game and posting pictures of his scorecard to his Twitter feed.
Kansas City still holds the home field advantage in what is now a best-of-three series, but San Francisco would seem to hold the edge in tonight’s rematch of Game 1 aces, Madison Bumgarner vs. James Shields.
Whatever the final score is tonight, baseball fans are the winners – we’re getting to watch a great series that will keep the 2014 season going until at least Tuesday night.
The first game of the World Series didn’t exactly follow the script. The battle of aces never materialized.
James Shields was completely ineffective, yielding five runs on seven hits in three plus innings. Waiting 10 days between games probably didn’t help Shields, but he has rarely looked like an ace come playoff time.
When the Giants scored three runs in the top of the first inning, that sucked a lot of energy out of the crowd. Even though the Royals have been masters of late-inning magic this month, it seemed like a longshot that they’d be able to best Madison Bumgarner after giving him a lead.
The Royals had their chances. Nori Aoki and Eric Hosmer managed some hard-hit outs in the bottom of the first. And in the third, Kansas City put runners on second and third with no one out. Unlike “Big Game James,” Bumgarner was able to shut down his opponent.
The Royals didn’t score until the seventh inning when Salvador Perez hit a two-out solo home run. By that point, Shields and Danny Duffy had combined to allow the Giants to score seven runs.
Maybe it was a moral victory – it was the first run Bumgarner had allowed in a World Series game, snapping a streak of 21 scoreless innings. Only Hall of Famer Christie Mathewson had a longer World Series scoreless streak at the start of his career. It was also the first run Bumgarner allowed in a major league record 32 2/3 playoff road innings.
Maybe the close, competitive series that most of us were expecting will materialize later tonight. On Tuesday, the Royals looked overmatched.
I’d almost forgotten that baseball’s playoffs aren’t over yet. Tonight, the Wild Card World Series finally gets underway and we can find out if the Kansas City Royals will claim their first trophy in 29 years or if the San Francisco Giants will get their third in the last five.
Yep, I know who I’m going to be rooting for.
(I really thought this song’s 15 minutes of fame was over, but thanks for bringing it back, Bay area radio stations.)
Continue reading “World Series starts tonight – who are you rooting for?”
Pop star Lorde finally met Kansas City Royals Hall of Fame member George Brett last night.
The Kansas City Star published an article explaining the connection between the two.
PaulHadsall.com 