The ball rolls to the wall, with Juan Perez hustling after it. So, the two-out single becomes a two-out double with the error. Blanco had made just 1 error in the regular season over 127 games in the outfield and was by no means a slouch defensively, so it was a shock when the ball bounced in front of him and then skipped underneath his glove and towards the wall. Gordon singles into left center field, dropping one in front of Gregor Blanco. Here is the play if you would like to follow along. Gordon was a significant part of both Royals runs earlier in the game, having doubled in the 2 nd inning to score Billy Butler from first base and then scoring on an Omar Infante sacrifice fly a few plays later to tie the game at 2 apiece. That brings us to the most critical at-bat of the game: Bumgarner vs. Baseball Reference estimates that the Giants had a 96% chance of winning the game after this point. He then got Billy Butler to pop out into foul territory on 3 pitches. Bumgarner held the platoon advantage against Hosmer (both are left-handers) and struck Hosmer out on 5 pitches for his 4 th strikeout of the game. He was set to face the middle of the order with Eric Hosmer, Billy Butler, and Alex Gordon due up.
#Alex gordon game 7 triple series
Bumgarner was just 3 outs away from the World Series title heading into the 9 th inning, with the Giants leading 3-2. Bumgarner, by the time the series was all said and done, would throw 21 innings, roughly a third of all innings thrown by Giants pitchers in the World Series.Īnyways, Bumgarner was on short rest, but had pitched well in Game 7, throwing 4 shutdown innings up to that point and preserving the Giants’ razor-thin lead, so Bochy’s decision appeared to have worked out well. The bullpen was also relatively well-rested, having not pitched at all in Game 5 (remember, complete game shutout from Bumgarner on 117 pitches). So, Bochy had a few options he could have gone to over the course of the game that would have been just as good as Bumgarner. Even during their postseason run, the Giants held a respectable bullpen ERA. This was one of the best bullpens in baseball during the regular season, ranking 5 th in bullpen ERA. It’s not like any of those guys were slouches, either, as all of the names previously mentioned had not given up a single run in their limited World Series work. Bochy could have used Santiago Casilla or Sergio Romo or Tim Lincecum or Javier Lopez to fill up any of these innings. Keep in mind that Bumgarner had just pitched a complete game on 117 pitches just a few days prior. Bochy refuses to use any one of the other relievers or pitchers available and instead opts to go to Bumgarner in the 5 th inning. Heading into the bottom of the third inning, Giants Manager Bruce Bochy decides to put in Jeremy Affeldt, who shuts the Royals down for 2 more innings. The Giants started off the game with Tim Hudson, who gave up 2 runs in the first 2 innings.
Here is the game’s play-by-play if you’d like to follow along.
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It’s 2014, and Madison Bumgarner’s arm is still somehow attached to his shoulder after pitching Games 1 and 5 and then coming in to throw roughly 60 pitches in Game 7 (just 3 days after Game 5!) to try to close out the series and give the Giants their 3 rd pennant in 4 years.
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