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| Enos Slaughter has rounded third and is headed for home in the eighth inning of Game 7 of the 1946 World Series. Slaughter scored what proved to be the game-winning run in the St. Louis Cardinals' victory over the Boston Red Sox. (YouTube screen grabs) |
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| Alex Gordon is headed toward third, and Kansas City Royals coach Mike Jirschele signals for him to hold up with two out in the bottom of the ninth inning of Game 7 of the 2014 World Series. The San Francisco Giants twice mishandled Gordon's single, opening the possibility that Gordon might score on the play. But he stayed at third, and the Giants got the third out to win the World Series. |
By Phil
Ellenbecker
Alex Gordon didn't get a chance to do his Enos Slaughter impersonation.
Slaughter of the St. Louis Cardinals famously raced home from first base, running
through third-base coach Mike Gonzalez's stop signal, according to some accounts, to score what proved to be the
game-winning run on a double by Harry Walker (that probably should have been scored
a single) in the eighth inning of Game 7 of the 1946 World
Series.
Gordon of the Kansas City Royals paid heed to his third-base coach's stop
sign on his two-out, opposite-field single to left-center field,
which was misplayed into a possible trip around the bases, in the ninth inning
of Game 7 of the 2014 World Series in Kansas City.
When Gordon stayed, the score stayed at 3-2 Giants, and Madison Bumgarner then retired
Salvador Perez on a can-of-corn foul pop-out to third baseman Pablo Sandoval
for out No. 3. That gave the San Francisco Giants their third World
Series title of the decade on Wednesday, Oct. 19, while leaving the Kansas City
Royals 90 feet short of extending the game and keeping hopes alive of their
first World Series title since 1985. This was also the Royals' first trip to
the playoffs since 1985.
A main
topic in the Series aftermath was Bumgarner's brilliance. Coming on at the start
of the fifth inning for his first relief appearance of the season, three days
after notching his second victory of the Series with 117 pitches, Bumgarner
held the Royals scoreless on two hits, walking none and striking out four in
his 68-pitch, five-inning stint to get the save. That gave him a Series ERA
of 0.43 over 21 innings.
The
other main topic was whether Royals third-base coach Mike Jirschele should
have sent Gordon. The Giants' outfielders had looked shaky in their handling of
Gordon's hit, which came on an 0-1 count, and the way Bumgarner had been pitching, this might have been
their best chance at tying the game.
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| The diagram follows the path of the penultimate play of the 2014 World Series between Kansas City and San Francisco. After Alex Gordon singles (1), the ball gets by Giants center fielder Gregor Blanco (5) and is kicked by left fielder Juan Perez (6), allowing Gordon to advance to third. That's where Gordon stayed as the Giants beat the Royals 3-2 in Game 7. (ESPN.com illustration) |
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| Alex Gordon follows through after connecting on a pitch from Madison Bumgarner for a single in the bottom of the ninth inning with two out in Game 7 of the 2014 World Series. (YouTube screen grabs) |
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| Gordon's hit gets by San Francisco Giants center fielder Gregor Blanco for an error. |
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| The ball gets away from Giants left fielder Juan Perez after he kicked it while trying to retrieve Gordon's hit. The Giants' mishandling of the hit allowed Gordon to advance to third on the single. But that's where he stayed as the Giants beat the Kansas City Royals 3-2 in Game 7 of the 2014 World Series. |
Charging center fielder Gregor Blanco was caught in no-man's land on Gordon's hit, deciding whether or not to go for the catch.The ball skipped by him to the Kauffman Stadium wall, and an error was charged to Blanco. Left fielder Juan Perez gave further pause when he kicked the ball away a few feet down the warning track trying to retrieve it. He sent a one-hop throw to shortstop Brandon Crawford in short left-center. And then Crawford gave the ball back to Bumgarner, because Gordon, who'd stumbled going around second base, wasn't going anywhere, once he saw Jirschele stopping him at third.
Gordon is no speed demon, but he had stolen 12 bases during the regular
season and was considered a good base runner. On the other hand, with Perez up
to bat, the Royals had the man who'd made their Cinderella run through the
postseason possible by delivering the game-winning hit in their 12-inning, 9-8 wild-card
victory over Oakland back on Sept. 30. And he'd a homered off Bumgarner in Game
1 -- the only run in the Series that Bumgarner had given up.
If
the Royals had sent Gordon and he'd been a dead duck at the plate, they'd have
looked rather foolish.
“I
was starting to get a little nervous,” Bumgarner told The New York Times,
as quoted in a Society for American Baseball Research Games Project article by
Tony Valley. “He can run a little bit, and that’s a big outfield. I just wanted
someone to get it and get it in, which they did in plenty of time. But it was a
little bit nerve-racking.”
Asked whether he could have scored on the play, Gordon told Tim Kurkjian at espn.com,, "No, I couldn't have." (For a deep dive into this play, read Kurkjian
at https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/12485525/mlb-penultimate-pla.)
Nip and tuck
The
ninth-inning drama capped a back-and-forth Series in which neither team had
been up by more than one game. The run differential after six games was 26-25
in San Francisco's favor. It matched teams who'd taken
similarly paths to get here -- neither was a division winner;
each had to win a wild-card play-in game. And once they got past that first one,
they just kept winning, until they met each other. Kansas City swept in
both the divisional and championship rounds of the American
League playoffs, becoming the first team in major league history to win their first eight postseason playoff games. San Francisco lost only one game in each of its two
NL playoff series.
Game 7 followed the Series' see-saw nature as the Giants took a 2-0 lead
in the top of the second inning, the Royals tied it in their half of the second
and the Giants moved ahead by what proved to be the final margin in the fourth.
(The Giants were visitors by virtue of the AL having won the All-Star Game,
giving the AL team home-field advantage in the Series under the rule in play at
the time.)
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| San Francisco Giants second baseman Rob Panik makes a diving grab of a grounder up the middle by Kansas City's Eric Hosmer with no outs in the bottom of the fourth inning of Game 7 of the 2014 World Series. (YouTube screen grabs) |
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| Panik has flipped the ball with his glove to second base, where shortstop Brandon Crawford will catch it to force out Lorenzo Cain (lower left) advancing from first. |
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| Hosmer dives into first as Giants first baseman Brandon Belt stretches to catch the throw from Crawford. Hosmer is called safe on the play, but it is overturned on replay review, resulting in a double play. San Francisco held on to its 3-2 lead, and that's the way the score remained as the Giants won the World Series. |
The key play?
While Gordon's trip around the bases and Bumgarner's final face-off with Perez
were the ultimate pivot points, the game may have swung on a
dazzling play by Giants second baseman Joe Panik and an ensuing
replay decision in the fourth inning, with the Giants up 3-2.
Lorenzo Cain singled leading off Kansas City's fourth against former Royal
Jeremy Affeldt, and Eric Hosmer followed with a hard dribbler up the middle on
which Panik made a diving, back-handed stab. Panik glove-flipped to shortstop
Brandon Crawford to force Cain, and Crawford relayed to Brandon Belt at first
in a double-play attempt.
A
diving Hosmer arrived at first at about the same time as Crawford's throw.
Safe, first-base umpire Eric Cooper signaled. Royals at first and second,
nobody out.
But
no. Giants manager Bruce Bochty challenged Cooper's ruling, and it was
overturned on replay review.
(St. Louis Cardinals fans might see some karmic reckoning in this. The last
time the Royals had been in the playoffs, they beat the Cardinals in the 1985
World Series with the help of a blown call in Game 6, 23 years before the
installation of a replay review system.)
Here comes the Bum
So
now it was two out and nobody on. Billy Butler grounded out to Crawford to end
the inning, and here came Bumgarner, and there went the ballgame for the
Royals.
Well, not exactly. The Royals' first hitter to face Bumgarner, Omar Infante,
flared an opposite-field single to right and moved to second on Alcides
Escobar's sacrifice bunt. Nori Aoki followed with another base-hit bid,
inside-outing a 2-1 pitch to left, but Perez made a running backhanded
catch about five feet from the foul line. Cain then struck out, and Bumgarner
set the Royals down 1-2-3 the next three innings. He had retired 13
straight batters before Gordon's hit in the ninth.
Bumgarner's mastery was part of an overall dominant performance by the bullpens
after the early scoring. Kelvin Herrera, Wade Davis and Greg Holland combined
for 4 2/3 shutout innings and nine strikeouts for the Royals.
The
relievers figured to play a prominent role, as neither team had one of its top guns ready at the start. So it was their No. 3 starters who drew the nod
in a rematch of Game 3. For the Giants, it was Tim Hudson, who'd given up
three runs in 5 2/3 innings in their Game 3 loss. Royals manager Ned Yost went to
Jeremy Guthrie, who'd given up two runs in five innings in getting the Game 3
win.
Matching runs early
The
Giants drew first blood off Guthrie in the second inning after Sandoval was hit
by a pitch, and Hunter Pence and Belt followed with singles to load the
bases, both hits coming with two strikes. Michael Morse scored Sandoval
with a sacrifice fly on a liner to Aoki in right, and Crawford followed with a
sacrifice fly to Cain in center to plate Pence.
The
Royals matched that in their half of the second against Hudson. Butler led off
with a single to center and scored on Gordon's line double to right, part
of a 2-for-3 night for Gordon. After Perez was hit by a pitch, Gordon moved to
third on Mike Moustakas' fly out to Perez in left. Infante lined out to Blanco
in center, but Gordon was able to tag up and tie it.
Esbobar followed with a single to left, putting runners at first and second and
prompting Bochty to summon Affeldt. Crawford fielded a grounder from Aoki to
force Escobar and get the Giants out of the inning.
(Hudson's 1 2/3 innings was the shortest stint for a Game 7 starting pitcher
since Bob Turley was yanked with no outs and one on for the New York Yankees in
the second inning in 1960.)
The
Giants scratched out what proved to be the game-winning run in the fourth.
Sandoval led off by slapping a bouncer up the middle to Infante that the second
baseman bare-handed while backpedaling into the grass. He slipped backward and
two-bounced his throw to first, allowing Sandoval to reach with a single. Pence
followed with a single to center. Belt's fly out to left sent Sandoval to
third.
Bullpens take over
Yost was now ready to go early to his bullpen rotation that had been so
reliable in the regular season. Herrera, who had been the Royals'
seventh-inning guy, now came on in the fifth, and on his third pitch he surrendered
a single to right by Morse for the go-ahead run.
Herrera retired the next two batters and skimmed through the next two innings
before giving way to Davis. K.C.'s eighth-inning man came in one inning early
and struck out three of the first four batters he faced. Sandoval doubled with
two out in the eighth, making him 3-for-3 in the game, but Pence, who'd been
2-for-3 to that point, grounded to Infante for out No. 3.
Then Holland came on in his usual ninth-inning role, only this time not in a
save situation (second in AL in saves this year with 46). He added two more
strikeouts to the total of 12 Royals pitchers had on the night.
Affeldt emerged as the winning pitcher in his first decision in four Series
appearances, with 2 1/3 innings of shutout relief in which he allowed one hit.
He had a 0.00 ERA in 5 1/2 Series innings, giving him 22 consecutive scoreless
innings in the postseason, the second-longest streak in history behind New York
Yankees Hall of Famer Mariano Rivera.
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| With two victories, a save and a 0.43 ERA, San Francisco's Madison Bumgarner was the obvious choice for MVP in the Giants' triumph over the Kansas City Royals in the 2014 World Series. An mlb.com article rated Bumgarner's pitching performance as the best ever in a World Series, and a Men's Journal article rated him the most dominant postseason pitcher of all time. |
Historic on the hill
Ultimately, the
difference was Bumgarner with a Series pitching performance for the ages. With
his two wins, one save and 0.43 ERA, Bumgarner put together what was ranked as
the best overall Series by a pitcher of all time in a 2015 mlb.com
article.
"Had Madison Bumgarner never toed the rubber in Game 7 for the Giants
against the Royals, his two victories earlier in the Fall Classic likely would
have earned him Series MVP honors anyway," David Crawford Jones wrote.
"But in tossing five shutout innings on the road in Game 7, Bumgarner
authored the most impressive relief performance in Fall Classic history. By the
end, Kansas City had mustered just a .127 batting average off Bumgarner. Royals
skipper Ned Yost described the experience as 'hopeless.' "
When you add in his earlier performance in the playoffs, on top of what he'd
accomplished in the World Series and playoffs before 2014, you have someone who
in a Men's Journal article was rated the most dominant postseason pitcher of all time.
"The 6’5″, 250-pound wood-chopping farm boy from North Carolina has made
the case that he’s the best postseason pitcher of all time," Matthew
Jussim wrote. "No matter the situation, the game, how much rest he
has, Bumgarner will take the ball and put
up zeros ... 'MadBum' put up a record-breaking performance
for the Giants during the 2014 playoffs, helping the team win the World Series
over the Kansas City Royals by posting a 4-1 record with a 1.03 ERA
(third-lowest ever in a single postseason), 45 strikeouts in 52.2 innings (the
most ever). Over five World Series games in his career, Bumgarner has a
ridiculous 0.25 ERA."
And
yet, just as the Royals were looking "hopeless" against him, Gordon
was able to plug the gap, with some help from the Giants, and make it
exciting -- almost Enos Slaughter-like.
But
he and the Royals were stopped short -- maybe for the best. It could have been one
of the most thrilling plays in World Series history -- or a real dud.
And
in the end, Bumgarner made it an anticlimactic finish by subduing Perez on a routine
pop-out, although Perez did extend that at-bat to a 2-2 count.
How it ranks
In
two listings ranking all World Series Game 7s, from mlb.com and the New York
Post, the 2014 Giants-Royals game was rated 11th in each. The 1946 game in
which Enos Slaughter made his mad dash to home was rated 13th by mlb.com
and 15th by the Post. (1960, Pirates 10-9 over Yankees was mlb.com's No. 1;
2016, Cubs 8-7 over Indians in 2016 was the Post's No. 1.)
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| Kansas City's Alex Gordon is 90 feet away from scoring the tying run after singling and advancing to third base on an outfield error with two out in the bottom of the ninth inning of Game 7 of the 2014 World Series. Looking on is San Francisco third baseman Pablo Sandoval. Sandoval caught a foul pop by Salvador Perez for the third out as the Giants won 3-2. |
More on 'the play'
As
noted above, Kurkjian gives a richly detailed account of the events surrounding
Gordon's ninth-hitting hit in a 2015 article at https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/12485525/mlb-penultimate-pla.
That tells you all you need to know, but here are some highlights:
--
Kurkjian set the stage thusly: "The second-to-last play of the 2014 World
Series had so many moving parts, so many storylines, elements and ironies, all
wrapped up in a frantic, 12-second run from home to third base by the Kansas City Royals' Alex Gordon with two outs in the bottom of the
ninth inning of a one-run game, the seventh of the World Series," he
wrote.
And
for historical perspective, Kurkjian noted that of the 14 Game 7s in Series
that were decided by one run (it's now 15 with the 2016 Cubs win), the only one
that ended with an out being made on the bases was in 1926, when Babe Ruth was
thrown out trying to steal second.
-- Crawford was known for having a strong, accurate arm, and he was confident
he could have executed the relay to erase Gordon at home.
"I have thrown guys out at home from much deeper than where I was, and
they were much closer to home," he said. "If they had sent him
home, I think he would have been out by a lot."
That's the way Jirschele
saw it.
"I
am just watching to see whether Crawford secures the ball," the third-base
coach said. "If he does, there is no way I could send him. If it
short-hops him and bounces away, I can keep Alex going. But Crawford has an
above-average arm and is an accurate thrower. There was no way I was going to
let the World Series end with our runner out at home plate by 20 feet."
And yet, there was doubt when the ball continued to stay alive in the outfield
as the Giants stumbled after it.
"Then I kind of kicked the
ball and I thought, 'Oh my God, he might score!' " Perez said. "I
wasn't sure how fast he really was, and I thought there was a chance he would
score."
Crawford: "When I saw Perez not picking up the ball, that's when I
had my 'Oh (----) moment.' I thought, 'Are we really going to have a play at
the plate with two outs in the bottom of the ninth in the seventh game of the
World Series?'"
The
play was a topic of discussion long after the last out.
"When
I went home (to Omaha, Nebraska) after the season, it was the first
question that I was asked by everyone I met: 'Do you think you could have
scored?'" Gordon said. "After a while, I stopped them before they
even finished the question and said, 'No, I couldn't have.'"
But
we don't know, do we? So we are left with this quandary as expressed by
Kurkjian.
"It could have been one of the greatest endings to any World
Series in history," he wrote. "It could have been the worst ending
to any World Series in history."
Sources:
Play-by-play: https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/2014/B10290KCA2014.htm and
https://sabr.org/gamesproj/game/october-29-2014-bumgarners-heroics-lift-giants-world-series-win-game-7
Top Series
pitching performances: https://www.mlb.com/news/best-pitchers-in-world-series-history/c-151792826 and http://blog.sliderdomination.com/7-greatest-world-series-pitching-performances/
Top
postseason pitchers: https://www.mensjournal.com/sports/mlb-playoffs-top-5-most-dominant-postseason-pitchers-all-time/
Top Game
7s: https://www.mlb.com/cut4/ranking-the-39-world-series-game-7s-c260328338 and https://nypost.com/2017/11/01/the-incredible-the-drought-and-duds-ranking-all-world-series-game-7s/
Video: 2014 World Series, https://www.youtube.
Additional background came from various sources on the Retrosheet and Society for American Baseball Research's Biography Project and Games Project websites, as well as baseballreference.com.
Video: 2014 World Series, https://www.youtube.
Additional background came from various sources on the Retrosheet and Society for American Baseball Research's Biography Project and Games Project websites, as well as baseballreference.com.
Top World Series pitching performances
Player Team Year W-L SV ERA
1. Madison
Bumgarner San Francisco Giants 2014 2-0 1 0.43
2. Christy
Mathewson New York Giants 1905 3-0 0 0.00
3. Bob
Gibson St. Louis Cardinals 1967 3-0 0 1.00
4. Randy
Johnson Arizona Diamondbacks 2001 3-0 0 1.04
5. Grover Alexander St. Louis Cardinals 1926 2-0 1 1.33
6. Mickey
Lolich Detroit Tigers 1968 3-0 0 1.67
7. Sandy
Koufax Los Angeles Dodgers 1965 2-1 0 1.38
8.
Jack Morris Minnesota Twins 1991 2-0 0 1.17
9.
Rollie Fingers Oakland A's 1974 1-0 2 1.93
10.
Bret Saberhagen Kansas City Royals 1985 2-0 0 0.50
Source: mlb.com,
Sept. 26, 2015
Most dominating postseason pitchers of all time
1. Madison
Bumgarner, San Francisco Giants
2. Mariano
Rivera, New York Yankees
3. Andy
Pettitte, New York Yankees
4. John
Smoltz, Atlanta Braves
5. Sandy
Koufax, Los Angeles Dodgers
Source:
Men's Journal
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