SUMMARY
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KANSAS CITY, USA – Yordano Ventura surrendered only 3 hits over 7 shutout innings and the Kansas City Royals blanked San Francisco 10-0 Tuesday to force a one-game showdown for the World Series crown.
The Royals tagged the Giants for 7 runs on 8 hits in the second inning and cruised from there to level Major League Baseball’s best-of-7 final at 3-3 and force a title-deciding matchup Wednesday.
Kansas City’s Jeremy Guthrie, the game 3 winning pitcher, will open against game 3 loser Tim Hudson in a seventh-game meeting of right-handed starting pitchers.
Ventura, a 23-year-old Dominican rookie right-hander in a must-win situation, silenced Giants batters, striking out 4 while walking 5 as San Francisco never had a runner past second base and only two beyond first even as Kansas City batters blasted 15 hits to keep their title bid alive.
The Royals, who ended a 29-year playoff drought and won their first 8 post-season games, took their only World Series crown in 1985, rallying to win the final two games at home to defeat St. Louis in 7 games.
In 8 of the past 10 times a team has returned home trailing the World Series 3-2, as Kansas City did this week, the hosts have won twice to take the title.
The Giants, who seek their eighth overall crown and third title in 5 seasons, fell to 5-9 in playoff game sixes.
They have led 3-2 in 4 prior best-of-7 matchups only to lose 3 times, including the 1924 World Series to the Washington Senators and 2002 World Series to the Anaheim Angels.
The 1997 Florida Marlins are the only team in 10 tries since 1975 that led a World Series 3-2, lost game 6 and recovered to win the title.
Not since 1936 had the Giants allowed a playoff foe 7 runs in one inning but that’s what Kansas City produced in the second.
Alex Gordon hit a leadoff single in the second, took third on a Salvador Perez single and scored on a Mike Moustakas double down the right-field line.
Alcides Escobar reached first on an infield grounder to load the bases and Japanese outfielder Nori Aoki, 0-for-9 to that point in the World Series, singled to left field to drive in Perez for a 2-0 Royals lead and send Giants starting pitcher Jake Peavy, who helped Boston win last year’s title, to the showers.
Lorenzo Cain then lofted a single into shallow centerfield off Giants reliever Yusmeiro Perez to score Moustakas and Escobar, doubling the Kansas City advantage.
Eric Hosmer followed with a double to centerfield to bring in Aoki and Cain, and Hosmer scored on Billy Butler’s double for a 7-0 Royals edge.
Hits for all
Omar Infante doubled and scored on a Cain double in the third to make it 8-0. Infante’s hit marked only the second time in World Series history a team’s 9 starting batters all had a hit by the third inning, the other time by Arizona in 2001 in a 15-2 drubbing of the New York Yankees on the way to a 7-game Series title.
Infante singled again in the fifth and scored on a double by Escobar.
Moustakas blasted a solo home run off Giants reliever Hunter Strickland in the seventh for the Royals’ final run. – Rappler.com
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