Giants end Royals' streak with 7-1 victory in World Series opener
KANSAS CITY, Mo. – James Shields said he's a big believer in amnesia. For his sake, he'd better hope his Kansas City Royals teammates are, too, because they need to forget Game 1 of the World Series if they have a shot against the San Francisco Giants.
The Giants snapped Kansas City's eight-game postseason winning streak, riding a Hunter Pence home run, another sublime Madison Bumgarner performance and a mistake-filled Royals showing to a 7-1 victory at Kauffman Stadium on Tuesday.
Shields, the Royals' right-hander who said before Game 1 that he wanted to forget about his previous struggles this postseason, compounded them in grand fashion and continued a week of pain that started with his passing a kidney stone. Shields was more Big Lame James than his nickname Big Game James, yielding three runs in the first inning and five overall in three innings of work. Shields' ERA this postseason leapt to 7.11, his early exit the opposite of convenience for Kansas City.
The Royals gave the crowd of 40,459 at Kauffman, dynamic all postseason, little to cheer. Bumgarner carved up Kansas City's lineup, allowing three hits over seven innings with five strikeouts. Pummeling right-handed hitters with inside fastballs, teasing left-handers with slow breaking balls, Bumgarner lowered his October ERA to 1.40.
His lone mistake came on a seventh-inning fastball Salvador Perez hit over the left-field wall – the first run he allowed in a World Series game after coming into this postseason with 15 scoreless.
Kansas City entered the series the sentimental and betting favorite after an emotional wild-card win followed by sweeps of the Angels and Orioles. The Royals of Tuesday threw wild pitches, kicked a groundball, misjudged a flyball in the outfield and in no way resembled the electric group that raced to a record eight straight victories to start the playoffs. San Francisco played its humdrum self, gliding to its third World Series in five years with just enough hitting and an excess of pitching.
[Photos: Best of World Series Game 1 - Giants at Royals]
The 25-year-old Bumgarner, the latest No. 1 starter in an array the Giants have trotted out in recent years, turned in the sort of outing the Royals needed from Shields. A stalwart in the regular season, Shields was bailed out by Kansas City's offense in both the wild-card game and the first game of the ALCS. He told the Kansas City Star this week a kidney stone may have prevented him from making another start against Baltimore and vowed he was fine for Game 1 of the World Series.
"My body feels great," Shields said Monday. "My body has felt great all season long, and I feel like this is what we train for, to be able to last this long."
He didn't last long in Game 1. The Royals didn't show up, either. And now they face a must-win Game 2 on Wednesday with Yordano Ventura facing Jake Peavy, lest they head to San Francisco with an 0-2 deficit.
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