San Francisco Giants Cruise to a Game 1 Victory

The San Francisco Giants picked up right where they left off at the end of the NLCS, as they pulled off a dominant 7-1 victory over the Kansas City Royals in Game One of the World Series.

The Giants set the tone early by sending seven batters to the plate in the first inning and getting five hits and three runs off Royals pitcher James Shields. Pablo Sandoval would tack on a run with an RBI double down the right field line, and the next two runs would come off a Hunter Pence two-run home run to right center field.

Then, Giants pitcher Madison Bumgarner would come on to pitch and retire five of his first seven batters while only giving up two base runners by hitting Lorenzo Cain on the foot with a pitch in the first and a leadoff single to Billy Butler in the second.

The Royals threatened to score in the bottom of the third with runners at second and third with no outs. However, Bumgarner would get two straight strikeouts before walking Lorenzo Cain to give Eric Hosmer an at-bat with two outs and the bases loaded. Hosmer would then ground out to Joe Panik to end the inning.

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The Giants would answer back in the top of the fourth with a Pence leadoff double down the left field line. He ended up advancing to third on a wild pitch during Brandon Belt‘s at bat. Belt would end up walking to bring Michael Morse to the plate with two runners on and no one out. Morse would get a base hit to score Pence from third to make it 4-0 Giants in the fourth with two runners on and no one out.

Ultimately, this would end Shields’s night after giving up seven hits on 71 pitches with a walk and a strikeout in three-plus innings.

Royals reliever Danny Duffy came in and gave up a sac bunt and two straight walks to give the Giants a 5-0 lead with one out in the 4th. Duffy would then come back and get Panik to strikeout and Buster Posey to fly out on the first pitch to end the inning.

The Giants would go down in order in both the fifth and sixth innings, but they maintained their 5-0 lead as Bumgarner settled down and would retire the Royals in order in both innings as well.

After two quiet innings from both teams, the Giants would spark some offense once again in the top of the seventh as Gregor Blanco drew a leadoff walk. That was followed up by a Panik triple to right that scored Blanco to make it 6-0 Giants in the seventh with no outs.

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Then Duffy came out and was replaced by Tim Collins who got Posey to line out to first immediately after coming in, which left it up to Sandoval to get Panik home with only one out in the inning. Sandoval was successful in getting the run in with his second hit of the night on an RBI single that he poked through the left side of the infield to give the Giants a commanding 7-0 lead late in the game.

In the bottom of the seventh, Bumgarner remained dominant despite giving up a solo home run to Salvador Perez after retiring his last 12 batters. This home run ended Bumgarner’s scoreless inning streak in the World Series at 21 2/3 innings and his postseason scoreless inning streak at 32 2/3 innings.

However, this would be the only run the Royals would score, as Bumgarner quickly got out of the seventh with a fly out by Omar Infante.

In the ninth, the Giants threatened to score again by getting runners at the corners with two outs, but Morse could not get a hit to get any runs in, as he struck out.

Finally, in came the young right hander Hunter Strickland, hoping to redeem himself after giving up four post-season home runs by facing the Royals 3-4-5 hitters in the bottom of the ninth. Strickland would get the 1-2-3 inning he was looking for by striking out two of the three batters he faced in Cain and Josh Willingham.

The Giants will be back at it again tomorrow in Kansas City for game two with Jake Peavy on the mound facing the Royals pitcher Yordano Ventura.