San Francisco Triumphs in World Series
October 30, 2014
The San Francisco Giants defeated the Kansas City Royals Wednesday night to win their third World Series in five years. The Giants took the seventh game of the series 3-2, becoming the first baseball team since 1979 to win the seventh and final game of the World Series on the road.
The 2014 World Series belonged to Giants pitcher Madison Bumgarner who gave one of the most dominating performances in Series history. Bumgarner won three of his team’s four victories, pitching a record 21 innings and ending with a minuscule earned run average of 0.43. He pitched 52 2/3 innings in the entire 2014 postseason, another record. Bumgarner has pitched in three World Series (2010, 2012, 2014) and given up one earned run in 36 innings. That works out to an earned run average of 0.25, the lowest of any pitcher who threw so many innings in Series games.
All the scoring in the final game took place in the first four innings. San Francisco scored the lead run in the top of the fourth and Giants manager Bruce Bochy turned the game over to Bumgarner in the fifth inning, even though Bumgarner would be pitching with only two days rest. Bumgarner did not disappoint, allowing only two hits and no walks in the final five innings.
San Francisco became only the sixth team to win the World Series as a wild-card team and the 2014 Series was only the second in which both clubs were wild-card teams (the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim and the Giants both made the Series in 2002 as wild card teams). (A wild-card team has the next-best record after the three division winners.) The 2014 Series also was the first in which neither team won as many as 90 games during the regular season.
Additional World Book articles:
- National League
- Baseball (2010) (a Back in Time article)
- Baseball (2012) (a Back in Time article)
