2014 World Series Observations
October 30, 2014 by Bill Gilbert · 1 Comment
We will probably never see another World Series pitching performance like we saw with Madison Bumgarner this year.
Even If the Royals win the World Series, Bumgarner of the Giants should be the MVP. (written after game 6).
Every great pitcher has an occasional bad game (ask Clayton Kershaw).I thought Bumgarner was due for one in Game 5.Didn’t happen.
Bumgarner started 6 of the Giants 17 post-season games and had quality starts (6 or more innings and 3 or fewer earned runs allowed) in all 6 of them.The rest of the staff started 11 games and had 2 quality starts.
I would have been more impressed if Bumgarner had been credited with a 5-inning save rather than a win in game 7.
The 2 wild card teams put on a memorable show.Under the previous format, with one wild card team from each league, the Giants would not have been in the playoffs.The Royals incredible post-season run put them back on the baseball map after a 28-year absence.
Three players participated in the World Series who didn’t make their major league debuts until September, 2014 (Hunter Strickland of the Giants and Terrance Gore and Brandon Finnegan of the Royals.Finnegan also participated in the College World Series in 2014.
Can anyone not enjoy watching Hunter Pence play?
Lorenzo Cain is an excellent all-around player.Who knew?
Joe Panik must have had some outstanding coaches while growing up.He does everything right, including the little things that win ball games.
Bruce Bochy has had much more success as a manager than he did as a backup catcher. (.239 batting average).
Is it a coincidence that both World Series teams have outstanding catchers and former catchers as managers?
The Royals should have known that Brandon Belt could beat the shift by bunting since he played for Augie Garrido at Texas.
The Royals should have used Billy Butler to pinch-hit for James Shields in the 5 th
inning of Game 5.That was the only real chance that the Royals had to score in that game and Butler is one of the few players that have hit well against Bumgarner.
By the way, whatever happened to Butler’s great nickname (Country Breakfast)?
Why do left handed pitchers like Bumgarner bat right handed, exposing their pitching arms to being hit by pitches?
Did anyone miss Tim McCarver?
Which looks worse, Pence’s short above-the-knee pants or Alex Gordon’s beard?
How far does Pence plan to take his Jayson Werth homeless look?
Having Armed Forces personnel sing “God Bless America” in the seventh inning stretch was a nice touch.
It’s unfortunate that the networks pay so much money for the right to broadcast the games that they can dictate the pace of the game by allowing a 2 ½ minute commercial break between innings (when most people, including me, hit the mute button).This results in about a 3 ½ minute gap between the last pitch of the prior inning and the first pitch of the next inning.
Here’s my thoughts on the Series:
Kudos to KC and SF for winning when they had to, but I would still rather see less teams in the playoffs in order to have a greater chance of seeing the actual best teams in each league meet in the Series. All this wild card nonsense does is delude mediocre teams into thinking they are championship caliber.That said, I did not miss Tim McCarver at all, but then I watch the games with the sound off and music on anyway. Lorenzo Cain is indeed an excellent player with whom I was not familiar. Bumgarner was great, but the best pitching performance in WS history still belongs to Christy Mathewson of the 1905 champion Giants. But I’ll bet Madison Bumgarner would have made that team! Panik and Crawford are a fine keystone combination and will hopefully be so for many seasons to come.
Who cares how the players look? That kind of crap went out with Steinbrenner’s pathetic dress/hair code. It’s a shame that the networks choose to glorify war and killing on the field of America’s game with shameless militarism. How about a paean to peace instead?