World Series, Game 3: Royals 3, @Giants 2 — Kansas City’s first run scored on a groundout. Typical, right?

 

Not really. Seven of KC’s 53 postseason runs have scored on batter outs, the same 13.2% as in their regular season (86 of 651). That’s not remarkable: The Tigers scored more runs on batter outs, in both percentage and raw terms (13.7%, 104/757). So did the Rays (14.5%, 89/612), Yankees (14.1%, 89/633), and Rangers (14.3%, 91/637), maybe others. (I had to run each team separately in the Baseball-Reference Event Finder, so I only did half.) San Diego had a higher percentage. The Angels scored more (99 runs), with a similar rate (12.8%). Scoring on outs is not a distinguishing trait of the Kansas City Royals.

A breakdown of the 53 Royals runs:

• 15 on singles
• 14 on doubles
• 14 on homers
• 7 on outs
• 3 on error or wild pitch

You want a defining trait of KC’s postseason offense, try the RBI double. Tonight, Alex Gordon’s wall-hopper was the fulcrum of the pivotal 6th inning. In Game 2, Alcides Escobar brought their first lead with a double, and Salvador Perez broke it open with a 2-run gapper. Gordon’s base-clearing drive was the biggest blow of the ALCS opener, and an Escobar double broke the 9th-inning tie in Game 2. The Royals have a far higher doubles rate than any 2014 postseason team playing more than three games, 42% higher than the other nine teams combined. No wonder George Brett keeps beaming like a proud papa.

_____

Breaking down the top of the 6th, when the Royals scored their final two runs: After Jeremy Guthrie grounded out leading off, Bruce Bochy must have prayed that Tim Hudson would retire the righty Escobar. Since Hudson’s spot was due up second in the bottom half, any reliever used to get through the top half would have a brief tenure. If Hudson gets Escobar, there’s two out, none on for Alex Gordon, who’d gone meekly in his two at-bats, and no big concern for Hudson to finish the inning. But when Escobar singled, Bochy must have felt squeezed:

Needing two outs to close the door, with Lorenzo Cain on deck, the spot wasn’t ideal for either of Bochy’s trusted lefties. Javier Lopez, the lefty specialist, has been lit up by righties, and absent a Gordon DP, he’d have to face Cain or depart without ever facing his target audience, the two lefties batting #4-5, Hosmer and Moustakas. On the other hand, Jeremy Affeldt has little platoon split — but for that very reason, he’s meant to face more than two batters. Had Affeldt retired Gordon and Cain, keeping the deficit at 1-0, he would have been pulled for a pinch-hitter in the home 6th. Lopez would have started the 7th for the two LHBs, but then Bochy would have been out of lefties, in a close game that might go extras. The right move wasn’t obvious.

Still, the 6th was the immediate threat — already behind, facing the meat of the order with a man on base. In the third time through the order this year, Hudson’s OPS soared from .664 to .835. I’ll take Affeldt for Gordon and Cain, and take my chances later on.

Bochy’s route left me puzzled. Hudson yielded a loud RBI double to Gordon, but stayed to retire Cain. Then Lopez faced Hosmer with two out, so if he did his job, he’d see only one batter. But if you’re willing to spend Lopez for one batter when trailing 2-0, why not spend him on Gordon to help prevent that second run? In the end, Hosmer fought Lopez for 11 pitches, fouling five with two strikes, and singled for a 3-0 lead that would prove just enough.

_____

Did Ned Yost consider pinch-hitting for Guthrie leading off the 6th with a 1-0 lead? He had allowed just two singles, no other baserunners, facing one over the minimum thanks to a great Perez throw that nailed Hunter Pence stealing. And Guthrie is one of the few pitchers who consistently ducks the “3rd-time-through” penalty. His career BA and OPS are lower in the 3rd PA than in the first two, and both rank in the top 10 for lowest ratio of that split to overall (among 319 pitchers with 1,500 known 3rd PAs).

As I noted in a chat comment, such a move would have been almost unprecedented. Except for injury (John Tudor, David Wells) and subterfuge (Curly Ogden), the only WS starter removed with a shutout going and no more than two baserunners was Oral Hildebrand, a somewhat surprising Game 4 starter as the ’39 Yanks swept to their fourth straight crown. Hildebrand was pulled after 4 innings in a scoreless game, but not for a PH. He never started again in the majors.

Two other non-CG with no runs and no more than three baserunners:

• 6 IP, Lon Warneke, Cubs, 1935 G5. Warneke had thrown a shutout in G1, and relieved for 2 innings in G3 two days before the game in question.
• 8 IP, Chris Carpenter, Cards, 2006 G3: 82 pitches, 3 singles, left with a 5-0 lead.

As it played out, Yost would have been better off pulling Guthrie, whether for a pinch-hitter or just for relief after the long top of the 6th. He gave up hard hits to the first two batters, Mike Morse following a mammoth foul homer with a liner over third base, which ushered in Herrera. Yost did pull Guthrie after five strong innings in the ALCS, using Jason Frasor for the 6th with the game tied.

_____

In the top of the 7th, the Royals led 3-2 when Jarrod Dyson singled with two out, bringing up the pitcher’s spot. Kelvin Herrera took his cuts, looking just like someone who had never batted in a professional game. Yost clearly thought that getting extra outs from Herrera was worth more than the chance of boosting the lead by pinch-hitting, a defensible judgment. But is there any rational explanation for Dyson not trying to steal until the third strike? Batting Herrera means conceding the inning. So what possible cost is there if Dyson gets thrown out?

_____

Kelvin Herrera, Wade Davis and Greg Holland have combined for 31% of KC’s postseason innings (32.2 of 107), more than twice their season load. An equivalent season total would be 443 innings — two workhorse starters — with a 0.82 ERA. All three have allowed one run in 10+ innings; the rest of the staff has a 4.12 ERA.

Has any other postseason team gotten such production from multiple relievers? The Play Index can’t find collective relief efforts, so I collected all individuals with at least 8 IP and a 2.00 ERA or better in one postseason, and sorted by team. KC is the sixth team with two or more such RPs totaling at least 24 innings and 1.50 ERA or better:

• 1972 Athletics: Rollie Fingers and Vida Blue
  — 24 IP, 1.50 ERA in 12 team games (2.0 IP/G)
• 1984 Padres: Craig Lefferts, Andy Hawkins and Dave Dravecky
  — 25.2 IP, 0.35 ERA in 10 team games (2.5 IP/G)
• 1996 Yankees: Mariano Rivera and David Weathers
  — 25.1 IP, 0.71 ERA in 15 team games (1.7 IP/G)
• 2000 Yankees: Mariano Rivera and Mike Stanton
  — 24.1 IP, 1.48 ERA in 16 team games (1.5 IP/G)
• 2001 Yankees: Mariano Rivera and Ramiro Mendoza
  — 28.1 IP, 0.95 ERA in 17 team games (1.7 IP/G)
• 2014 Royals: Greg Holland, Wade Davis and Kelvin Herrera
  — 32.2 IP, 0.82 ERA in 11 team games (3.0 IP/G)

For combined workload and effectiveness, only the ’84 Padres are in the Royals’ league. But the Giants are making a bid: Santiago Casilla (7.1 IP), Jeremy Affeldt (8.1) and Yusmeiro Petit (9.0) have yet to allow a run, totaling 24.2 IP scoreless innings over 13 team games (1.9 IP/G).

__________

Random Notes

Clips of the six extra-base hits off Hunter Strickland in this postseason:

• Bryce Harper HR (1)
• Asdrubal Cabrera HR
• Bryce Harper HR (2)
• Matt Adams HR
• Salvador Perez (double)
• Omar Infante HR

All fasballs, most of them poorly located. But there’s another problem that better location won’t solve: His fastball is absolutely straight. It’s Kyle Farnsworth-straight. And there’s a reason Farnsworth had the 3rd-highest homer rate of the 93 pitchers with 800 relief innings. Farnsworth threw hard, just like Strickland. But 98 m.p.h. without movement is catnip to good big-league hitters.

_____

Despite constant talk of their base-stealing prowess, the Royals haven’t reaped a tangible benefit from a swipe attempt since the Wild-Card Game. They’re 6 for 9 since then (1 for 4 after the LDS), and the only thief who scored made it 4-1 in the 11th inning. And while KC’s 153 steals led the majors, that says as much about our times as about their game. They’re not exactly the ’85 Cardinals. Heck, the 1998 and 2001 Yankees stole as many or more than these Royals, without inspiring any breathless praise of that trait.

But KC’s speed on the bases has been a factor, even more than in the regular season. Cain has scored 11 runs in 11 games, five times racing home from second on a single, and twice scoring from third on an out.

• Cain hasn’t been thrown out on a teammate’s hit since 2012, and has never been nabbed going second-to-home on a single.