SAN FRANCISCO — The space between the San Francisco Giants’ dugout and the bullpen mound in foul territory along the left field line remained empty almost all of Sunday night. It had been trampled for two days, same as the ground on the other side of the AT&T Park, worn out as relievers scrambled to warm up. The other starting pitchers in the 110th World Series, the normal ones, had been prone to rallies and fatigue and the threat of an offense potent enough to win a pennant. Debate about when to pull the starter had hovered over the World Series. It did not apply to Madison Kyle Bumgarner.
The San Francisco Giants moved one victory away from their third World Series in five seasons Sunday night with a 5-0 victory, a game Bumgarner clutched in a stranglehold for all nine innings he occupied the center of the diamond. By the end of his shutout, the Giants needed three outs for a 3-2 series and Bumgarner owned a 0.29 career ERA in the World Series, the best of any man to throw at least 25 innings in the Fall Classic.
As fans chanted, “M-V-P!”, Bumgarner fired at Eric Hosmer his 117th pitch, a 3-2, 88-mph slider. Hosmer whacked it to third base. Pablo Sandoval fired across the diamond and completed the first World Series shutout since Josh Beckett’s clincher for the Florida Marlins in 2003. Minutes later, as he began a television interview, the crowd interrupted with a roar. Bumgarner lifted his cap and waved it around his head.
The Series will head back to Kansas City, and the Royals may feel like they have a chance Tuesday in Game 6 because they will look the mound and see something other than Bumgarner’s 6-foot, 5-inch frame and unfeeling eyes. Royals ace James Shields redeemed his Game 1 meltdown with six strong innings himself, but he wilted in comparison to Bumgarner. The Giants’ offensive peskiness and the Royals’ surprising defensive malaise led to two runs off Shields.
The leading candidate for most valuable player needed nothing else. Five days after he allowed the Royals one run in seven innings in Game 1, Bumgarner allowed none on four hits and no walks. He struck out eight Royals and made sport of so many others.
In the fourth inning, he threw Lorenzo Cain a 65-mph curveball and followed it with a 92-mph fastball. Leading off the eighth, Bumgarner froze pinch hitter Billy Butler with a 76-mph curve that carried one message: Kindly leave the box, Billy. The dugout is that way.
Bumgarner retired 10 consecutive batters at one point, and then he retired the last nine hitters he faced. crushed rallies before they had a chance to form, a dictator stifling dissent. With men on base, the Royals went 0 for 9 with six strikeouts.
His dominance erased the need for tough choices. Eric Hosmer grounded a single through the right side to lead off the seventh inning. The No. 5 and 6 hitters loomed with a man on base and no outs, a scenario that for the past three games had constituted an emergency for either manager. Bruce Bochy did not budge. The Giants’ relievers watched from the dugout.
Salvador Perez provided a brief scare with a booming liner to left, but defensive replacement Juan Perez made an easy catch on the warning track. Mike Moustakas flied out to right-center field. Bumgarner induced a groundball by Omar Infante with his 95th pitch, an 87-mph slider, to third base. Pablo Sandoval made the play, and Bumgarner patted the inside of his glove and walked to the dugout.
After he recorded the second out of the eighth inning, Bumgarner circled the mound and blew his nose into his jersey. Alcides Escobar stood at the plate. The crowd stood and roared, waving orange towels over their heads. With his 107th pitch, Bumgarner rifled a 92-mph fastball. Escobar skied it to left field, and it landed safely in Perez’s glove.
The stadium erupted with applause, just in case they would not see Bumgarner for another six months, before opening day. They saw him in the bottom of the inning, with a bat in his hands.
The Giants’ offense mounted a rally in the bottom of the eighth against Kelvin Herrera. Wade Davis replaced him, and light-hitting outfielder Juan Perez came within inches and hitting the first homer all season against Davis. Two runners crossed.
Closer Santiago Casilla had been warming up, the first reliever to grace the bullpen all night. Once the Giants’ lead grew to 4-0, he walked back to the dugout. Bumgarner appeared in the on-deck circle, bat on his shoulder. As he stood at the plate, the crowd chanted, “M-V-P! M-V-P!”
He struck out and then trudged to the mound. A fly ball to right and a grounder to short brought him one out away.
Shields rebounded from his hideous Game 1 start because of a mechanical adjustment. He slowed his delivery and kept his front shoulder closed, which gave more movement to his pitches, especially his change-up. But the Royals’ defense, a primary reason they made the World Series and had a 2-1 series lead late Friday night, let him down.
In the second inning, leading off, Hunter Pence swatted a sharp grounder on an 0-2 change-up below the knees, and it skipped under shortstop Escobar’s sliding, backhand attempt. First baseman Brandon Belt had never bunted for a hit in his 1,487 career plate appearances. Only once had he bunted for a sacrifice. The Giants put him in their lineup with the expectation he will mash pitches into gaps and over fences.
With the Royals customarily shifted for him to pull, Belt chose the World Series as an occasion to try something new. He squared his bat and nudged Shields’s first-pitch cutter to the left side of the infield.
With two runners on base, Travis Ishikawa drove a fly ball to center field, deep enough for both runners to advance a base. Brandon Crawford rolled a grounder to second base, the final step of the assembly line that manufactured the game’s first run. In an age of strikeouts, the Giants’ contact hitters showed the power of simply putting the ball in play.
The Royals’ defense failed them in the fourth. Sandoval led off with a single. With two outs, Ishikawa grounded a single that skipped under Escobar’s glove, a play he could typically make blindfolded. Sandoval stood on second base when Crawford flared a bloop into shallow center.
Center fielder Jarrod Dyson charged the ball. Sandoval sprinted to third, where base coach Tim Flannery kept his gaze on Dyson. When Dyson bobbled the ball, Flannery windmilled his arm. Sandoval continued home with another run.
Bumgarner had more than he needed. He began this postseason with a shutout that pushed the Giants into the National League Division Series. Now here they are, still on his shoulders, one victory away from raising another trophy.