The 10-0 shellacking last night of Jake Peavy and the San Francisco Giants by the Kansas City Royals was predictable, especially after the masterful pitching performance by Giants' ace Madison Bumgarner on Sunday night. It was painful for this National League backer to watch as the smarmy KC upstarts fairly laughed and gobbled up pitch after pitch for a big inning. Peavy, in total contrast to "MadBum", lacked any kind of stuff as well as location.
The same can be said of tonight's planned SF pitcher, Tim Hudson, who in relative terms is as pedestrian as Peavy. Apart from both Hudson and Peavy having losing records, neither can hold a candle - or a cutter- to MadBum. So one must inquire what SF manager Bruce Bochy (aka "Yoda") will do tonight. The take from at least one SF Chronicle columnist is to start Bumgarner who, let us be frank, is the ONE pitcher the Royals fear the most - as they should.
The counter view is that this will wreck the poor guy's arm (to which I call BS, as he's resilient as hell) and also he has only had two days rest so won't be able to go very long. So what? Let him go as long as he can. Even three or four shutout innings - hopefully giving the Giants the chance to get a secure lead- can be enough, before bringing a middle order reliever in, say Petit.
But if Bochy goes with Hudson as starter, the outcome is pretty well as predictable as it was last night, especially as the %#*#&$!@ Royals can already taste a big Game 7 victory after the way they pounded SF last night. Now is the time to snatch that Royals' would- be victory from them, and make the little beggars cry in their dugout instead of grinning ear to ear like a bunch of half drunk Macaques.
Let's also bear in mind that pitching three games or portions thereof has a historical basis. Lew Burdette of the Milwaukee Braves did it back in the 1957 Series, with two of the games shutouts. A total of 27 innings pitched and he was years older than MadBum. Bob Gibson also did it for the Cards back in 1967, again featuring 27 total innings pitched and two shutouts. Are you going to tell me that those guys had the stamina to do the job back then but 25-year old Bumgarner can't now?
Well, maybe! The managers of those pitchers spaced out their games realizing the only chance they had was to pitch their ace as often as possible. Originally, Fred Haney of the Braves believed twenty-one game (regular season) winner Lefty Warren Spahn could handle the Yanks, but he couldn't. It was pitching mate Burdette, the rightie, who quieted the bats of the Bronx Bombers. The point is, Haney spaced Burdette's games out to allow at least a minimum of three games' rest between pitching outings.
By contrast, Bochy already blew it in those terms, pitching Bumgarner in Game 5, when from the resting perspective (and using the ace to take at least 3 games) he ought to have gone in Game 4. Then, he'd be more than ready in Game 7. Still, I do believe MadBum can go at least three stout innings in tonight's face-off, maybe more.
But if Bochy gets predictable and goes "by the book", look for a San Francisco defeat and all the Royals whooping it up on their home grounds.
Just my 0.02 and I could be wrong.
I really hope I am!
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