As the Dodgers and Astros prepare for game seven in the World Series, we’ll take a look back at the San Francisco Giants game seven win in 2014.
With the Dodgers on the verge of winning their first championship since 1988, Giants fans could use something positive. So let’s take a look back at a better time.
Before 2014 the Giants were 0-4 in World Series game sevens. They lost to the Angels in 2002, the Yankees in 1962, the Senators in 1924 (12 innings), and the Red Sox in 1912 (10 innings).
Three of those game sevens were decided by one run, and two of them ended in extra innings.
However, the 2014 team wouldn’t let that streak continue.
After taking a 3-2 lead over the Royals in the World Series, they lost game six 10-0 in Kansas City.
Tim Hudson started game seven for the Giants but lasted just 1.2 innings, giving up 2 runs.
But the Giants got the scoring started in the second inning off Jeremy Guthrie. After Pablo Sandoval was hit by a pitch, Hunter Pence and Brandon Belt each got singles to load the bases with no outs.
Sacrifice flies from Mike Morse and Brandon Crawford gave the Giants a 2-0 lead, but the Giants missed a great opportunity to blow this game open.
Jeremy Affeldt relieved Hudson in the second inning after he allowed the Royals to tie the game up.
Morse picked up his second RBI of the game in the fourth off of Kelvin Herrera to give the Giants a 3-2 lead.
Herrera had pitched 8.1 scoreless innings in the playoffs before the World Series where the Giants managed to score twice off of him in 6.2 innings. They managed to get 5 hits, and more importantly, 5 walks off of him.
Affeldt came back out for the bottom of the fourth and had a shutdown inning, but then Madison Bumgarner took over.
Things didn’t start out great for Bumgarner as he gave up a leadoff single to start the fifth. At that point I wasn’t so sure about bringing him in so early. But he got the next 14 batters out consecutively.
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Then Alex Gordon made things interesting in the bottom of the ninth with a 2-out single. He advanced all the way to third on an error, and was 90-feet away from tying up the game.
It’s crazy to think if the legend of Bumgarner would be the same if Gordon would have scored? What he did in this game was still amazing, but it all could have change in that one at-bat.
Instead, he got Salvador Perez to pop out in foul ground to Sandoval.
Bumgarner was instantly engraved into baseball legend with that five inning performance in game seven.
As bad as Clayton Kershaw has been in the postseason, he could do the same thing in game seven for the Dodgers tonight.
Next: San Francisco Giants: Four free agents they must avoid
Gave sevens are exciting, and while I’ll be pulling for the Astros, I hope we get an epic ending to this exciting World Series.