The Kansas City Royals followed their formula for success to perfection turning a tight game over to their “monstrous” bullpen to beat the San Francisco Giants on Friday and seize the upper hand in the World Series.
After each team claimed a lopsided win in the first two games of the best-of-seven, Game 3 was a 3-2 nailbiter that gave the visitors a 2-1 lead in the series.
The pivotal victory was preserved by four hitless innings thrown by Royals relievers.
Photo: AFP
“Monstrous,” Royals manager Ned Yost said in describing the firepower he is able to call on in the late innings. “The key factor in all of this for us is timely hitting, great defense, really solid starting pitching, but dynamic back of the bullpen.”
Of the previous 56 times a Fall Classic has been tied 1-1, the team that has won Game 3 has gone on to win the Major League Baseball championship two-thirds of the time.
Kansas City starter Jeremy Guthrie pitched five shutout innings before wobbling in the sixth and turning the game over to the bullpen brigade.
Unbeaten through the post-season until they lost the first game of the World Series at home on Tuesday, the upstart Royals have produced back-to-back wins and could take command of the series in yesterday’s Game 4 in San Francisco.
Alex Gordon, Lorenzo Cain and Hosmer each drove in a run for the Royals, in the playoffs for the first time in 29 years, while closer Greg Holland wrapped up the win in the ninth for his seventh save of the post-season.
The Giants found themselves in an early hole when 39-year-old starter Tim Hudson received a rude welcome when Alcides Escobar stroked his first pitch for a double to left and eventually scored on Lorenzo Cain’s ground out.
“It was high and probably outside corner or outer third [of the plate],” Hudson said. “He was just swinging. He had his mind made up. Give him credit, he hit it.”
Hudson settled down after that and retired 12 successive batters until Escobar collected his second hit with a single in the sixth.
That was quickly followed by an RBI-double from Gordon that bumped Royals’ lead to 2-0.
With two out and a man on second Giants manager Bruce Bochy replaced Hudson with Javier Lopez, but the Royals scored one more run when a determined Hosmer spoiled several good pitches before delivering a single to score Gordon.
The Giants answered right back in the bottom half with two runs as pinch-hitter Michael Morse sparked the rally with an RBI-double down the left-field line. Buster Posey drove in another run on a grounder to cut the deficit to 3-2.
The Royals bullpen did the rest, with Kelvin Herrera, rookie Brandon Finnegan and Wade Davis setting the stage for Holland.
Holland clinched the win by retiring the heart of the San Francisco lineup — Hunter Pence, Pablo Sandoval and Buster Posey — in that order.
Taiwanese world No. 1 women’s doubles star Hsieh Su-wei on Saturday overcame a first-set loss to win her opening match at the Madrid Open. Top seeds Hsieh and partner Elise Mertens of Belgium, with whom she last month won her fourth Indian Wells women’s doubles title, bounced back from a rocky first set to beat Asia Muhammad of the US and Aldila Sutjiadi of Indonesia 2-6, 6-4, 10-2. Hsieh and Mertens were next to face Heather Watson of the UK and Xu Yifan of China in the round of 16. Thirty-eight-year-old Hsieh last month reclaimed her world No. 1 spot after her Indian
EYES ON THE PRIZE: Armed with three solid men’s singles shuttlers and doubles Olympic champions, Taiwan aim to make their first Thomas Cup semi-final, Chou Tien-chen said Taiwanese badminton star Tai Tzu-ying yesterday quickly dispatched Malaysia’s Goh Jin Wei in straight sets, while her male counterpart Chou Tien-chen beat Germany’s Kai Schaefer, as Taiwan’s women’s and men’s teams won their Group B opening rounds of the TotalEnergies BWF Thomas and Uber Cup Finals in Chengdu, China. World No. 5 Tai beat Goh 21-19, 22-20 in a speedy 33 minutes, her fourth straight victory over the world No. 24 shuttler since they first faced each other in the quarter-finals of the 2018 Malaysia Open, where Tai went on to win the women’s singles title. Malaysia followed up Tai’s opening victory
Chen Yi-tung (陳奕通) secured a historic Olympic berth on Sunday by winning the senior men’s foil event at the 2024 Asia Oceania Zonal Olympic Fencing Qualifiers in United Arab Emirates. Chen defeated Samuel Elijah of Singapore 15-4 in the final in Dubai to secure the only wild card in the event, making him the first male Olympian fencer from Taiwan in 36 years and only the sixth Taiwanese fencer to ever qualify for the quadrennial event. The last appearance by a Taiwanese male fencer at the Olympics was in 1988, when Wang San-tsai (王三財) and Cheng Ming-hsiang (鄭明祥) competed in Seoul. The
A soccer jersey carrying a national map including disputed Western Sahara has become a hot commodity in Morocco after a diplomatic dispute with Algeria. Retailers said RS Berkane jerseys have been flying off the shelves after a Confederation of African Football (CAF) Cup match against Algerian club USM Alger was canceled last month over the jerseys. “We are overwhelmed by the influx of messages and requests,” said Brahim Rabii, representative of the official RS Berkane jersey distributor. Algeria broke off diplomatic relations with Morocco in 2021, partly over the issue of Western Sahara. The former Spanish colony is largely controlled by Morocco, but claimed