KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Alex Gordon could only wonder what might have been, had he just been a little bit faster.
With the Royals trailing by a run with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning of Game 7 of the World Series on Wednesday night, the Kansas City left fielder got the first hit against Giants ace Madison Bumgarner since Omar Infante greeted the starter-turned-reliever with a single in the fifth inning. It was a slicing fly ball that dunked in front of Giants center fielder Gregor Blanco, and when it ball scooted by him, then got booted by Juan Perez, Gordon wound up on third base, with a single and a two-base error charged to Blanco.
Salvador Perez then popped out in foul territory and the Royals lost 3-2, after having come 90 feet away from tying the game.
What if?
“When it got by him, I got a smile on my face running the bases, hopefully thinking to score,” Gordon said. “But they got to it quickly enough, and I don’t have (Jarrod) Dyson’s speed, so I couldn’t make it all the way to home. “
Not just Dyson’s speed. MLB.com had Gordon’s top speed on the play at 18.7 mph on its Statcast replay. The same computer system clocked Pablo Sandoval at 18.9 mph on his fourth-inning infield single that led to the decisive run of the World Series.
“When Blanco bobbled it, trying to pick it up there, yeah,” said Royals first baseman Eric Hosmer, when asked if he thought that Gordon might come all the way around to score. “He gave it his all. He put his head down and ran, and that’s all you can do in that situation. It just didn’t work out for us.”
Gordon did all he could to help the Royals in Game 7. His double in the second inning drove home Billy Butler with Kansas City’s first run, and he came home with the second on Omar Infante’s sacrifice fly. Then he gave San Francisco a good scare in the ninth. It just wasn’t enough.
“I was on the bench, and I was thinking, ‘You gotta be kidding me, we can’t make this easy, can we?’” said winning pitcher Jeremy Affeldt, who began his career with the Royals. “There’s the tying run, we’re going to go 18 innings. It’s going to be a crazy deal. But Bum, he’s the guy you know is going to be calm enough to get through that situation. He didn’t react. I panicked a little bit. . . .
"I don’t think anybody in Kansas City should be disappointed in that team. They’ve been waiting for that for a long time, and that team is really good. They’re young, and they’re going to be good for a long time. I don’t think it’s going to be their last World Series, I really don’t.”