KANSAS CITY, Mo. — It’s OK if you don’t know what to expect from Game 7.
In fact, if you’ve been watching this particularly unpredictable World Series and claim to know what to expect, you’re just fooling yourself and trying to fool others.
MORE: Must-see photos | Second-inning proves decisive | Moment of silence for Taveras | Ventura's hat to Hall of Fame
Five of the six games in this knotted-up series have been decided by at least five runs, and the only certainty — Madison Bumgarner will be brilliant — will be limited by that fact that San Francisco’s lefty ace will throw, at most, a couple relief innings in the winner-take-all-game.
Anything at all could happen in Game 7.
“The longer you play this game, the more you realize that,” Hunter Pence told Sporting News after Game 6. “Day by day, your swing feels (different), you can try to do the same thing and one day it feels great and the next day it feels awful and the next day it feels great again. You can’t explain it. I don’t know. But every day is a new day. You’re not the same creature you were five minutes ago. Ray Lewis (said that). Constantly changing.”
What happened in Game 6 was just one more example of the constant change of postseason baseball.
The Royals scored a total of seven runs during the three games in San Francisco, three in Game 3, four in Game 4 and zero in Game 5 (against Bumgarner, that lone constant). So, of course, in the second inning of a shape-up-or-ship-out Game 6, the Royals paper-cutted the Giants for seven runs with a barrage of bleeders, bloopers and basically baffling base hits.
At one point in the inning, Alcides Escobar slid safely into first base, feet first to elude the tag from Brandon Belt. The play was first ruled a single, then a few minutes later was changed by the official scorer to a fielder’s choice because Belt looked home before trying to get Escobar, and then it was finally changed back to an infield single. Seriously.
A few batters after Escobar, Eric Hosmer tried to call timeout in the batter’s box, but because the crowd at Kauffman Stadium was so loud, he couldn’t tell whether time was granted, so he swung at the Yusmeiro Petit pitch anyway and slapped it up the middle for what looked like an RBI single. But time was granted, so the pitch and hit technically never happened. Hosmer followed with a two-RBI double anyway.
“I’m glad I got that hit after getting a hit during a time out,” Hosmer said with a laugh. “That would have been a tough one to swallow after that.”
And then Billy Butler followed with another double that scored two more runs and gave the Royals eight hits in the one inning. You know, after collecting just four, total, in Game 5.
So, yeah.
“That’s baseball,” KC third baseman Mike Moustakas said. “There are certain things in this game you can’t answer, you can’t figure out. That’s just how the game is. Stats can’t figure that out, either. You just have to go out and play the game and see what happens.”
In Game 7, Tim Hudson will start for the Giants and Jeremy Guthrie will start for the Royals. That’s pretty much all we know for sure, and that’s ok.
In fact … “That’s the beauty of it,” Pence said.
Yes, it is, Mr. Pence. Yes, it is.
