Giants Are Baseball Royalty Again

Madison Bumgarner (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The San Francisco Giants won the World Series in 2010 and 2012, which were even numbered years.  So is 2014, and they won here too.  They defeated the Kansas City Royals 3-2 in the seventh game at Kauffman Stadium Wednesday night for their third title in five years.

Madison Bumgarner was the Series' MVP, pitching the last five innings of Game Seven in relief on two days rest after defeating the Royals in Game Five.  That made his record 3-0 during the Series, with plenty of help from teammates Joe Panik, Pablo Sandoval and Hunter Pence.

This Series was marked by great pitching (mostly by Bumgarner) and sometimes not-so-great pitching and fielding, leading to lopsided blowouts that sent Fox's TV ratings south.

Neither the Giants nor the Royals won a division title, so they had to get here through the Wild Card route, only losing one game between them.  The Giants defeated the Pittsburgh Pirates, Washington Nationals and St. Louis Cardinals to take the National League crown.  The Royals, which had not been to a Series since Ronald Reagan was President, won the American League pennant by defeating the Oakland Athletics, Los Angeles Angels and Baltimore Orioles.

Now that the Series is over, San Francisco radio stations can start playing the Lorde hit "Royals" again.  They had banned the tune for the duration in the mistaken belief that this was the official song of the Kansas City team.  Let's just say that the good citizens of San Francisco will never be royals, but the Giants are once again kings of baseball.  At least until next season, which will be in an odd-numbered year.