It was an unexpected outcome
The Kansas City Royals had not yet lost a game this post season and they were the Cinderella story of the 2014 MLB playoffs. That story would not have a happy ending in the first game of the World Series as they took on the San Francisco Giants, because their red-hot run would come to a standstill at the hands of the National League champions in a 7-1 loss.
The Giants started the game on fire, shocking the Royals crowd by jumping ahead 3-0 to end the 1st inning. They put on a hitting clinic against James Shields, when Gregor Blanco and Buster Posey got on base and Pablo Sandoval hit a double to right. Blanco managed to score, but Posey was thrown at home. Then Hunter Pence went up the mound and slammed a 2-run homer to give San Francisco the early lead.
The Royals never caught up.
In the 4th inning, Giants batters loaded up the bases and James Shields was taken out of the game. Danny Duffy came in to relieve, but the runs kept coming in. The Royals ended the inning down 5-0 and nothing was going right for them, wither offensively or defensively.
The horror continued in the 7th when a Norichika Aoki error gave Joe Panik a triple, allowing Blanco to score. Then Sandoval singled to left and Panik scored to put San Francisco up 7-0. The game was all but over at that point. The Royals couldn’t get anything going to rally from seven down, and they couldn’t stop the Giants hitting either.
The only bright spot for the Kansas City came in the 7th inning when Salvador Perez hit a solo shot to left field to prevent the game from being a shutout.
The player of the game award went to Madison Bumgarner, who pitched 7th innings and threw over 100 pitches, with 5 strike outs throughout the game. His dominant pitching certainly gave the Giants the upper hand to start the world series and shocked the Royals at home, ending the Cinderella run and taking back home field advantage in the series.
Game 2 will be played Wednesday, October 22 at 8:07 pm on FOX.