A hard-luck American League wild-card team wins a long-awaited pennant at home in the late afternoon. The next night, the wild-card San Francisco Giants beat the St. Louis Cardinals with a game-ending hit to clinch a pennant of their own. A four-day layoff follows before the World Series starts in the A.L. city.
It sounds like 2014. It also sounds precisely like 2002, the last time two wild-card teams met in the World Series. This time, of course, the Kansas City Royals represent the A.L. Back then, the Angels were the A.L. champions, and they went on to win a seven-game thriller against the Giants.
The similarities end there. The 2002 World Series was the last before Major League Baseball began testing for performance-enhancing drugs, and it was a slugfest centered on the Giants’ Barry Bonds, who hit four home runs and drew seven intentional walks. Baseball has changed a lot since then.
It is hard to divine any truths from short series, and last year’s champions, the Boston Red Sox, ranked first in the majors in runs scored and slugging percentage. Before we herald the supremacy of small ball, it should be noted that three of the bottom four teams in stolen bases this season — St. Louis, San Francisco and Baltimore — made up three-quarters of the field in the league championship series.
But the success of the Royals, who ranked first in steals, and the Giants does underscore the trend throughout baseball toward lower-scoring games. Only one player on either roster (the Giants’ Buster Posey) had more than 20 homers or 75 runs batted in. Even Posey’s numbers were modest for a star: 22 homers, 89 R.B.I.
Both teams come in hot, with a combined 16-2 record in the postseason and with roughly the same time off before Game 1 on Tuesday in Kansas City. Both offenses have been opportunistic, taking advantage of errors to score critical runs, but both have also used power.
San Francisco went six games without a homer in the playoffs, then ripped three in Game 5 of the National League Championship Series, winning the pennant on a ninth-inning blast by Travis Ishikawa. Kansas City hit four extra-inning homers on its undefeated joy ride through the A.L. playoffs.
In the end, though, the Royals finished off the Orioles with consecutive 2-1 victories, games more suited to their style. They are conditioned to bunt, no matter how well they are swinging — Lorenzo Cain, the A.L.C.S. most valuable player, bunted on his own in the first inning of Game 4 — because the object is simply to get a lead through six innings.
The Giants’ bullpen has allowed seven earned runs in 351/3 innings this postseason; the Royals’ bullpen has had nearly identical numbers, allowing seven earned runs while recording one fewer out. But Kansas City’s late-inning group of Kelvin Herrera, Wade Davis and Greg Holland has been nearly unhittable, and ever-present. The three have combined for 23 appearances in eight games, with a 1.05 earned run average.
“Offensively and defensively, we’ve got weapons for late-game situations, especially if it’s a tie game,” the Royals’ Eric Hosmer said after Game 3. “It seems like lately, all the games we’ve been playing have been like that.”
Ned Yost, the Royals’ manager, rarely pinch-hits but has two pinch-runners he deploys regularly, Jarrod Dyson and Terrance Gore. Alex Gordon, Dyson and Cain form the late-inning outfield alignment, and both ballparks in this series have plenty of room to roam.
The Giants, who won titles in 2010 and 2012, will try to become the first N.L. team to win three World Series in a five-year span since the Cardinals in the 1940s. The Giants do not feel like a dynasty, failing to even reach the playoffs in the odd-numbered seasons during their recent stretch of success. But rings are rings, and San Francisco’s presence in the World Series — even though the team squeaked into the postseason as the N.L.’s second wild card — should not be too surprising.
The Royals, of course, are the party crashers, and not just because of their 29-year gap between postseason appearances. The Oakland Athletics and the Detroit Tigers, with their stables of aces and bold in-season trades, were the favorites at midsummer. Neither won a game in the postseason, while the Royals have not lost.
“Oakland got Jon Lester to put them over the top, and Detroit got David Price to put them over the top,” said Art Stewart, the venerable Royals scout, who has been with the team since 1970. “They’re all on the sidelines — and here we are.”
SUB-90 SERIES This is the first World Series to feature two teams that failed to win 90 games in a complete season. But recent history mutes the notion that the second wild card cheapens the importance of the regular season. None of the other four teams to win the wild-card game (introduced in 2012) went on to win the pennant. And the teams that met in the World Series last year, Boston and St. Louis, had the best records in their leagues.
A ROYAL ROLL The Royals have an 11-game postseason winning streak dating to their three victories to close out the 1985 World Series. The record for consecutive postseason wins is 12, held by two Yankees teams. The Yankees swept three World Series between 1927 and 1932 and won 12 in a row from Game 4 of the 1998 A.L.C.S. until Game 3 of the next year’s A.L.C.S.
BIG STAGE FOR A BIG WINNER The Giants’ Tim Hudson is the majors’ active leader in victories, and this is his first World Series. Hudson has never won a Cy Young Award, but his career is better than you may think. Hudson has 214 wins, a .633 winning percentage and a 3.45 career E.R.A.; only nine pitchers in history have better figures than Hudson in all three categories. They are Grover Cleveland Alexander, Christy Mathewson, Roger Clemens, Randy Johnson, Lefty Grove, Jim Palmer, Mordecai Brown, Whitey Ford and Pedro Martinez.
BEEN THERE, DONE THAT The Game 1 pitching matchup will feature James Shields for the Royals and Madison Bumgarner for the Giants. Both are undefeated as World Series starters, Shields with a victory for Tampa Bay in 2008 and Bumgarner with wins for San Francisco in 2010 and 2012. The last Game 1 matchup between pitchers with prior World Series wins as starters was in 1999, when the Yankees’ Orlando Hernandez beat the Braves’ Greg Maddux.
MAKING A GOOD CALL Denny Matthews has been a Royals broadcaster since their very first game, in 1969. Before that, he was a second baseman at Illinois Wesleyan who turned down a chance to sign with the Giants after his freshman year. “My dad said, ‘You will finish college,’ ” said Matthews, who ended up with a much longer career in the booth than he could have had as a player. “It turned out pretty good,” Matthews added. “But you always wonder.”
JOURNEY NEVER ENDS Fans at Kauffman Stadium sing along to “Don’t Stop Believin’ ” during every game before the bottom of the sixth inning. The song, of course, was a Journey hit, and Journey’s Steve Perry is a regular at AT&T Park in San Francisco. Fans of the Detroit Tigers, the Giants’ opponents in the 2012 World Series, also sing “Don’t Stop Believin’ ” during games — and the Giants swept the Tigers in that series.
ALL-STAR CONNECTIONS The Royals have hosted two All-Star Games at Kauffman Stadium, and both times a Giant was named most valuable player: Bobby Bonds in 1973 and Melky Cabrera in 2012. Royals outfielder Bo Jackson’s celebrated home run in the 1989 All-Star Game in Anaheim, Calif., came off Giants pitcher Rick Reuschel.
DUELING DUFFYS Each team features a player named Duffy: Danny, a starter for Kansas City, has become something of a forgotten man in the postseason bullpen; and Matt is a rookie reserve infielder for the Giants. Matt Duffy spoofs his name with the decal on the knob of his bat, which features Duffman, the muscle-bound, cape-wearing beer spokesman from “The Simpsons.”
TWO WORLD SERIES, ONE YEAR The Royals left-hander Brandon Finnegan can become the first player to appear in the College World Series and the M.L.B. World Series in the same year. Finnegan pitched eight innings, allowing one earned run, in Texas Christian’s 15-inning loss to Virginia in Omaha on June 17. He was drafted 17th over all by the Royals and has pitched five times in the postseason, going 1-0 with a 4.15 E.R.A.
WHAT BASEBALL GAME? If the games get a little boring, there’s plenty for children to do at both AT&T Park and Kauffman Stadium. Both ballparks feature miniature fields behind the bleachers where children can play whiffle ball. There are also a carousel and a miniature golf course in Kansas City and a giant Coke-bottle slide in San Francisco, and there are cuddly mascots in both places: a lion named Sluggerrr in Kansas City and Lou Seal in San Francisco. Lou Seal has been known to wear a giraffe hat when Brandon Belt (known as the Baby Giraffe) comes to the plate, turning the mascot into some sort of bizarre hybrid creature. Hey, it’s San Francisco — just go with it.
SIMILAR SERIES STORIES The Giants’ Bruce Bochy and the Royals’ Ned Yost were backup catchers for teams that lost in the World Series in the 1980s. Both played just one game and reached base in their only plate appearance. Yost walked for the Milwaukee Brewers in the ninth inning of Game 6 of the 1982 Series, and Bochy singled for the San Diego Padres in the ninth inning of Game 5 of the 1984 Series.
COMMON ALUMNI Steve Balboni, who set the Royals’ single-season home run record in 1985, now scouts for the Giants. But only one player — Pat Sheridan — has played in the World Series for both teams. Sheridan, an outfielder, went 4 for 18 for the Royals in 1985 and 0 for 2 for the Giants in 1989. Two current managers — the Padres’ Bud Black and the Athletics’ Bob Melvin — played for both teams, as did Giants reliever Jeremy Affeldt, one of the first players traded by Royals General Manager Dayton Moore (in a regrettable 2006 deal with Colorado). The Hall of Famer Gaylord Perry started his career with the Giants and finished with the Royals, while Dan Quisenberry did the reverse. Quisenberry, who pitched in 10 of the Royals’ 13 World Series games in the ’80s, ended his career with San Francisco in 1990.