World Series Game 4 – Giants, Vogelsong Look to Even Series

World Series Game 4: Kansas City Royals (+114) at San Francisco Giants (-119, 7 o/u)

Kansas City’s remarkable post-season continues after an impressive 3-2 win last night against the San Francisco Giants at AT&T Park.

Kansas City center fielder Jarrod Dyson said, “We’ve got to keep grinding. It’s going to be a tough series.”

Grinding is exactly what the Royals bullpen is doing, keeping opponents to a paltry .161 batting average in the playoffs,  including four hitless innings last night.

Said San Francisco’s manager Bruce Bochy, “I don’t know if there’s a better bullpen, because that seventh, eighth and ninth inning … you get a tough go when you’re facing those guys” (referring to Kelvin Herrera, pictured above, Wade Davis, and Greg Holland).

Tonight, the Giants are hoping to even up the series at two games a piece behind Ryan Vogelsong (0-0, ERA 5.19 playoffs). After dropping game three, Bochy didn’t rule out the possibility of turning to ace Madison Bumgarner on short rest. But, this morning, the Giants confirmed that Vogelsong would take the mound. Vogelsong’s last outing came in the NLCS where he gave up four runs in three innings of work.  He has a good playoff track record, though, posting a 2.16 ERA in six career postseason starts.

“The biggest thing is the experience of curbing the emotions,” said Vogelsong, who last pitched in the 2012 World Series, where he gave up one run over 5.2 innings against the Detroit Tigers. “It’s definitely a situation where you have to be locked into the game and your thoughts need to be on the game, but you have to take a second to look around and take it all in.”

As for the Royals, they’ll counter with Jason Vargas (1-0, ERA 2.38 playoffs). He last pitched when the Royals clinched the ALCS, going 5.1 innings while giving up just two hits and one run.

Said Royals manager Ned Yost, “He was a guy that was consistent for us all year. Struggled a little bit his last three or four starts in September, but, again, a lot of that was mechanical, and he’s made the adjustment.”

Considering the type of seasons both pitchers are experiencing (not to mention the Royals bullpen), don’t look for a lot of runs to be scored. Take the under (7 runs).

(Photo credit: Keith Allison on Flickr (Original version) UCinternational (Crop) [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons. Photo may appear cropped.)