World Series Game 6 – Giants Have Royals on the Brink

World Series Game 6: San Francisco Giants (+130) at Kansas City Royals (-140, 7 o/u)

The San Francisco Giants can clinch their third World Series in five seasons tonight in Kansas City. Veteran Jake Peavy (1-1, 3.68 ERA in the playoffs) will take the mound for the Giants; youngster Yordano Ventura (0-0, 4.42 ERA in the playoffs) gets the start for the Royals. The pitching matchup is repeat of game two, which the Royals took 7-2.

San Francisco does not want to see a seventh game, and the players feel that Peavy has the intestinal fortitude to end the Series tonight in a hostile environment. Giants third baseman Pablo Sandoval said, “He’s one of the tough guys out there on the mound. He wants to finish it Tuesday.”

However, the Royals have faith that their 23-year-old rookie can cool the Giants’ hot bats, just as he did in game two.

Royals first baseman Eric Hosmer said, “We have a lot of confidence in Ventura. We have confidence that we will win every time he takes the mound. We know we can do it. We’re a confident group. But we can’t do anything without winning game six. We’re excited to get back home, where we feed off the fans and that energy.”

Royals manager Ned Yost is hoping his team, which has lost two straight after taking a 2-1 series lead, taps into the home-field advantage at Kauffman Stadium.

He said, “The place is going to be absolutely crazy. We’ve got to walk the tightrope now without a net, but our guys aren’t afraid of walking the tightrope without a net. We fall off and we’re dead. But we win Tuesday, nobody’s got a net: It’s going to be winner take all. So we think it’s going to be fun.”

The Royals at home are tough, and Yost is right that the stadium will be electric, but the best play here – given the experience of the Giants – is the San Francisco moneyline of +130.

(Photo credit: Keith Allison [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons. Photo has been cropped from its original.)