Bob Lutz: Royals, Giants are red-hot World Series opponents

“Welcome to the Worst World Series Ever.”

That was the headline on ESPN.com Sunday, highlighting a story by David Schoenfield that basically told us neither Kansas City nor San Francisco deserves to be in the World Series and the fact that two wild-card teams with fewer than 90 wins make this anything but an October Classic.

Hogwash.

As ammunition, Schoenfeld points out that the Royals and Giants have the fourth-fewest combined wins for World Series opponents. And two of the seasons in which teams made it to the World Series with fewer wins were 1981 and 1918, seasons shortened by a strike and World War I.

But the postseason in any sport doesn’t always have much of a connection to what happens during the regular season. It’s about who gets hot and there aren’t two hotter teams anywhere, in any sport, than the Royals and Giants.

They are a combined 16-2 in the postseason. The Royals have swept eight straight, including a miraculous comeback over the Oakland Athletics in the American League wild-card game that started this amazing roll.

And don’t forget, San Francisco went into Pittsburgh and beat a good Pirates team 8-0 in the National League wild-card game behind left-hander Madison Bumgarner, who is better on the road than Bruce Springsteen. Bumgarner, the Giants’ Game 1 starter Tuesday night, has pitched 26 2/3 consecutive shutout innings on the road in postseason play. In his past five postseason starts, Bumgarner has a 1.03 ERA over 38 2/3 innings.

OK, so neither the Giants nor Royals succeed in conventional ways. That apparently bothers some people.

Kansas City drives the sabermetrics crowd bonkers because the Royals don’t hit home runs and don’t draw many walks. But they steal bases, move runners and, lately, hit in the clutch.

And the Royals put up a huge “No Trespassing” sign in the seventh, eighth and ninth innings with Kelvin Herrera, Wade Davis and Greg Holland standing guard at the gate. If you trail Kansas City after the sixth inning, you might as well hail a taxi and get back to the hotel early.

The Giants have the modern-day Casey Stengel in their dugout in Bruce Bochy, who could earn his way into the Hall of Fame – if he hasn’t already – should San Francisco win its third world championship in five years.

Yet outside of San Francisco catcher Buster Posey, there isn’t a lot of star power in this World Series.

Then again, the World Series is where stars are made, and the Royals have a few who have been shooting through the October skies in Eric Hosmer, Lorenzo Cain and Mike Moustakas.

So what if it’s only the second World Series with two wild-card teams squaring off? One could argue that makes this a more intriguing showdown because of how long the Royals and Giants have had to maintain a high level of intensity.

Every year, there are a handful of teams that waltz into baseball’s postseason, while others have to grind through the final days and weeks just to get in. The Royals and Giants are grinders, toughened by the need to keep the pedal to the floor for so long.

“We were playing playoff baseball, basically, during the whole month of September,” Royals designated hitter Billy Butler said. “The Giants, too. We were both hot teams coming into the playoffs because we had to get on pretty good runs just to get to this point.”

The Royals were 48-50 on July 21 after suffering through a 9-18 stretch and people were avoiding Kauffman Stadium in droves. General manager Dayton Moore needed to go. Manager Ned Yost definitely needed to go. Most of the players needed to go. Heck, maybe the Royals needed to go.

But Kansas City won 41 of its last 64 regular-season games. Add in the remarkable 8-0 playoff run, and the Royals are 49-23 since that dark day in July.

The Giants, meanwhile, were the best team in baseball during the season’s first two-plus months. San Francisco was 43-21 on June 8, then went into the tank with a 21-37 stretch when they were overtaken in the National League West by the Los Angeles Dodgers, who won the division comfortably.

But when all seemed lost, the Giants found their way again. They were 24-16 to close out the regular season and are 32-18, including the postseason, since dropping to 64-58 on Aug. 15.

So instead of finding reasons why this is the worst World Series in history, how about pointing out that the Royals and Giants are 81-41 collectively since their 2014 low-water marks.

“You know, I don’t really put a whole lot of stock into somebody saying this is the worst World Series,” Butler said. “We’ve earned our right to play here. Maybe that’s one person’s opinion. But the whole nation, I think, is pleased to see these teams here.”

This story was originally published October 20, 2014 at 3:29 PM with the headline "Bob Lutz: Royals, Giants are red-hot World Series opponents."