Giants vs. Royals: Breaking Down the 2014 World Series Starting Pitching Matchups

By spencergerman @Spencito6 on October 21, 2014

The World Series gets underway tonight between the San Francisco Giants and the Kansas City Royals. Here is a breakdown of the pitching matchups that we know of so far.

Game 1: Madison Bumgarner (18-10, 2.98 ERA) vs. James Shields (14-8, 3.21 ERA)

Each squad’s ace will toe the rubber for Game 1 looking to give their team some momentum to start the series. The Giants should feel pretty good about sending Bumgarner to the mound to start things off, given how locked in he has been this entire postseason. With a 2-1 record thus far over four starts, Bumgarner’s only loss came in Game 3 against the Washington Nationals in the NLDS where he surrendered three runs, two earned, in what became a 4-1 win for the Nats.

Still he has two shutouts this year, one a complete game in an 8-0 victory over the Pittsburgh Pirates in the Wild Card game and has gone at least seven innings in every start. Back on Aug. 8, Bumgarner went eight innings in a 4-2 loss to the Royals at Kauffman Stadium, and I’d expect a similar performance from him tonight while potentially allowing less runs.

For the Royals, “Big Game” James Shields starts things off and has had a decent postseason so far. His 5.63 ERA is nothing to write home about through three starts in these playoffs, but what Shields has continually managed to do is keep his team in the game. Sure he hasn’t made it past the sixth inning yet and he’s surrendered some early runs, but he always seems to stop the bleeding and hand things over to his bullpen to close out the game.

But despite the lackluster numbers, anytime Shields is on the mound it’s a possibility that he goes the distance. Back on Aug. 9 Shields was lights out against the Giants, allowing just four hits over a complete game shutout, 5-0 victory for KC, so he certainly knows how to shut these guys down.

Game 2: Jake Peavy (7-13, 3.73 ERA) vs. Yordano Ventura (14-10, 3.20 ERA)

Since joining San Francisco at the trade deadline, Peavy had a solid end to the regular season, going 6-4 with a 2.17 ERA. He’s continued that in his two postseason starts where he is 1-0 with a 1.86 ERA. The only thing to knock him for so far has been his short starts of just four innings and 5.2 innings so far. Still, Peavy is a veteran who knows how to get it done and has a World Series title to his name already. He is a solid pitcher to put on the mound for Game 2.

Opposing Peavy for the Royals will be the rookie Ventura, who has been kind of hit or miss so far this postseason. In the 12-inning marathon win over the Oakland Athletics, Ventura was called upon in the fifth to relieve Shields and surrendered two runs in just one third inning of work. It wasn’t really his fault, because Ventura is the kind of guy who gets stronger as he gets deeper into the game. He can’t just come out of the bullpen with no-hit stuff, so he was hung out to dry.

In his first official postseason start though, he was lights out, allowing just one run on five hits and striking out five over seven strong innings of work. He’d exit the game with the score tied at 1-1 with the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, earning a no-decision, but he did his job. However, in his last start in Game 2 of the ALCS against the Baltimore Orioles, Ventura gave up four runs on five hits in just 5.2 innings of work. That’s not terrible and his team went on to win, but he’s certainly pitched a lot better this season. If Ventura has his usual stuff though in Game 2, he should out-duel Peavy.

As of now we only know half of the pitching matchups for Games 3 and 4, as the Giants have penciled in Tim Hudson and Ryan Vogelsong respectively. I’d assume Jeremy Guthrie and Jason Vargas would be next in line for Kansas City. We’ll see how it plays out in the coming days, but until then enjoy Games 1 and 2!

Spencer German is a writer for www.RantSports.com. Follow him on Twitter @Spencito6. “Like” him on Facebook or add him to your network on Google