4 reasons the Giants will win the Series
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| Photo from CBS Sports |
Contributing Writer
The San Francisco Giants face off against the Kansas City Royals in Game 1 of the World Series tonight at 8:07 on Fox. This match up is an interesting one - you have the upstart Royals with their speed and defense (especially in the outfield) going up against the experience of the Giants, who have 15 players who have been here before, as the Giants are playing in their 3rd World Series in 5 years. They won the 1st 2 and are gunning for a 3rd. While this match up is tough to call, I'll give you my 4 reasons that the Giants could bring home their 3rd championship in 5 years.
1.) Experience: Like I mentioned above, experience weights heavily in the favor of the San Francisco Giants, making their 3rd trip to the World Series with a lot of the key players from the past 2 runs, i.e Buster Posey, Madison Bumgarner and Pablo Sandoval. While experience doesn't necessarily mean anything, it could be a possible factor when it's weighted so heavily in the favor of the Giants.
2.) Their starting pitching: They've got a pretty good starting rotation led by ace Madison Bumgarner and Jake Peavy, who has found his best form after re-uniting with his former manager Bruce Bochy. While Kansas City will prove a tough match up, I think San Francisco pitching can handle Kansas City's lineup pretty well if they're on their game.
3.) They're lucky: They won several games on errors, including one on a wild pitch and one on a couple of throwing errors by St. Louis Cardinals 1st baseman Matt Adams. While the Royals won their way here playing small ball and were highly successful doing it, the Giants have gotten by with a little bit of luck as well as their skill, and that could prove decisive in the end.
4.) Anyone can beat you: It's not just the Buster Poseys and the Pablo Sandovals of the world that can hurt you. As Travis Ishikawa proved, anyone in the Giants lineup can hurt you. And they've also got Matt Morse at DH in Kansas City, who could be deadly out of that spot - he hit 16 home runs in the regular season, so he'll bear watching as the DH. Then you've got Brandon Belt, who hit a grand slam in the Wild Card game against the Pittsburgh Pirates, and lastly Bumgarner could provide some pop out of the pitcher's spot (4 homers during the regular season), so anyone could beat you.
