Kansas City Royals Might Benefit From Giants’ Luck

Mandatory Credit: Peter G. Aiken-USA TODAY Sports

Well, my original intent was to do a breakdown of the previous three games that the Kansas City Royals and the San Francisco Giants played in August. During that series at the K, the Royals swept the Giants, outscoring them 16-6 and allowing only three extra base hits.

This seemed like a particularly promising idea considering the Royals did face Giants ace Madison Bumgarner in the opener.  In a rare flash of power, the Royals quickly plated two runs on a first inning shot by Billy Butler and scratched out two more deciding runs against him in the sixth, leading to their 4-2 win.

While Kansas City starter Jason Vargas was lifted after 101 pitches through five innings, Bumgarner went all eight. As we would expect, the Royals bullpen gave up only three hits in their four innings of work with Jason Frasor getting the win.

However, considering many, many, many folks are reminding Royals fans that these three games are worthless when it comes to predicting the World Series, let’s look at some more recent history. Specifically, let’s look at three of the Giant’s postseason games against the Cardinals in the NLCS and see what those games may tell us to expect over the next week.