KC Royals: Alex Gordon Should Have Been Sent Home

Kansas City Royals base runner Alex Gordon (4) Mandatory Credit: Peter G. Aiken-USA TODAY Sports

Don’t get me wrong, I love Salvy. He’ll probably go down as one the most beloved KC Royals players in team history. With every fiber of my being, I believe we’re all entitled to our own opinions, unless that opinion is not liking Salvador Perez.

My belief that Gordon should have been sent, however, is weighted completely against what was reasonably expected of Salvy in that subsequent at-bat.

During the regular season, Perez posted these numbers (all stats courtesy of baseball-reference.com):

During the post-season, Perez posted these numbers:

If we kept digging, we’d see that Salvador Perez hit .246 when batting with two outs, and more specific to this situation, he hit .185 with a runner on third base with two outs.

So, where am I going with this?

We can easily see that Salvy isn’t the strongest hitter in the world.  For this situation, we can pretty much just focus on batting average, because it was going to take a hit to score Gordon.

Yes, an error would do it too, but since the Giants had just committed two errors on one play (though only credited for one), I doubt there was a significant probability of them committing another one in this situation.

What about a wild pitch?  Yep, that would work too, but in 217+ innings in the regular season, Bumgarner had only thrown 4 wild pitches, and he has never thrown one in a postseason game in his career.

Maybe Salvy walks?  Highly doubtful if you know anything about Perez, and even if he did, that brings Mike Moustakas to the plate, still facing Madison freaking Bumgarner.

Next: Conclusion