San Francisco Giants win World Series title after tense triumph over Kansas City Royals
Last Updated: 30/10/14 10:14am
San Francisco Giants secured the World Series title with a 3-2 win over Kansas City Royals after a nerveless performance from Madison Bumgarner.
The Giants pitcher closed out a tense victory with five innings of scoreless relief as San Francisco completed a 4-3 series win to claim the trophy for a third time in five seasons.
Kansas City had drawn level with a 10-0 thrashing on Tuesday, but Bruce Bochy's side battled back to become the first road team to win a World Series Game Seven since the 1979 Pittsburgh Pirates.
World Series:
Kansas City Royals 2 San Francisco Giants 3 (San Francisco Giants Win World Series 4-3)
With the bases loaded at the top of the second, the Giants pushed across a pair of runs on sacrifice flies from Michael Morse and Brandon Crawford.
The Royals responded in the bottom of the second, Billy Butler hammering a leadoff single and racing home on Alex Gordon's line drive double to the wall in right-centre.
Omar Infante then levelled the score at 2-2 with a sacrifice fly to cash in Gordon, while a single by Alcides Escobar marked the end of a short night's work for Giants starter Tim Hudson.
Commanding Giants
San Francisco seized command in the fourth, with Pablo Sandoval and Hunter Pence leading off with singles before Morse drove in his second run of the night on a broken bat line drive to right field.
The Royals tried to stage a late rally in the bottom of the ninth as Alex Gordon lined a shot into centre and reached third base on a two-base error by Gregor Blanco.
But Bumgarner ended their hopes, forcing Salvador Perez to pop out to third baseman Sandoval in foul territory for the final out.
Giants manager Bochy heaped praise on Bumgarner, saying: "He kept telling me 'I'm ready to go,' he said just put me in anytime and it couldn't have worked out better.
"The plan was to use Jeremy (Affeldt) early and hope we get to the fifth inning and a horse was out there and we rode him and it's historic what this kid has done.
"Really truly amazing."
