San Francisco Giants to face Kansas City Royals in World Series

San Francisco Giants, which have shown strong performance in even-numbered years, is now knocking the door of the World Series in two years. In the U.S. National League Championship Series (NLCS) Game 5 on Thursday, Travis Ishikawa`s walk-off ninth-inning three-run homer lifted the San Francisco Giants to a 6-3 win over the St. Louis Cardinals. San Francisco grabbed the World Series ticket by winning four games to one. It’s been the 23rd time for San Francisco Giants to make it to the World Series, and the 3rd time in the latest five years. In 2010 and 2012, the Giants won the World Series.

Japanese-American Ishikawa had played in San Francisco until 2010, and afterwards had played for the Milwaukee Brewers, the Baltimore Orioles, the New York Yankees, and the Pittsburgh Pirates. Last winter, Ishikawa made a return to the home team after being released from the Pittsburgh Pirates. Ishikawa also changed his position from the first basemen to the left fielder. Michael Wacha, who had led Saint Louis to the World Series as a rookie pitcher and won the NLCS MVP in the last season, lost control of the pitch and allowed a walk-off home run, fallen from a team’s star to a traitor just over a year.

Giants ace Madison Bumgarner was named the MVP of the NLCS, who was a winning pitcher of Game 1 and tossed eight solid innings allowing only 3 runs in Game 5. Throughout the history of Major League Playoff, there have been only four cases including this game in which a walk-off home run was hit in the game to determine who will make it to the World Series. As a result, the two wild cards Kansas City Royals and San Francisco Giants will face to each other in the 2014 World Series.

Clash of two wild cards in the World Series takes place in 12 years since 2002 when the San Francisco Giants faced the Anaheim Angels. At that time, Anaheim won San Francisco with Barry Bonds four games to three. The cases where a wildcard team won the World Series were 1997 and 2003 by Florida, 2002 by Anaheim, 2004 by Boston and 2011 by St. Louis, etc.

The World Series will be held on Wednesday in Kauffman Stadium, home of the Kansas City Royals, the winner of American League. As the American League won the All Star Games this year, the Kansas City Royals got the chance to play at home first.