Kansas City manager Ned Yost is expecting pitching ace James Shields to bounce back Sunday when he takes the mound for the Royals in game five of the World Series.
Shields’ career post-season earned-run-average rose to 5.74 after he gave up five runs in three-plus innings against San Francisco in the first game of Major League Baseball’s championship final on Tuesday.
It was another sub-par playoff performance from Shields, who came off a stellar regular season in which he built a 14-8 record with a 3.21 ERA.
In four starts in these playoffs, Shields is 1-1 with a 7.11 ERA. Fortunately, his struggles didn’t cost the Royals as they reached the World Series without dropping a game.
And Yost insists those stats don’t alter the fact that Shields — who reportedly passed a painful kidney stone during the AL final — can deliver a quality start in a Series tied at two games apiece after the Giants’ 11-4 game-four triumph on Saturday.
“I know his intensity. I know his work ethic,” Yost said. “I know his competitiveness. I know tomorrow when he steps on that mound, he’s going to be ready both physically and mentally to compete and give us his best effort, and that’s all I can ask.”
Shields hadn’t pitched in 11 days before game one, since the first game of Kansas City’s four-game sweep of Baltimore in the American League final.
But he said the lay-off wasn’t the problem.
“It was just a matter of not getting the job done,” he said, adding that he’d since worked on his mechanics and feels ready to take on the Giants.
“Just little stuff,” he said of the adjustments. “Just really getting behind the ball, the direction towards home plate, going north to south rather than east to west. Hopefully I can create a little bit better angle and all my off-speed pitches will come after that.”
The Giants turn to ace Madison Bumgarner in game five, trying to seize the lead in the series before it shifts back to Kansas City.
Bumgarner delivered another dazzling road victory for the Giants in game one, striking out five and scattering three hits over seven innings as San Francisco opened the series with a 7-1 win.
The 25-year-old southpaw has won his first three career World Series starts with dominant efforts, blanking Texas in 2010 and Detroit in 2012 to help the Giants win the title each year.
“We’ve just got to go out there and you can’t worry about the stuff you can’t control,” Bumgarner said. “You’ve got to go out there and make sure you’re ready mentally and physically to play fundamentally sound baseball.
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