It's one thing to a ball off the plate, a totally separate to get 3 balls off the plate. I'm not really saying blue did a bad job, honestly I thought he was the best umpire all series long. I think it's human nature to give a great pitcher the benefit of the doubt, but that doesn't make it feel any better today!
I watched a pitch in the first inning that was low and outside by at least 6" called a strike. That should have let the pitchers know early where to pitch.
I think we can all agree on a few things here... We witnessed one of the greatest series of games the World Series may give us as well as a World Series pitching performance we will probably never see in our lifetimes. And now... The wait is on for next season.
I'm not saying the Cy Young award should be renamed to the Madison Bumgarner award but to say the Royals were undisciplined and poor at hitting is crazy. They were 9-0 going into the WS! They hit good pitching from teams that were in the playoffs the whole way there! They won 3 of the 7 games and it wasn't because of crappy hitting. They put runs on the board through out the entire series. And to say they could have won on walks is absolutely absurd. Go back and look at how many 0-2 & 1-2 counts Bumgarner had on those hitters. That's what gets them to swing at bad pitches. And the bad pitches were on purpose, not because he was throwing bad. No umpire has a perfect strike zone behind the plate and calls everything perfectly. Watch any game, any day of the season and you'll see strikes that are wide or a little low. Or an ump with a narrow zone. Bumgarner owned the Royals for 2 1/2 games, not just the 9th inning in game 7. The same umpire wasn't behind the plate in all 3 of his games. Like someone else said; great pitchers can will batters to swing at bad pitches. Equally great hitters can will pitchers into getting the pitch they want to hit. They foul off everything until they get the one good pitch. These are the things that separate average from great.
Clearly you only watched the Royals in the WS, not the 100 plus games I watched through the season. I'd say I'm qualified to speak on how the Royals hit and they are extremely undisciplined at the plate. Easiest measure of that is the fact that they walked fewer times than any other team and they hit the least number of home runs. Both of those stats point to hitters that are swinging at pitchers pitches at a higher rate than other teams. Not getting balls they can drive because the pitches knows they don't have to throw over the plate.
The fact that bumgarner was able to throw the ball as effectively as he was, regardless of the Royals aggressiveness is the amazing part of his performance. He threw extended innings in 3 games and the second was a complete game that he threw over 100 pitches. No doubt he used their aggressiveness against them. But they also scored a lot of runs with that same aggressiveness against other pitchers.
I loved how he kept climbing the ladder in game 7... He kept going higher and they kept swinging and missing.
