Nightengale: Royals relievers have club halfway to title
SAN FRANCISCO - They call themselves HDH.
It's the Kansas City-based baseball firm of Herrera, Davis and Holland.
They are relievers, but in truth, they will snuff the life out of any batter.
And now, the firm just added another partner, Brandon Finnegan, the baby-faced assassin.
This quartet now has the Kansas City Royals just two games away from the World Series championship, knocking off the San Francisco Giants, 3-2, Friday at AT&T Park, and taking a 2-1 advantage in the best-of-seven series.
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If the Giants are going to win their third World Series in five years, the Royals made sure they won't be celebrating in San Francisco.
Is the series even going back to KC?
"I don't know, you tell me,'' says Royals center fielder Jarrod Dyson.
The Royals now need to win just one of the next two games to assure they go home to Kansas City with a magic number of one to win their first World Series title since 1985.
"This was big, real big,'' says Royals first baseman Eric Hosmer, who for the first time in his life, was playing a baseball game on his birthday.
"It's the greatest birthday I've ever had, I know that.''
Hey, when you have a bullpen like the Royals, every game is a party.
And for the opposition, every game is a nightmare.
"Their bullpen, you get hands full when they come in,'' Giants manager Bruce Bochy says. "I don't know if there's a better bullpen because of that seventh, eighth and ninth inning."
The bullpen, with Finnegan still in college just four months ago, pitched four more hitless innings, and once again proved to be the difference.
The Royals have gone 10-1 this postseason, and there's no reason to look further than their bullpen for the reason.
They are yielding a mind-boggling 1.03 ERA since Game 1 of the Division Series.
"Monstrous,'' Royals manager Ned Yost said of the bullpen's impact. "They key factor in all of this for us is timely hitting, great defense, really solid starting pitching, but dynamic back of the bullpen.''
They were summoned in the sixth inning Friday to rescue Jeremy Guthrie, who was brilliant the first five innings, retiring 10 straight batters. Guthrie gave up a leadoff single to Brandon Crawford and then a run-scoring double to Michael Morse.
Yost, thrashed and scorned on Twitter, turned to his bullpen. Kelvin Herrera walked Gregor Blanco, to make it interesting, and the Giants scored another run on a groundout, but it was their last threat the entire evening.
In fact, they had only one more baserunner, on a Hunter Pence walk in the seventh inning, with only two balls hit out of the infield the rest of the game.
Herrera pitched 1 1/3 hitless innings.
Then it was Finnegan for two crucial outs.
Wade Davis for a hitless inning with two strikeouts.
And then Greg Holland for a 1-2-3 save.
The Giants didn't have a chance.
"They are nasty out there, man,'' Dyson says. "Sometimes, I don't think they I even need to take a glove out there. Those guys just attack, and attack and attack.
"You look like at a guy like Finny. He was just in college, but he carries himself like a veteran. He's got no fear.''
Finnegan, 21, the only player in baseball history to pitch in the College World Series and the varsity World Series in the same year, still has trouble fathoming what is happening.
"I think I got more nervous getting loose than I was on the field,'' said Finnegan, who attended Texas Christian University. "When the fans are behind you, chirping at you, that gets you going a little bit. I was definitely more nervous on the side than I was between the lines.''
Besides, if nothing else, the fans provided a few laughs, Finnegan says, remembering one particular taunt while warming up.
The fan started taunted Finnegan, and he gave a thumbs up, infuriating the fan.
"You're too short to ride this ride,'' the fan yelled at Finnegan.
Finnegan, listed at 5-foot-11, and probably is at least two inches shorter, might be standing real tall on that Royals' World Series parade float.
The Royals, of course, realize the World Series is far from over. Sure, the team that has won Game 3 has gone onto capture 11 of the last 13 World Series titles.
In fact, only once since 1979 has a team lost Game 3, and gone ahead and won the World Series.
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The Giants, who have now lost back-to-back World Series games for the first time since 2002, and had won their last six Series home games, still are confident. They say they've come too far to be stopped now.
"Everybody's still confident,'' says Giants starter Tim Hudson, 39, becoming the second-oldest pitcher to start a World Series game. We have a lot of guys that have been on this stage before, they understand what it takes to win. We're going to come out [Saturday] and give it our best shot to try to even this thing up, and going into the last game here, hopefully we can at least head into Kansas City with a lead. ''
Besides, if nothing else, Giants reliever Jeremy Affeldt says, they can draw inspiration from 2012. They were down 2-0 in the best-of-five NL Division Series against the Cincinnati Reds. And then down 3-1 in the NL Championship Series against the St. Louis Cardinals. And wound up winning the World Series over Detroit.
"It's not an easy road, and it's not one we necessarily want to travel down,'' Affeldt says, "but we've done it. And a lot of us in here were part of that scenario. We definitely want to win this game [Saturday], but there's no panic.
"We definitely understand that when you panic, that doesn't produce good baseball. We've got to relax. We've got to play our game. We've got to execute pitches, we've got to play defense, we've got to get timely hitting. That's how we've won. That's what got us here.''
Certainly, there's no panic in these Royals.
These guys haven't been to the World Series in 29 years, but even with 12 Hall of Famers attending the game - including their own George Brett - the Royals acted as nervous as a Sunday barbeque.
"Do we look intimidated?'' Dyson said, laughing. "You still got to play the game of baseball.''
And, oh, how the Royals can play this game.
"A lot of people say they dreamed of playing in the World Series,'' Guthrie says. "I don't think I had that dream. But to live it, it feels right.
"It feels like a moment that I'll never forget.''
Who knows, there could be a couple more moments in that memory bank before this Series is over.
"We've been playing one-run games all year,'' Royals third baseman Mike Moustakas says. "We're used to this. Besides, when you got the bullpen we got, how can you possibly be nervous?
"We've been waiting for this all our lives.''
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