WORLD SERIES RECAP

Ventura mutes the Giants’ offense and wins Game 6

The Sports Xchange

October 28, 2014 at 8:38 pm.

Ventura, a 23-year-old right-hander armed with a 100 mph fastball, muted the Giants' offense on three hits and five walks, three of the free passes in the third inning. He struck out four en route to the victory. Denny Medley-USA TODAY Sports

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — In Ned Yost’s pregame media session Tuesday, one questioner began asking, “Since there is no tomorrow …”

The Kansas City Royals manager immediately interrupted him.

“There is tomorrow,” Yost said.

For the Royals, just like Annie, there is tomorrow.

Rookie Yordano Ventura threw seven scoreless innings, and Kansas City bombarded the San Francisco Giants 10-0 in Game 6 on Tuesday night, evening the World Series at three games apiece.

For the first time since 2011 and only the fourth time in 20 years, there will be a Game 7 in the World Series. The title will be decided Wednesday night at Kauffman Stadium.

Ventura, a 23-year-old right-hander armed with a 100 mph fastball, muted the Giants’ offense on three hits and five walks, three of the free passes in the third inning. He struck out four en route to the victory. Ventura became just the second rookie since 1948 to throw at least seven shutout innings in a World Series start. The other was Giants left-hander Madison Bumgarner in 2010.

The Royals unleashed a franchise postseason-record 15 hits, with six players registering two hits apiece. Six Kansas City hitters collected doubles, third baseman Mike Moustakas homered, and center fielder Lorenzo Cain drove in three runs.

Kansas City relievers Jason Frasor and Tim Collins finished off the shutout, each throwing a scoreless innings after Ventura exited after 100 pitches.

The Royals exploded for postseason single-inning highs of seven runs and eight hits in the second and chased Giants starter Jake Peavy, who retired only four of the 11 batters he faced.

Left fielder Alex Gordon and catcher Salvador Perez began the inning with singles. Mike Moustakas, who was moved up one in the batting order, rifled a double to right, scoring Gordon.

After second baseman Omar Infante struck out, shortstop Alcides Escobar tapped a slow roller to the right side and beat first baseman Brandon Belt to the bag for an infield single. The slow-footed Perez remained at third on the play, loading the bases for right fielder Nori Aoki, who was hitless in his first nine World Series at-bats.

Aoki speared a grounder under third baseman Pablo Sandoval’s glove for a two-run single that finished Peavy.

Kauffman Stadium continues to be horror house for Peavy, where he is 1-7 with a 7.28 ERA, the highest ERA among active pitchers with a minimum of 40 innings there.

Yusmeiro Petit, who threw three scoreless innings Saturday against the Royals to pick up the victory in relief and had thrown 12 scoreless innings in postseason play, replaced Peavy, trying to hold the score at 3-0.

Instead, Petit surrendered a two-run single to Cain, a two-run double to first baseman Eric Hosmer and a run-producing double to designated hitter Billy Butler, hiking the lead to 7-0.

After the 32-minute inning, Ventura saw his control abandon him. He walked shortstop Brandon Crawford, center fielder Gregor Blanco and second baseman Joe Panik to load the bases with one out in the third. However, Ventura got Buster Posey to swing at a first-pitch, 97 mph fastball, and the San Francisco catcher grounded into a double play.

The Royals padded their lead with another run in the third. Infante and Cain stroked ground-rule doubles off Jean Machi, the third San Francisco pitcher. Every Royals starter had at least one hit by one out in the third.

The Royals made it 9-0 in the fifth when Escobar’s double scored Infante.

Machi exited after three innings and 51 pitches. He allowed two runs on five hits and a walk.

Hunter Strickland, who in Game 2 gave up a two-run homer to Infante and got into a shouting match with Perez without retiring a batter, surrendered a solo home run to Moustakas in the seventh on a 2-2 offering. It was Moustakas’ fifth postseason homer, breaking Willie Aikens’ franchise single-season record of four, set in 1980.

The home run was the sixth Strickland allowed in the postseason, a major league record for a reliever in a single postseason.

NOTES: The last World Series Game 7 won by the visiting team was 1979, when the Pittsburgh Pirates topped the Orioles in Baltimore. …Two veteran right-handers, the Giants’ Tim Hudson and the Royals’ Jeremy Guthrie, will be the starters for Game 7. “And (Guthrie will) be backed up with everybody we’ve got,” Kansas City manager Ned Yost said. In Game 3, Guthrie picked up the 3-2 victory. … The Royals and Giants both qualified for the postseason as wild cards. Other wild-card World Series winners were the Florida Marlins in 1997 and 2003, the Anaheim Angels 2002, the Boston Red Sox in 2004 and St. Louis Cardinals in 2011. … The Giants have never lost a postseason series under manager Bruce Bochy. … There was a moment of silence prior to the game for St. Louis Cardinals OF Oscar Taveras and his girlfriend, Edilia Arvelo, who died in a car accident Sunday in the Dominican Republic.