Pop quiz, hot shots: Name the last team to win the World Series while posting an inferior starting pitchers’ ERA to the losing team.
That would be the 2014 Giants, who outlasted the Royals in seven games while tallying a 5.29 starters’ ERA to the Royals’ 4.54. Tim Hudson, Jake Peavy and Ryan Vogelsong pitched so poorly, getting shelled for a combined 18 runs in 17 ¹/u2083 innings, that those Giants needed every last inch of Madison Bumgarner’s greatness to edge Kansas City by a run in Game 7, giving the franchise its third championship in five years.