Home field is meaningless in this World Series, as the Kansas City Royals win 3-2 to pick up a 2-1 lead against the San Francisco Giants with another fantastic performance from the bullpen without having to do too much on offense.

Both teams combined to get only 10 hits on 62 at-bats, with Alcides Escobar being the only player to get two hits, and also end up running over home plate twice in the game. The Giants got another disappointing start from their pitcher, while their hitters who did put them back in the game in the sixth inning couldn’t get anything past the excellent pitching and fielding the Royals brought with them to the bay area.

Tim Hudson in his first ever World Series pitching stint picked up the loss, giving up three runs in 5.2 innings despite allowing only four hits. He struck out just two hitters in his performance and although the bullpen, including Romo and Casilla, that came on after him did a good job, it didn’t really matter when the offense couldn’t generate anything.

It was a very good performance for Jeremy Guthrie for the first five innings before letting two slip by him, as a Michael Morse double followed by Buster Posey grounding out generated two runs for the Giants, who couldn’t handle the performances of Kelvin Herrera, Brandon Finnegan, Wade Davis and Greg Holland, not allowing a single hit. Holland, who also got the save, has now done it seven times in this postseason, tying the all-time record held by a long list of players, most recently done by Koji Uehara of the Red Sox in 2013.

With their win, the Royals are now 10-1 in this postseason. Since the beginning of the Wild Card era, only two teams have won the World Series with just one loss to their name: The Chicago White Sox in 2005 and the New York Yankees in 1999.

The Royals didn’t get their points with big hits as well: A ground out by Lorenzo Cain, an RBI double from Alex Gordon and an RBI single in the next at bat by Eric Hosmer. For all three players these were their first RBIs of the World Series, with Hosmer pulling it off in a 2-out situation. This was the only time the Royals managed to pull through with a runner in scoring position. The Giants were 0-for-3 in that situation.

The keys are in the Royals’ hands now. They have Jason Vargas on the mound next in game 4, playing very well in the ALCS clincher against the Baltimore Orioles. Ryan Vogelsong and not Madison Bumgarner will start for the Giants. Vogelsong has pitched in two wins, but looked terrible on his last performance, lasting only three inning against the St. Louis Cardinals in the NLCS. The Giants still won that game.

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