Throughout the World Series, we’ll be keeping an eye on the race to win the World Series MVP. After each game we’ll rank the top candidates for the award based on their performance and intangible worthiness for the big honor.
After a lopsided Game 1, the frontrunners for the awards are fairly obvious, but we have plenty of games left to play. Until then, start getting excited for a certain bug-eyed outfielder to deliver what is sure to be a memorably bizarre acceptance speech.
1) Hunter Pence: The early favorite after an outstanding Game 1 in which he smacked a two-run homer, added another hit and walked twice. Kansas City just couldn’t do anything with him. His unique brand of crazy-eyed, awkward-yet-endearing excellence was on full display for the national audience to behold.
2) Madison Bumgarner: Getting staked to a 3-0 lead before ever throwing a pitch is a nice luxury, but Bumgarner was able to do the one thing no other pitcher had been able to do this postseason: beat the Royals. Allowing just one run on three hits and a walk, Bumgarner was truly dominant and positioned himself well to earn the MVP if he can follow this performance up with another strong showing in Game 5.
3) Pablo Sandoval: Sandoval gets points for opening up the scoring with an RBI-double. He added another hit later in the game to become the only other Giant besides Pence to deliver a multi-hit game. He was also generally full of Panda goodness. Who wouldn’t want to vote for a Panda?
4) Gregor Blanco: It isn’t often that World Series MVPs get much attention for their defensive contributions, but Blanco becomes a dark horse entrant in our rankings after his nice running catch in the first inning to prevent the Royals from getting back into the game. It certainly didn’t hurt that he reached base three times and scored two runs either.
5) Salvador Perez: We have to have a Royals candidate on this list since, you know, they might actually still win this thing. Unfortunately, they didn’t really give us much to work with. Sal Perez’s solo homer off MadBum, while impressive, was ultimately meaningless, but it was really the only notable contribution from anyone on the Royals. Suffice it to say, this side of the field is pretty wide open.
