Post-season Gameday Thread, #18: Royals with cheese

5:07pm Arizona time, Fox: Royals lead 1-1

Jason Vargas LHP, 1-0, 2.38

Ryan Vogelsong RHP, 0-0, 5.19

Alcides Escobar - SS	Gregor Blanco - CF
Alex Gordon - LF	Joe Panik - 2B
Lorenzo Cain - RF	Buster Posey - C
Eric Hosmer - 1B	Hunter Pence - RF
Mike Moustakas - 3B	Pablo Sandoval - 3B
Omar Infante - 2B	Brandon Belt - 1B
Salvador Perez - C	Juan Perez - LF
Jarrod Dyson - CF	Brandon Crawford - SS
Jason Vargas - P	Ryan Vogelsong - P

Firstly, just to update yesterday's story on the ratings for this World Series, Game 3 pulled in a 7.2 rating in the preliminary figures. That was indeed the lowest of the series to date, and down on last year (7.4), but up on the woeful 6.1 rating for 2012, the last time the Giants were in the World Series. That was on a Saturday night, however, which is never a good night for ratings.

Game 3 went to the Royals, and history tells us that gives them an edge - of the 56 World Series which have been tied after two games, the Game 3 winner has eventually triumphed in 39 of them, so about 70% of the time. The other good thing is, this now guarantees the Giants cannot win the series in San Francisco: they can still lose it, of course, and if the Royals take tonight's game, that will then become a very real possibility. But they can only win the series after it moves back to Kansas City for Games Six and Seven - which, of course, has to be suffixed with those two little words, "if necessary".

Hopefully, they won't be.