Kansas City Royals Setup Man Wade Davis Proves Team’s Bullpen Superiority

By Doug LaCerte @DLaC on October 18, 2014

This year’s Kansas City Royals bullpen is truly one of the greatest in MLB history, but some experts claim the San Francisco Giants have a crew of relievers similar to, if not even better than Kansas City’s. Could this really be true? No, it could not — a thousand times no.

The Royals’ three-headed monster of Kelvin Herrera, Wade Davis and Greg Holland is arguably the most unhittable trio of relief arms in the history of the game, and nobody from San Fran can even compare. All three of KC’s best relievers have lower ERAs, more innings pitched and more strikeouts per inning this season than Santiago Casilla, the best reliever in San Fran’s ‘pen. Only five pitchers with more than 18 innings pitched this season have higher K/9 ratios than Davis’ 13.63. Nobody with more than 21 innings pitched has a lower ERA than his even 1.00. No player in baseball has recorded an ERA that low in as many innings pitched (72) since Fernando Rodney in 2012.

The aforementioned Santiago Casilla may not strike fear into the hearts of batters like Davis has this season, but he’s undoubtedly the best reliever on San Francisco’s roster. His 1.70 ERA leads the team, as does his opponent’s batting average of .177. Casilla successfully converted every save attempt in the postseason so far this year, and he didn’t allow a single runner on base from Sept. 12 to Oct.  7. While KC still has the advantage when it comes to relief pitching, it should be far more difficult for either team to pull out any of their previous heroics against this series’ best relievers.

Doug LaCerte is a writer for www.RantSports.com. Follow him on Twitter @DLaC67, “like” him on Facebook and add him to your network on Google.