The San Francisco Giants and Kansas City Royals are tied at 2-2 as the teams will play Game 5 of the World Series at AT&T Park tonight. The home team enjoyed a blowout win last night, winning 11-4, and I think they will get the better of it tonight as well when both teams send their ace to the mound.

Here are my keys to the game:

1. Pitching - The Royals will hand the ball to James Shields (14-8, 3.21 ERA) who struggled big time in Game 1 of this series. "Big Game James" gave up five runs on seven hits lasting only three innings before being pulled off in the 7-1 loss. He's had a horrible post-season overall, surrendering 15 runs on 28 hits with four homers over 19 innings of work total. The Giants will counter with Madison Bumgarner (18-10, 2.98 ERA) who in contrast to Shields is dominating left right and center. MadBum went seven innings in Game 1, allowing only one run, a homer, on three hits over seven innings. He has hurled 38 2/3 innings over five games in the post-season while only allowing seven runs on 22 hits. Norichika Aoki is still hit-less against the 25 year old, failing 13 straight match-ups and Lorenzo Cain and Salvador Perez is still looking for their first hit as well.

2. The Royals bullpen - It has gotten a lot of praise this post-season, but it got hit hard last night. Finnegan allowed five runs on five hits with two walks over one inning and Collins gave up two runs on three hits with a walk over two innings.

3. X-factor - Gregor Blanco was rather anonymous during the regular season but he's woken up in time for the World Series. The Venezuelan is 4-for-15 with a homer and five walks over the previous four games and is 4-for-7 with three RBIs versus Shields lifetime.

Selection: This is a play on the San Francisco Giants (8*)