Royals need James Shields to own 'Big Game' moniker in pivotal Game 5

The "Big Game James" nickname is one James Shields earned well before he stepped on a major league mound, and according to legend actually had nothing to do with his pitching prowess. As the story goes, Shields was a big fan of the original "Big Game James," Los Angeles Lakers legend James Worthy, and since they shared the first name his high school friends basically stuck it on him, and somewhere along the line he just forgot to remove it.

Over 15 years later, the nickname is as firmly attached as it ever was. Only now, given the line of work he finds himself in, it's amplified and serves as the basis, fairly or unfairly, for how his performance is judged.

With the unquestioned biggest start of his professional career looming on Sunday night in San Francisco, the Kansas City Royals desperately need Shields to claim ownership of that moniker, if only for one night.

With the Royals and San Francisco Giants tied at two wins apiece in the World Series, manager Ned Yost will turn to Shields in a pivotal Game 5, on the road, at crazy loud AT&T Park, against MLB's top pitcher in the postseason, Madison Bumgarner, and against a resilient Giants team that's won two of the last four Series championships.

Oh, and if that set up wasn't a difficult enough assignment for essentially every hurler in the game, also consider the 29 years of disappointment and frustration that has built up in Kansas City, that only two more victories in this Series can relieve.

The weight of the world, or at least Kansas City's baseball world, will indeed be on his shoulders, and to overcome San Francisco, he'll need to step his game up several notches from what we've seen this postseason and historically during his career in October.

After delivering another solid regular season — he went 14-8 with a 3.21 ERA and easily topped 200 innings (227) for the eighth straight season — the 32-year-old right-hander has looked like anything but an ace or workhorse, posting a 7.11 ERA over 19 innings in four postseason starts. That includes a three-inning outing in Kansas City's 7-1 Game 1 loss to San Francisco, in which he allowed five earned runs.

For his career, Shields has posted a 5.74 ERA in 10 postseason starts covering 53 1/3 innings.

There's just something about actual big games and James Shields that haven't mixed historically, but he has a chance to stem the tide and rewrite his own history on Sunday. For what it's worth, Shields' manager is confident he'll be in the right frame of mind, which is always a good place to start.

"I've seen him pitch for 65 starts or so. I know what type of pitcher he is, one," Yost said prior to Game 4. "And I've got confidence in everybody on my staff."

"We talked about Alex Gordon going 0‑for‑15. Did I lose confidence in Alex because he was 0‑for‑15? Absolutely not. Stepped up and got a big hit for us. It's the same thing with James Shields. I know his intensity. I know his work ethic. I know his competitiveness. I know that as much as a lot of you guys think that these guys are light's out perfect every time they go out there, they're not. They're human beings. They make adjustments and they have good games and they have bad games."

"But I know tomorrow when he steps on that mound, he's going to be ready both physically and mentally to compete and give us his best effort, and that's all I can ask."

Shields himself anticipates being in a better place mentally and more even-keeled than he was in Game 1.

"Yeah, it's just kind of one of those things as a baseball player you've got to really hone in. I've been on this stage before, and I know exactly what to feel like when I'm out there, and I think this time around I'm not going to be as amped up and just try to keep my emotions in check."

It's one thing to say it. It's quite another to believe the next outing will be different.

"Yeah, obviously, the last couple starts is not the way I wanted to end up," Shields said on Saturday. "But sometimes those things happen, and unfortunately it's right now. But me and [pitching coach] Dave [Eiland] had a really good bullpen session this last round. You know, I was just kind of rushing, rushing to the plate. Ball was getting flat, really flying open. Really just not getting the job done, bottom line.

And most difficult of all is pulling everything together on the game's biggest stage against a team that seemingly can do no wrong when it needs to win in October.

It's the ultimate test that awaits him, but on the other side is the ultimate redemption and satisfaction should Shields finally morph into "Big Game James."

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Mark Townsend is a writer for Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at bigleaguestew@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @Townie813