Couldn’t quite pull together a WS preview, so I’ll offer this up as a chat space.

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This year’s World Series teams had a combined .546 winning percentage in the regular season (.549 Royals, .543 Giants), second-lowest in WS history to the 1973 A’s-Mets matchup (.545 combined). The winner will have the 4th-lowest winning percentage of any World Series champ, after the 2006 Cards (.516, 83-78), the 1987 Twins (.525, 85-77), and the 2000 Yankees (.540, 87-74), and each of those won its division by at least 1.5 games.

This bothers some folks, but not me. The Giants and Royals are good teams, playing good ball — they knocked off four division winners by a combined 14-2 — and it could be a great Series. This is Year 46 of divisional play, so reaching the Series without the league’s best record isn’t quite breaking news. Playoffs in any format are always a crapshoot.

Don’t like the wild card? Ask the ’93 Giants or 1980 Orioles if they deserved to stay home with 100+ wins, or the other six teams from 1969-93 that missed the playoffs with 97+ wins. The ’78 Royals won their 7-team division while two AL East clubs stayed home with better marks; the ’79 Angels finished worse than three AL East teams that got stiffed; and the 84-win Royals in ’84 skated past four AL East teams that won more. I’ll take the wild card.

Don’t like the best-of-five first round? Well, sure. Yet the 32 best-of-five LCS from 1969-84 had just one major upset, based on season records — the ’73 Mets over the Reds — and one other win by a team with at least five fewer wins (1980 Royals over Yankees). Teams with a season edge of 5 games or more went 14-2 in those best-of-five sets. On the flip side, in the nine years of best of seven LCS before the wild card, we saw four teams win it all by upsetting two objectively better squads — the ’85 Royals (-8 to Blue Jays, -10 to Cardinals), the ’87 Twins (-13 Tigers, -10 Cards), the ’88 Dodgers (-6 Mets, -10 A’s) and the ’90 Reds (-4 Bucs, -12 A’s).

For sure, we’ve had upsets in the best-of-five LDS. But not all of those were by wild-card teams, and some even saw division winners beating stronger wild-card teams (’97 Tribe over Yanks, 2001 Yanks over A’s).

Here are the 12 wild-card teams that reached the World Series. Out of 24 series they won to reach the Fall Classic, nine were over teams that won at least 5 more games (bold), while six were against teams with worse records (italics):

• 1997 Marlins, 92-70 — LDS, 3-0 over 90-72 Giants … LCS, 4-2 over 101-61 Bravos
• 2000 Mets, 94-68 — LDS, 3-1 over 97-65 Giants … LCS, 4-1 over 95-67 Cards
• 2002 Angels, 99-63 — LDS, 3-1 over 103-58 Yanks … LCS, 4-1 over 94-67 Twins
• 2002 Giants, 95-66 — LDS, 3-0 over 101-59 Bravos … LCS, 4-1 over 97-65 Cards
• 2003 Marlins, 91-71 — LDS, 3-1 over 100-61 Giants … LCS, 4-3 over 88-74 Cubs
• 2004 Red Sox, 98-64 — LDS, 3-0 over 92-70 Angels … LCS, 4-3 over 101-61 Yankees
• 2005 Astros, 89-73 — LDS, 3-1 over 90-72 Bravos … LCS, 4-2 over 100-62 Cards
• 2006 Tigers, 95-67 — LDS, 3-1 over 97-65 Yanks … LCS, 4-0 over 93-69 A’s
• 2007 Rockies, 90-73 — LDS, 3-0 over 89-73 Phillies … LCS, 4-0 over 90-72 D’backs
• 2011 Cardinals, 90-72 — LDS, 3-2 over 102-60 Phillies … LCS, 4-2 over 96-66 Brewers
• 2014 Royals, 89-73 — LDS, 3-0 over 98-64 Angels … LCS, 4-0 over 96-66 Orioles
• 2014 Giants, 88-74 — LDS, 3-1 over 96-66 Nationals … LCS, 4-1 over 90-72 Cards

If there’s shame in reaching the playoffs with a W% under .550, it’s shared by 19 division winners in the 20 wild-card years, and more than one-eighth of all division winners. And for as long as we’ve had divisions, we’ve accepted that postseason play can trump season-long excellence. The A’s of 1972-74 never had baseball’s best record, ranking 3rd, 4th and 4th, with fewer total wins than the Reds and Dodgers. Their closest division pursuer never topped 88 wins. So what makes them a great team, except winning in October?

The second wild card made the path harder for teams that don’t win their division. Both the Giants and Royals used their ace in the play-in game, thus had him just once in the LDS, but still won easily. Is that a knock on the format, or on the teams they defeated? Or maybe it’s just something that happened. Remember, in the first two years of this format, no wild card reached the Series, and the only one to win an LDS scored 4 runs in the 9th to win Game 5 on the road.

Playoffs are a crapshoot, including the World Series: The winners’ average edge is less than one win, and teams with at least 5 more wins are just 36-34. (Records pro rated to 162 games.) Think of what the “best teams” showed us in these playoffs. Are we sure they’d be better equipped right now for a best-of-seven than these clubs that have already won two series and a do-or-die game?

I’m excited to see the Royals and Giants meet for the championship. And I can’t think of two more deserving teams.

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This World Series features the fewest combined home runs for any full season since 1947, when the Yankees (AL #1 with 115 HRs) met the Dodgers (NL #6 with 83). Those teams combined for 5 HRs in a 7-game Series, yet averaged 4.8 runs per team-game.

• Out of 52 subsequent Series lasting at least 5 games, the only one with fewer than 6 total HRs was the ’85 Royals-Cards tilt, when each team hit a pair. That was a low-scoring Series, with 41 total runs (not quite 3 per team-game), and 11 of those by KC in the clincher.

Kansas City’s 95 HRs are the fewest since 1945 by an AL champ. The ’45 Tigers (77 HRs) met the Cubs (54 HRs) in a 7-game Series that saw only 3 HRs, but 4.4 runs per team-game.

The Giants have already matched the postseason high of 5 homerless wins, and their 5-2 homerless record is tops among those seven teams. The last three in that group were the Cardinals of 2006, ’11 and ’13.

• The Giants have homered in 3 of 10 postseason games. In the wild-card era, the fewest games with a homer by a WS champ is 7, by the 2003 Marlins.

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Lorenzo Cain has hit 3rd in all eight postseason games, after no such games before Sept. 13. He started twice as many games in the 8th slot as in the 3rd (28-14), and compiled two-thirds of his PAs in the 6th-8th slots. No other player in at least 20 years has hit 3rd in five or more postseason starts after 10+ regular-season starts hitting 8th.

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KC’s killer bullpen trio has allowed 3 runs in 25.2 innings this postseason. To picture the impact of that workload and effectiveness, imagine a team with two starting pitchers twice as good as Clayton Kershaw for a full season.

Starting pitchers own just two of the Royals’ eight postseason wins so far. In divisional play, only the 1979 Pirates went all the way with just two wins by starters (out of 7 wins in 10 games). No shock there, as the ’79 Bucs tied a record with 63 relief decisions (38-25); those decisions and wins remain 5th all-time. (Their closer trio combined for 50 saves, a 28-18 record and 346 relief innings.) In the wild-card era, the 4 SP wins by the 2003 Marlins are the fewest by a WS champ.

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Comparing pitchers’ hitting in the World Series since the DH was invented:

• NL — .126 BA (32-253), .150 SLG, 3 doubles, 1 HR, 8 RBI, 14 runs, 14 walks, 103 Ks, 22 sac bunts
• AL — .085 BA (24-283), .120 SLG, 7 doubles, 1 HR, 11 RBI, 14 runs, 10 walks, 139 Ks, 29 sac bunts

The last three RBI hits by a World Series pitcher came from Barry Zito (2012), Andy Pettitte (2009) and Joe Blanton (2008), who hit a combined .113 in their regular-season careers. Blanton, who struck the last home run — the only one for the NL since Bob Gibson — had no other extra-base hits in 226 career at-bats.

The last World Series pitcher to notch at least 0.2 Win Probability Added as a batter was General Crowder in 1935 Game 4. In a 2-1 victory, Crowder singled and scored for a 3rd-inning tie, and “drove home” Flea Clifton with two out in the 6th on an error by SS Billy Jurges, right after a dropped fly by LF Augie Galan. The last to score 0.2 WPA on one event was Vic Raschi, 1952 Game 6. His infield hit scored the lead run from second with two out in the 7th, and the Yanks held on to square the Series.

The last two-hit game was by Chad Ogea in 1997 Game 6. A 2-run single off Kevin Brown that broke a scoreless tie in the second was Ogea’s first hit as a professional. He later doubled and scored Cleveland’s last run in a 4-1 win, setting up the dramatic Game 7 with his second win against Florida’s ace. Ogea finished his pro career 6 for 50 at bat, with no RBI or extra-base hits outside that game.

The last pitcher hit by a pitch was Nelson Briles, by Mickey Lolich in 1968 Game 5. Pitchers have over 750 plate appearances since then. This year, all 75 players with at least 600 PAs were nicked at least once. But pitchers are plunked at just one-third the rate of position players, even after sac bunts are removed from the totals.

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When the Royals last reached the World Series, 1985, the Giants were in the midst of their longest Series drought, spanning 26 seasons between 1962 and ’89.

The only player to appear for both teams in the World Series (or even the postseason) was Pat Sheridan, with the ’85 Royals and the ’89 Giants. His tying home run off Tom Henke in Game 2 of the ’85 ALCS remains the only postseason jack by a KC pinch-hitter, and their only blast in the 9th inning or later before this season.

Among the six to play 100 games in a year for both teams, Melky Cabrera has an interesting connection. Signed for a song in 2011, he gave KC out-of-the-blue numbers (their only 200-hit season since 2000), then was swapped for erratic starter Jonathan Sanchez. While hitting even better for the Giants — and shining in his first All-Star Game, held in KC — Melky was suspended for 50 games on August 15 for PED use. It seemed a blow to the Giants, then tied for 1st, but they surged to the division crown with a 30-15 finish, and when Melky became eligible during the playoffs, he wasn’t activated. Giants outfielders hit just .209 with 15 RBI in 16 postseason games, but the team scored enough to win it all. Meanwhile, Sanchez predictably flamed out, and was dealt for the equally struggling Jeremy Guthrie, who was then 33-57 in the last 3-1/2 years. An extreme flyball pitcher, Guthrie quickly found his niche with a strong defensive outfield, posting a 3.16 ERA in 14 starts for KC to land a 3-year extension.

The only player with more than one 100-game year for both teams was Michael Tucker, KC’s top draft pick in 1992. Traded to Atlanta in ’97 for a young Jermaine Dye, Tucker set a franchise postseason WPA record of .812 in Game 5 of the ’98 NLCS, with three scoring hits capped by a come-from-behind 3-run bomb off Kevin Brown.