When Jeremy Guthrie takes the mound for the Kansas City Royals in Game 3 of the World Series tonight, he’ll be just the 11th Stanford baseball alumnus to play in the Fall Classic, the first since Eric Bruntlett in 2009 and the first to start a game on the mound since Mike Mussina in 2003. And get this, he’ll do it at AT&T Park, just over 35 miles from where he first made his name at Sunken Diamond 13 years ago.

Guthrie, who joined the Cardinal as a sophomore in 2001 after transferring from BYU following a Mormon mission from 1999-2000, was an integral part of Stanford’s 2001 and 2002 College World Series teams. Over his two collegiate seasons, he posted a 26-6 record — a 15-1 mark at Sunken Diamond — with a 2.65 ERA and 264 strikeouts in 291.2 innings pitched. The Ashland, Oregon native earned All-American honors both seasons, and also was the Pac-10 Pitcher of the Year and a Golden Spikes Award finalist in his junior season.

Yet it’s likely that even his 61 postseason innings for Stanford, over which he amassed a 6-1 record with a 2.80 ERA, could not prepare him for pitching on baseball’s brightest stage. It’s Guthrie’s first postseason after seven seasons of being a big-league regular, during which he played for the Orioles and then the Rockies for half of a season before landing with the Royals.

Friday night’s start in San Francisco will be his second of this postseason, following a relatively strong performance in Game 3 of the ALCS against his former team, the Baltimore Orioles. He lasted five innings, allowing just one run on three hits on 94 pitches, before the Royals’ bullpen retired 12 consecutive Orioles hitters to close the game.

Though Guthrie finished the season with a 4.13 ERA and a 4.32 fielding independent pitching (FIP), both worsts among Royals’ qualifiers, he entered October with a bit of momentum. Over his last five starts of the regular season, he went 3-1 with a 2.40 ERA, compared to a 5-4 mark and a 5.67 ERA over his previous 10 starts before the stretch.

With the World Series now a best-of-five series and the Giants essentially with home-field advantage, Guthrie looks tonight to give the Royals the edge, needing to keep his team in the game through the early innings before handing the ball off to the team’s dominant bullpen.

Contact Jordan Wallach at jwallach ‘at’ stanford.edu.