KANSAS CITY, Mo. — For Red Sox fans with fond memories of last October, it should be easy to measure the influence right fielder Hunter Pence has on the San Francisco Giants.
Imagine a player with the manic team spirit of Jonny Gomes, the game-changing energy of Shane Victorino, and the size and strength of Jarrod Saltalamacchia.
Add in a mop of curly hair, a proudly untrimmed beard, and baseball’s most expressive eyes, and Pence is clearly the most entertaining player in the World Series.
“He’s a guy who would have fit in just fine with us last year,” said Jake Peavy, the former Sox pitcher who will start Game 6 of the Series Tuesday night with the Giants up, three games to two. “He just gets it.”
Pence has hit .328 in 15 games this postseason, with six extra-base hits, eight RBIs, eight walks, and 11 runs. His OPS is .875.
Beyond the tangible, Pence adds a daily dose of ebullience that is vital come the stressful end of a long season. As exciting as the postseason can be, the players are worn down, having reported to spring training nine months earlier. Others are affected by the pressure to win.
But Pence finds a way to combat those obstacles.
“That’s extremely important, extremely important,” Giants catcher Buster Posey said. “Hunter won’t let the clubhouse come to a lull; I think that’s a good way of describing it.
“He has an innate ability of kind of sensing when that might be happening. He can get ’em fired up with the best of them.”
On the field, Pence is a jumble of arms and legs that defies description. His batting stance is off-balance and he plays the outfield with all the grace of a dump truck.
“No comment,” Giants hitting coach Hensley Meulens said with a chuckle when asked to describe how Pence hits. “Everybody is different. He has great hand-eye coordination and he’s a hard worker.
“He throws funny, he runs funny, and he hits funny. He’s not cookie-cutter. But he’s a driven guy who has unbelievable ability to put the ball in play. You can’t teach anybody to play the way he does. But we find a way to work with what he has.”
Pence is a career .296 hitter with runners in scoring position and hit .351 in such situations this season.
“Everyone talks about hitting with runners in scoring position because it’s such an important part of this game, and really there is no specific way to do it,” Pence said. “If I was to say the keys to my success, [it’s] trying not to do too much sometimes. I think I had struggles when I was younger, and I still have a lot to learn and get better.”
Only four players in the majors played all 162 games this season, and two of them are in the Series: Pence and Royals shortstop Alcides Escobar.
In retrospect, Pence wishes he had mixed in a few extra days of rest.
“I think I learned that a day off here and there could actually help me and make me a better player and be better for the team,” he said. “So hopefully my ego and my pride didn’t get in the way by trying to do that.
“Really, I think if I search myself and I ask the question, my true feeling was I thought I was OK. But I didn’t realize until I did get that day off that it makes a difference from time to time.
“I’ve got a lot to learn, and I’m still growing in this game. You never figure it all out. But I will say that I don’t think that that brought out the best I could do on a baseball field.”
Counting the postseason, Pence has played in 515 of a possible 517 games since the start of the 2012 season. The two games he missed were in 2012 with the Phillies.
Since he was obtained from Philadelphia in a trade deadline deal in 2012, Pence has played every game for the Giants.
“I would describe Hunter as a kid, that he’s growing up wishing to be a Major League Baseball player one day,” San Francisco center fielder Gregor Blanco sad. “He’s a guy that his passion for baseball is unbelievable. He’s a guy that he gives everything for his teammates to win a ballgame, and he does whatever it takes to do it.
“Every run and every hit he gets or every at-bat, he’s so passionate about it.”
He’s also a perfect fit for San Francisco. Pence rides a scooter to and from AT&T Park to save money on gas and parking and avoid traffic. He also advocated for the team to plant a garden beyond the center-field fence. The small plot of land now produces a variety of vegetables and herbs.
Giants manager Bruce Bochy encourages Pence to live life the way he wants. It works for the team.
“He’s a guy that likes to step up and say a few words,” said Bochy. “He speaks from the heart. Probably as much as how he says it and with the passion that he speaks, I think it does so much for the players as much as the content itself.
“They’re like brothers to him, and that’s what I take away from a lot of his talks is his love for his teammates. He’s got a lot of fire and energy, but he loves being the guy to step up and hopefully get these guys going.”
Pence, 31, is a three-time All-Star and last season was signed to a five-year, $90 million contract extension. But he prefers to define his career in more simple terms.
“Literally my goals are to play each game as hard as I can to win,” he said. “That’s what I write down when I’m writing down my goals for the season. I want to give every single game everything I have to win, and the rest, the numbers will take care of themselves.
“But you can’t deny that there is so much emotion that we’ve come this far. This is everything you’ve dreamed of. Obviously, winning the World Series was the other part of the goal, and that is kind of a result of being as focused as you can each moment to win each game.”
Peter Abraham can be reached at pabraham@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @PeteAbe.