From the start of the series, with the Alcides Escobar inside the park home run off Matt Harvey on the first pitch of the series, you knew it was going to be an exciting series. New York started clawing back in the 5th thanks to Daniel Murphy and Travis d'Arnaud. A longball from Curtis Granderson got the Orange and Blue a lead, something they weren't able to hold. After trading runs over the next few innings, the game wound its way to extra innings A lot of that was thanks to the Alex Gordon home run off Jeurys Familia in the 9th. This coming off a guy who had been lights out the entire playoffs heading into this series. In the bottom of the 14th inning, Escobar reached first base on a throwing error by David Wright, and Bartolo Colón gave up a base hit to Ben Zobrist, allowing Escobar to reach third base. Hosmer hit a sacrifice fly to Granderson in right field to drive in the winning run. The game ended at 1:18 AM EDT, lasting five hours and nine minutes. The game tied the record for the longest game by innings in World Series history, shared with Game 2 in 1916 and Game 3 in 2005. The loss made Colón the oldest player ever to lose a World Series game.
Game two was all about Johnny Cueto. Even though New York scored the first run of the game with a Lucas Duda single, scoring Murphy, KC responded with four runs on RBI singles by Alcides Escobar, Eric Hosmer, and Mike Moustakas. The Royals scored three more runs in the eighth inning to put this game out of reach. Johnny Cueto pitched a complete game, the first by an AL pitcher in the World Series since Jack Morris in Game 7 in 1991, as the Royals defeated the Mets and took a two games to zero lead in the series. Game three saw the series shift back to New York, something which seemed to energize the Mets. A power surge from David Wright and Curtis Granderson help launch the Mets to their only win in the entire series. Besides the power surge from New York, the Royals made a few uncharacteristic mistakes in this game. First, there was Yordano Ventura forgot to cover the base on a ground ball to the first baseman, and the second in the sixth inning when Royals pitcher Franklin Morales triple-clutched Granderson's ground ball, allowing all runners to be safe, which led to a 2-run single by Wright. That's about as close as the Mets would get in the series.
In game four, Kansas City pulled out a nailbitter, thanks in large part to the botch by Daniel Murphy in the 8th inning. Yes, Michael Conforto hit a pair of home runs, but what everybody is going to talk about is the Murphy botch. Then late in the game, with KC threatening, Daniel Murphy made a bad play in the field, the error proving very costly. While yes the Murphy play was bad, I'm not saying it wasn't, you can also place a little bit of blame there on Tyler Clippard, who couldn't get anybody out, walking the only two batters he faced. It put more pressure on Jeurys Familia, who had been perfect in the playoffs until game one. He had a chance to redeem himself in that fourth game, but wasn't able to do it.
Now in game five, the crowd was into it. Curtis Granderson kept the good vibes going with the leadoff home run in the game. New York managed to push another run across in the 6th to take a lead. With the way Matt Harvey was pitching the whole night, you had this feeling that we might be heading back to KC for a 6th game. Then, going into the 9th, Harvey had pitched great, but you could tell he was wearing down. After giving up a leadoff walk, manager Terry Collins left Harvey in, who gave up a run scoring double to Eric Hosmer. Then they went to Familia. New York made another defensive mistake in the 9th, thanks to the bad throw to the plate by Lucas Duda that allowed the tying run to score. This game wound its way to the 12th inning, Kansas City loaded the bases. Lorenso Cain drove home three more runs with a double off Bartolo Colón. Wade Davis shut the door in the bottom of the 12th, clinching the crown for Kansas City.
You knew it might be a long series, from a Mets perspective, when in game one, on the first pitch thrown by Matt Harvey, Alcides Escobar hit an inside-the-park home run. The reason the ball traveled the way it did was because both Yoenis Cespedes and Michael Conforto misplayed the baseball. A sign of things to come in the series from a defensive perspective in the entire series. New York's defense in game one didn't get much better as David Wright made a costly throwing error, a play that would set up the eventual winning run for Kansas City. But wait it gets worse for the Mets from a defensive perspective. Game four was big for the Mets. They had an early lead thanks to a pair of Home Runs from Conforto. Then late in the game, with KC threatening, Daniel Murphy made a bad play in the field, a costly one at that.
While yes the Murphy play was bad, I'm not saying it wasn't, you can also place a little bit of blame there on Tyler Clippard, who couldn't get anybody out, walking the only two batters he faced. It put more pressure on Jeurys Familia, who had been perfect in the playoffs until game one. He had a chance to redeem himself in that four game, but wasn't able to do it. Last but not least, there was the throwing error by Lucas Duda in the 9th inning of game five. To be fair Hosmer made a gutsy move by challenging Duda coming down the line the way he did, but still it was a bad throw from Duda. Then you can also add in the bad baserunning by the Mets in the series, the worse one being Cespedes in game four getting doubled off 1st on the line drive.
Now to be fair, the Mets did make mistakes in the series, there's no denying that. But at the same time you saw the experience of the Royals coming through. Look at the Hosmer play in game five in the 9th., If he isn't pushing it down the line on the throw to first, Duda isn't getting rushed on the throw and the game could have ended. But Hosmer made the heads up play, took off and forced a bad throw from Duda. Kansas City was the smarter team in this series. Sure they got a few long balls, Alcides Escobar and Alex Gordon went deep in the first game of the series. Then it was all small ball for KC in the series, something the Mets had trouble doing. The Mets tried to rely on the home run a lot in the series and by not getting too many players on base, it cost the Mets. KC learned from what happened to them last year and took advantage of it. They took advantage of the Mets mistakes in the series and walked away with the series. Kanssa City knew what it was doing, where at times it looked like New York didn't. Salvador Perez rightfully walked away with the MVP of the World Series. He just so happened to hit .364 (8-for-22) with two doubles, two RBIs and three runs scored in the series.
New York made a great run at the title this year and have nothing to be ashamed of. Hats off and congratulations to the Kansas City Royals for winning their 2nd World Series Crown in Franchise history!
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