Whether it’s the New York Mets or the Kansas City Royals, the winner of the World Series will have its first championship in three decades.
Strictly going off the first act, we can deduce two things: It may take another three decades for this series to crown a winner, and getting there is going to be a hell of a ride.
Game 1 began Tuesday night at Kauffman Stadium. It wasn’t decided until early Wednesday morning, when Eric Hosmer strode to the plate in the bottom of the 14th inning and lifted a bases-loaded sacrifice fly that scored Alcides Escobar. That gave the Royals a 5-4 win and put an end to a game that lasted over five hours and innings-wise, tied for the longest game in World Series history.
It was also one of the wildest games in World Series history.
Things got going with a rare bang, as Escobar took Matt Harvey’s very first pitch in the bottom of the first inning for a ride that resulted in the World Series’ first inside-the-park home run since 1929.
From there, the Mets rallied for a 3-1 lead, only to lose it to a two-run Royals rally in the sixth. That momentum didn’t last long, though, as Hosmer’s Bill Buckner impersonation in the eighth gave New York a lead it handed to nigh-unhittable closer Jeurys Familia.
Who, naturally, proved to be hittable.
Alex Gordon took Familia deep over the center field wall for a game-tying home run in the ninth inning—the first game-tying or go-ahead home run in the ninth inning or later since Kirk Gibson I-don’t-believe-what-I-just-saw’d Dennis Eckersley in 1988.
And all that was just in regulation. There were still five more innings of rallies and near-misses before Hosmer finally closed the proceedings with his fateful fly ball to right field. It was madness. Pure madness.
Granted, this is the CliffsNotes version. And before you say it, yours truly is well aware that it hardly does all the drama and general weirdness of Game 1 proper justice. Though, in my defense, it’s doubtful whether it’s even possible to appropriately capture it all.
But through it all, there was something that became quite clear. And with the dust Game 1 kicked up now settling, it’s as clear as it will ever be:
This is going to be a really good World Series. The Royals may have the advantage for now, but they and the Mets look like about as good a match for one another as two teams in the Fall Classic can be.
In the days leading up to a World Series, everything gets boiled down to narratives. Given some more time, those individual narratives get boiled down to an overarching narrative.
On the eve of this particular World Series, the overarching narrative seemed to be that it would pit the Mets’ power against the Royals’, well, everything. The Mets would try to win with power pitching and power hitting, and the Royals would try to win by doing typical Royals things like stringing hits together, hitting in the clutch, running the bases, playing defense and going on the attack with their deep and dangerous bullpen.
Through one game, however, things are both as they seemed and not as they seemed.
Regarding the former, the Royals largely lived up to their reputation in Game 1. Sure, Hosmer’s error in the eighth inning was a very un-Royals moment, but we saw them play some good defense as well. We also saw their bullpen strike out 12 and walk only two in eight innings of work, and their offense showed its usual colors in each of their key rallies.
We also shouldn’t overlook how Gordon’s home run displayed another dimension of Kansas City’s offense. In taking a 97 mph sinker well over the wall, Gordon showcased the Royals’ excellence against high velocity that was highlighted by, among others, Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports:
It is indeed a good thing that the Royals lived up to their reputation. Said reputation got them to the World Series. And so far, it’s put them ahead in the World Series. All this is good.
And yet, it’s hard to imagine the Royals’ Game 1 victory being the start of a rout. The Mets showed for 14 innings that they’re a very strong match for Kansas City, in part because they made like the opposite of the Royals and played against type.
Take what was happening early in the game, for example. Amid all the talk about the Mets’ power arms and how they would match up against the Royals’ ability to handle power arms, Harvey was able to pitch six effective innings (three runs, five hits, two walks) essentially by flipping the script.
As the folks at Inside Edge noted, Harvey attacked the Royals not with a typical barrage of high-velocity fastballs but with everything else at his disposal:
This is something Harvey has done before, and it’s an approach that fellow flamethrowers Jacob deGrom and Noah Syndergaard can replicate in Games 2 and 3 if they see fit to do so. And knowing that Harvey’s backward pitching resulted in a quality start, they probably will see fit to do so.
Then there’s the Mets bullpen. Nobody figured it to be a good match for Kansas City’s bullpen, in no small part because Familia is the only overpowering arm the Mets have in said ‘pen. It’s all too fitting, then, that Royals hitters generally looked more overwhelmed by Familia’s (relatively) soft-tossing underlings in Game 1. If that persists, the bullpen matchup may actually be a good one.
Elsewhere, there’s what New York did on offense.
The Mets offense led the charge to the World Series partially by grinding out at-bats but mainly on the strength of the home run ball. It hit 14 of them and scored 49 percent of its postseason runs via the home run ball (h/t SI.com’s Joe Sheehan).
But the Mets got only one run via the long ball in Game 1, courtesy of Curtis Granderson, choosing instead to conduct their business in a decidedly Royals-like fashion.
Consider, the runs the Mets scored in the fourth and sixth innings were set up by aggressive first-to-third baserunning by Daniel Murphy and Yoenis Cespedes. And when they scored on Hosmer’s error in the eighth, it was in part because Juan Lagares had put himself in scoring position by stealing second base.
Though all of that felt surprising, in reality it was a reminder of one of the Mets’ primary strengths in recent seasons. They’ve actually been the most productive baserunning team in the majors since 2011. What they showed in Game 1 is that they haven’t lost their edge.
To be sure, you could have picked the Mets to win the World Series even while considering them to be little more than a power-oriented team. But after Game 1, it appears the World Series is not going to be a power vs. everything battle after all. On the contrary, it’s actually going to be an everything vs. everything battle between two opponents that clearly aren’t lacking in relentlessness.
About that, Anthony DiComo of MLB.com heard this from Mets third baseman David Wright:
Indeed they were. Indeed they were.
But if it’s any consolation to Wright and the Mets, they left an impression in Game 1. They came out on the losing end, but they put up too much of a fight for anyone to be thinking this series is in Kansas City’s pocket.
No, sir. All anybody should be thinking right now is that this World Series is going to be a good one. Maybe even a very good one. Maybe even a great one.
So, enjoy.
Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted/linked.
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