KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Matching ’em up and breaking ’em down, from top to bottom, side to side, east to west, Daniel Murphy to Alcides Escobar, Mr. Met to Sluggerrr: the World Series teams, the cities, the fastballs, the drama. Game 1, first pitch 8:07 p.m. ET on Fox on Tuesday night. Cracker Jack on us.
1. This World Series Explained in Two Paragraphs
No team in baseball threw as many pitches clocked at 95 mph or higher as the New York Mets, according to Baseball Savant.
No team in baseball had a higher batting average (.284) and lower strikeout percentage (13.0 percent) against 95 mph-and-above heat than the Kansas City Royals.
Edge: All of us watching. Man, could this be fun.
2. Streaking: Who’s Hotter?
Mets second baseman Daniel Murphy suddenly has developed into a hybrid Babe Ruth/Barry Bonds/Ted Williams. He has homered in a record six consecutive postseason games and has a total of seven postseason home runs, leading to the obvious question: Is there a pitcher out there, anywhere, who will bust him inside? Move him off the plate? Make him dance, moving his feet? (Hello, Yordano Ventura.) Nobody has done that yet, and it is baffling.
“Yeah, I’m surprised,” Murphy said of the homers, not the fact that nobody’s dusted him yet. “Each time I’ve been able to put a swing on a ball and it goes out of the ballpark, I feel like I’ve been in stretches where I’ve put good swings on balls, but they’re singles and doubles.”
Then there is Royals shortstop Alcides Escobar, leadoff man extraordinaire, MVP of the ALCS by virtue of hitting .478 and pushing his hitting streak to 10 games. He banged out hits in each of his first-inning at-bats leading off the first four ALCS games. His secret: He is not afraid to swing at the first pitch.
“Ninety-nine percent of the time, it is a fastball right there in the strike zone,” Escobar explained.
Edge: Mets
3. Streaking, Part II
When the New York Mets whacked the Chicago Cubs in a stunning sweep in the National League Championship Series, it was the first time the Mets ever swept a best-of-seven game series. Overall, the Mets have won five consecutive postseason games.
The Royals over the past two years have not lost a postseason game in which they were leading after six innings, going 10-0. Chalk up a “Bo Derek Perfect 10” (and counting) for the extraordinary Kansas City bullpen.
Edge: Royals
4. Melting the Radar Guns
The extraordinary starting pitching of the Mets has forged one of the most effective performances in memory.
Matt Harvey, who will start Game 1 here Tuesday night, already has started an All-Star Game. Jacob deGrom, with 27 strikeouts in three postseason starts, is the first Met to rack up three wins in a single postseason since Jesse Orosco in 1986. Noah Syndergaard reached 101 mph in the division series against the Dodgers. Rookie Steven Matz already has started two postseason games after only six regular-season starts. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, only one pitcher started fewer MLB games before making his first postseason start: Philadelphia’s Marty Bystrom in 1980.
Yes, as noted above, the Mets threw more pitches clocked at 95 mph and above than anybody else, but they are pitchers, not simply flamethrowers: Their key to beating the Cubs was the unusually high number of breaking pitches they threw to a team that feasts on fastballs. Exhibit A, deGrom in Game 3, per Inside Edge:
As for Kansas City’s rotation, it remains a work in progress. Johnny Cueto remains maddeningly inconsistent. The Toronto crowd in Game 3 of the ALCS noticeably affected him, according to Royals sources.
“Johnny needs to be loved,” one source said, and he certainly wasn’t getting that from Blue Jays fans. Neither will he get it from Mets fans, which is why Kansas City almost certainly will arrange its rotation so that Cueto pitches in the comfort of home in Kauffman Stadium. Maybe they can get him a nice cozy pair of slippers and a robe, too.
Ventura, 24, is excitable and can lose his focus when his adrenaline pumps too rapidly, though he kept it together in the clinching Game 6 win over Toronto. Interestingly, he eschewed the windup and pitched from the stretch all night long—a move the Royals think helped him keep his focus. Starting July 26 through season’s end, Ventura went 9-1 with a 3.10 ERA, with his 91 strikeouts during this stretch tying for second in the American League.
Edinson Volquez has been far better than expected this season (and a good influence on a still-maturing Ventura). Veteran Chris Young got the Game 4 start in the ALCS; we’ll see what Ned Yost does here. Young is tall (6’10”) and deceptive, making the ball hard to pick up for opposing hitters.
Edge: Mets
5. Attacking the Heat
Maybe Kansas City can do what the Los Angeles Dodgers and Cubs couldn’t do this month against Mets pitching and knock them off balance. Not only are the Royals a terrific fastball-hitting team, but they also know their way around breaking pitches, as noted by Inside Edge:
While the Royals ranked 14th in the AL during the regular season with only 139 homers (or, roughly as many as Daniel Murphy hits before breakfast), there also are no soft spots in their lineup. From Escobar atop the order on through Ben Zobrist, Lorenzo Cain, Eric Hosmer, Kendrys Morales, Mike Moustakas, Salvador Perez, Alex Gordon and Alex Rios, every inning starts with a potential rally.
Edge: Royals
6. July in October: Trick or Treat
The Mets’ fortunes completely changed in July with the acquisitions of slugger Yoenis Cespedes (from the Tigers) and infielders Kelly Johnson and Juan Uribe (Braves) and the recall of rookie outfielder Michael Conforto. The Mets offense immediately went from 98-pound weakling to heavyweight champ.
Matching New York general manager Sandy Alderson, Kansas City’s Dayton Moore pulled the trigger on two key deals of his own, acquiring Cueto from the Reds and Ben Zobrist from Oakland. Zobrist was a huge upgrade over scuffling second baseman Omar Infante and filled in when Gordon was lost for a time to a groin strain.
Edge: Even
7. The Horse’s End of the Bullpen
Back end? You know all about Kansas City’s if you were paying attention last October. What’s different now: Closer Greg Holland is out for the season following Tommy John surgery, and the domino effect has Wade Davis moving from the eighth inning into the closer’s role. Setup man Kelvin Herrera is a key weapon, as are Luke Hochevar, Danny Duffy and Ryan Madson.
Do not overlook Mets closer Jeurys Familia, who ranked third in the NL this year with 43 saves in 48 opportunities. He is lights-out and could become a star by the time this World Series is finished. But getting to him is a dicey proposition for manager Terry Collins.
Tyler Clippard, Jonathon Niese, Addison Reed, Hansel Robles…the Mets at this point would rather take their chances cliff-diving than using that group as a bridge to Familia. Secret bullpen weapon for the Mets: Bartolo Colon.
Edge: Royals
8. The Managers
In Kansas City’s dugout, you’ve got Ned Yost, who declared the 45-minute rain delay in Game 6 of the ALCS against Toronto to be “a pain in the ass.” No kidding, because man did he ever take some deserved heat for using Ryan Madson against Jose Bautista in the eighth inning just before the rain hit instead of bringing in closer Wade Davis. Bautista’s game-tying home run hadn’t even landed yet before folks were fitting Yost for a dunce cap. Yet, once again, he had the last laugh.
Terry Collins is having a career year as manager with New York after previous stops in Houston and Anaheim turned more toxic than a football field laid out on top of arsenic. Into this postseason, he had managed 1,688 major league games without ever once reaching the postseason. Milking a young pitching staff through a season in which the club wanted to limit its workload, Collins and pitching coach Dan Warthen have done extraordinary work.
Edge: Royals
9. Celebrity Mascots
Still remember seeing cool regular-guy actor and diehard Royals fan Paul Rudd in line at Oklahoma Joe’s barbecue last October (get the burnt ends, they are tremendous, and know that since last autumn the restaurant inside of a gas station has changed its name to Joe’s Kansas City Bar-B-Que). And Eric Stonestreet, who plays Cam on the monster hit show Modern Family, was hanging around his hometown team.
Everyone knows Jerry Seinfeld is the No. 1 Mets celebrity fan, and he even tweeted something I beat him to by several minutes last July when the Mets acquired Yoenis Cespedes. Why, you don’t suppose Jerry isn’t writing his own jokes anymore, do you?
Give Jerry credit for this five days later, however:
10. X-Factors
Mets: Opportunism. The Mets ranked 29th in the majors during the season with 51 stolen bases. This postseason, they’ve already swiped nine, which ties them with the Blue Jays for the top spot. Leadoff man Curtis Granderson has four of them and is hitting .303/.385/.364, which means he’s getting plenty of opportunities.
Royals: Resiliency. Kansas City trailed every single one of the five games during the division series against Houston yet came back to win. The Royals trailed Toronto 11-4 in Game 3 of the ALCS yet scored four times in the ninth inning and forced the Jays to warm up their closer. And the Royals faced a pivotal moment in Game 6 against the Jays, Jose Bautista’s game-tying homer in the eighth, by answering with what turned out to be the game-winning run in the bottom of the eighth.
Edge: Royals
11. Historical parallels
The Mets have not won the World Series since 1986. Since then, they’ve played in only one World Series, in 2000 (and this is their fifth overall, having won in 1969 and ’86 and lost in ’73 and ’00).
The Royals have not won the World Series since 1985. They now are playing in their second consecutive World Series after playing in only two total during their first 45 years of existence.
Edge: Even
12. Ballparks
Kansas City’s Kauffman Stadium is the most underrated park in the game, a perfect place to hold a World Series with the cool fountains beyond the center field fence.
New York’s Citi Field is a very nice new ballpark, though fairly nondescript, with the odd, mutant big apple rising from behind the center field fence whenever one of its own hits a home run.
Edge: Royals
13. Ballpark Staples
Citi Field: Shake Shack
Kauffman Stadium: Barbecue
Edge: Royals
14. Cities
New York is arguably the greatest city in the world, with a cosmopolitan vibe, any kind of culture and food you could possibly want and an Apple store that stays open 24 hours a day.
Kansas City is a fine Midwestern city with a low cost of living that creates a terrific place to raise a family. The spectacular fountains everywhere you look are very cool, and the barbecue is more seductive than that girl who used to wink at you in English class back in high school.
Edge: New York
15. Final Pitch
The Mets have had a long layoff since winning the clincher against the Cubs last Wednesday, which for most teams could be a detriment. Baseball is a game of timing, and clubs can get awfully stale awfully quickly. Will Murphy’s swing be the same after a week off? Will Granderson continue to kill it in the leadoff spot?
But for a group of very young starters that has thrown more innings this year than it ever has before, perhaps a few extra days will be beneficial. Maybe Syndergaard will find 101 again. Maybe it won’t take deGrom a couple of innings to find his groove. Stay tuned.
As for the Royals, I like that their young core has grown up together, won at every single level of the minor leagues and now has returned to the World Series for a second consecutive season. To a man, players from Cain to Hosmer and beyond maintain that losing last year’s World Series in Game 7 to San Francisco only made them more determined in 2015.
The power versus power thing will be the top matchup to watch, looking at how this group of quick-swinging Royals hitters handles all of those hard throwers from the Mets. Kansas City has the home-field advantage, just like last year, when the Giants clipped them in Kauffman Stadium at the very end.
I look for a different outcome this year. It’s the Royals’ turn.
Pick: Royals in seven
Scott Miller covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.
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