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The Kansas City Royals are celebrating a championship 30 years in the waiting, secured after Sunday night’s Game 5 victory that won the 2015 World Series.

After coming one game short of glory during last season’s pennant run, the Royals made no mistake of their place atop baseball this time around. They took down the New York Mets in a clash of long-suffering franchises.

The Royals’ Twitter account shared the moment the World Series was won:

Kansas City put together the ultimate team performance to etch its place as one of the most balanced teams to ever win a championship. There aren’t any superstars on this Royals roster. There’s no flair. They just step up and find ways to win games.

But a Most Valuable Player must be crowned, so why not catcher Salvador Perez? He hit at a .364 average in the series, going an impressive 8-for-22 against the Mets’ strong pitching, and most importantly, he brought the tying run home in the ninth inning of Game 5.

On top of throwing out three baserunners attempting to steal and calling a great series for the pitchers, Perez defined the Royals’ ability to hang in despite deficits throughout the postseason, as he told Christina Kahrl of ESPN.com:

You guys know what we’ve done all season. We never quit. We never put our heads down. … We always compete to the last out. And that’s what we did tonight.

MLB captured Perez celebrating with the trophy:

The moment must have tasted sweet for Perez, who was the last Royal to bat in Game 7 of their defeat last season to San Francisco, as ESPN Stats & Info noted:

Just like in Game 4 of the American League Division Series, when the Royals were nine outs from elimination in Houston, Kansas City flexed its late-inning muscle throughout the World Series. In three of its four wins, it trailed late in the game only to put together a trio of miraculous comebacks.

Victory seemed improbable again in Game 5, with Matt Harvey pitching a shutout through eight innings. But a walk to Lorenzo Cain to open the ninth and a follow-up double by Eric Hosmer had Harvey yanked for struggling closer Jeurys Familia, and the rest is history.

Andy McCullough of the Kansas City Star noted the thoughts of all Royals fans at that moment:

It took until the 12th inning for Kansas City to pull away, which it did in a five-run inning that all but put the Mets away. Wade Davis took it from there, notching three strikeouts to clinch the championship.

Moments later, the Royals were posing with the trophy they came so close to hoisting a year ago, including Mike Moustakas, as the team’s Twitter showed:

While the Mets will spend the coming days—maybe weeks, months or even the rest of their lives—wondering what could have been, the Royals don’t have to do that. They saw their opportunity and seized it in dramatic fashion.

It has been easy for any baseball fan to count out the Royals at a number of points in this postseason, but they just continued to prove their worth when the spotlight was brightest. Baseball is a game of ebbs and flows, and those certainly went the way of Kansas City throughout October and into the early days of November.

As a result, the Royals are celebrating a title that will last a lifetime.

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The Kansas City Royals won the World Series on Sunday night in the most appropriate possible fashion given how they’ve played this season, somehow erasing a two-run deficit in the ninth inning before winning Game 5 in the 12th inning, 7-2.

The Royals have quite literally made a habit of scoring runs late in games. They scored 51 of their 90 runs this postseason in the seventh inning or later, the most in baseball history, according to Elias Sports Bureau (via SportsCenter on Twitter).

They were truly the Comeback Kids, as Buster Olney of ESPN The Magazine noted:

Maybe it was just the mentality they had. After all, when Matt Harvey stepped to the mound in the ninth inning—the man who had stifled the Royals for an entire game, remember—the Royals seemed pleased to greet the challenge, as Lorenzo Cain told Bob Nightengale of USA Today:

Maybe it was just a hunger the Royals had and the belief they possessed all season long, as manager Ned Yost spoke about after the game, per Fox Sports MLB: 

Maybe it was just the fact they were a well-built, well-rounded group of players that had a set philosophy and executed it well. Adam Schein of SiriusXM didn’t see many weaknesses:

What didn’t the Royals do well this year? This was a team with a group of players that aggressively approached each at-bat and didn’t swing and miss often. They fielded well, had solid starting pitching, possessed an awesome bullpen and always seemed to come up with a clutch hit.

After losing in last year’s World Series, they also brought a lot of experience into this year’s postseason. And it showed. Where the New York Mets seemed to make mistakes at the worst possible moment—Eric Hosmer should have been been gunned down at the plate in the bottom of the ninth in Game 5, but Lucas Duda sailed his throw, for example—the Royals seemed to play better as the pressure grew. 

And let’s give credit to Hosmer, who had the guts to put Duda under pressure in the first place, something the Royals didn’t do in last year’s World Series, as Jason Catania of Bleacher Report recalled:

Hosmer spoke about that decision after the game, per Olney:

But when Rachel Nichols of Turner Sports asked him what he was thinking as he made his dash toward home, he admitted, “At first—that I made a mistake.”

It was just that sort of season for the Royals, however. Even their mistakes turned into strokes of genius. 

There will be the temptation to say the Mets threw this World Series away as much as the Royals grabbed it for themselves, especially in New York. Ramona Shelburne of ESPN.com doesn’t think that’s a fair perception, however:

It’s easy to be cynical after teams blow leads they probably should have protected. But let’s also enjoy a Royals team that put so much pressure on the Mets—and every team they faced, for that matter—that they created the cracks that eventually became leaks that inevitably caused the dam to burst late in games.

For a moment, let’s just appreciate what the Royals accomplished. And perhaps the other organizations seeking a World Series after a long drought can learn something from them, too, as Scott Van Pelt of ESPN noted:

For Royals fans, the celebration was on. Actor David Koechner, reprising his role as Champ Kind from the film Anchorman, perhaps summed up the feelings of Royals fans everywhere the best:

The drought is over, Kansas City. Enjoy your champions. They were clearly the best team in baseball. They were arguably the most fun team to watch. They provided all of baseball with an October to remember.

And few would be surprised if they did so again next year, too. 

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It took three decades, but the Kansas City Royals are once again world champions. The Royals ruined Matt Harvey’s brilliant start with a ninth-inning comeback and then scored five runs in the 12th to earn a 7-2 victory and take home the title Sunday night.

Outfielder Lorenzo Cain drove in three runs, while series MVP Salvador Perez’s groundout to third base drove in the game-tying run in the ninth. The Mets got eight shutout innings from Harvey, but manager Terry Collins’ decision to keep him in for the shutout backfired. Harvey walked Cain, and then Hosmer drove an RBI double to left field before Collins came out and yanked his ace.

“He just came over and said, ‘I want this game. I want it bad. You’ve got to leave me in,'” Collins said, per Adam Rubin of ESPN.com. “I said, ‘Matt, you’ve got us exactly where we wanted to get.’ He said, ‘I want this game in the worst way.’ So, obviously, I let my heart get in the way of my gut. I love my players. And I trust them. And so I said, ‘Go get ’em out.'”

The decision might not have changed the outcome of the series as a whole; it was always unlikely that the Mets would make a comeback from 3-1. That said, it sends us into the offseason earlier than anyone expected. Here is a retrospective on the 2015 World Series, noting the best performers and top moments.

World Series Stars

Salvador Perez, C, Kansas City Royals

It’s only right to start with the unanimous MVP. Perez hit .364/.391/.455 while scoring three runs and driving in two, all while helping guide the Royals pitching staff through a sterling series.

“He just had a phenomenal series,” Royals manager Ned Yost said, per Christina Kahrl of ESPN.com. “I think if I had one regret during the whole playoffs, [it] was I had to pinch run for Sal there in that inning. But it opened up the door for us to score five. I really wish that Sal could have been out there to jump in [closer Wade Davis’] arms when we got the final out.”

Most impressive about Perez’s performance was his ability to play through a series of nicks and cuts. He’d taken a number of foul balls off his body during the series and played despite the pain, continuing to lead the Royals in nearly every offensive category.

It was a symbol of the leadership that’s been apparent since Perez’s arrival in the big leagues. Nearly everyone in the clubhouse acknowledges he’s been at the forefront of this World Series push.

“He’s a beast,” Cain said, per David Waldstein of the New York Times. “He’s a monster, he’s our monster. That guy gives everything he has. Without him, we aren’t here right now.”

Curtis Granderson, OF, New York Mets

The Mets offense, so clutch during their run through the National League, failed in the World Series. Daniel Murphy went from October legend to November disappointment, hitting just .150 and failing to drive in a single run. David Wright, Yoenis Cespedes, Travis d’Arnaud? Not so much. Michael Conforto was the only Mets regular who hit over .300. 

Granderson, meanwhile, had a power surge at a time the rest of his teammates were suffering an outage. The veteran outfielder hit three home runs, but they accounted for only four runs batted in. Because Granderson’s the team’s leadoff hitter, it’s worth noting that only one of those bombs came in the first inning.

Granderson, Conforto and Wright were the only Mets players who drove in more than two runs. 

“He’s a pretty special guy,” Lucas Duda said of Granderson, per Fred Kerber of the New York Post. “I don’t want to make his head too big, but he’s an unbelievable baseball player and an even better human being. I can’t say enough about him.”

Luke Hochevar, Kelvin Herrera and Wade Davis, Kansas City Royals

The Royals would have gone nowhere the last two seasons without their bullpen. No team in baseball can shut a game down earlier when ahead, and this trio didn’t miss a beat on baseball’s biggest stage. Hochevar, Herrera and Davis combined to throw 14 shutout innings, striking out 16 batters and holding the Mets bats at bay.

Add in three shutout innings from the perpetually underrated Ryan Madson, and it’s not hard to see why New York had so much trouble putting runs on the scoreboard. When the Royals tied Game 5 in the ninth inning, the entire clubhouse had the feeling they were going to pull off the comeback.

“And once we tied it, we knew we had it,” Royals captain Alex Gordon said, per Bob Nightengale of USA Today. “It was like, ‘Here we go again.’ We weren’t going to lose the game. No one can match up with our bullpen.”

“You look at our performances, (Edinson Volquez) was unbelievable,” Yost said, per Mike Axisa of CBS Sports. “Herrera with a three-inning stint; he hadn’t had one of those all year,” said manager Ned Yost after Game 5. “And Hoch coming back on his third day for two innings to get the win. And Wade to close it out, our pitching was absolutely unbelievably good.”

There’s no telling how long the Royals can afford to keep these guys together. They’ve been so good over the last couple of years that teams are going to look at them as potential closers. For now, though, they can all bask in how a special bullpen carried them to a title.

Highlights From the Celebration

Because it is fun to see grown men pile thousands of dollars worth of alcoholic beverages on each other, here are a few notable highlights from Sunday night:

World Series Leaders

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While the World Series spotlight shines brightest on the biggest names and most established veterans every October, less hyped and somewhat overlooked players are often the ones who come through with the most surprising moments.

The 2015 World Series was no different, with a handful of players who in some ways had become afterthoughts delivering clutch performances, some bigger than others.

Let’s take a look at four players who surprised us all with truly memorable performances in this year’s edition of the Fall Classic. Note: These rankings are completely subjective and based on my own personal opinion, nothing else.

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They trailed in every game of the World Series. Heck, they trailed in the ninth inning of two of the four games they won (and in the eighth inning of another)!

The Kansas City Royals are amazing (sorry, New York Mets fans). They’re also champions after Sunday night’s 7-2, 12-inning win in Game 5.

The Royals won a year after losing the World Series in Game 7 against the San Francisco Giants. They won for just the second time in franchise history and the first since 1985.

They were impressive, all of them, but we’re still going to pick some individuals to single out for Bleacher Report’s World Series awards.

Begin Slideshow

When Game 5 of the 2015 World Series went to the ninth inning, FanGraphs gave the New York Mets almost a 95 percent chance of defeating the Kansas City Royals and cutting their 3-1 series lead to a 3-2 series lead.

That the Mets ended up losing the lead and, ultimately, the game and the series pretty much says it all. History will say they lost a lopsided series, but what the Mets will take to the grave is the notion the 2015 World Series was one they let slip through their grasp.

Just like in Games 1 and 4, the Mets seemed to have the Royals right where they wanted them late in Game 5. Matt Harvey had shut them out through the first eight innings, and the Mets offense had scratched across two runs. All that was needed was three more outs.

And those, they could not get.

A leadoff walk by Lorenzo Cain and an RBI double by Eric Hosmer chased Harvey, and then Hosmer came home with the tying run on a one-out RBI groundout by Salvador Perez after Jeurys Familia had taken over. Later, in the top of the 12th, a five-run Royals rally gave uber-closer Wade Davis a lead he had little trouble protecting for a series-clinching 7-2 win.

Looking back, it’s not especially heartbreaking that the Mets actually had a lead in all four of the games they lost. What’s more heartbreaking is the reality that they had late leads in three of the four losses.

When that happens, the masses will reach for their “blamethrowers.” And as far as many a Mets fan must be concerned, nobody deserves to be in the cross hairs like Terry Collins.

It was Collins, after all, who made arguably the most fatal decision of Game 5: choosing to let Harvey go back out for the ninth inning rather than turn the ball over Familia.

Fox’s cameras caught Harvey telling Collins “No way, I’m going back out there” beforehand. Rather than overrule his young ace—which, based on the reality that Harvey’s pitch count was over 100 and he was due to face the heart of Kansas City’s order for the fourth time, would have been a wise decision—Collins took his word for it and went ahead with a risky decision.

That it blew up like it did seemed inevitable. And in the aftermath, Collins admitted that he got carried away, per Sports Illustrated‘s Phil Taylor:

When looking at Collins’ decision, it’s hard not to think of when Grady Little got too trusty with Pedro Martinez back in Game 7 of the 2003 American League Championship Series. That cost the Boston Red Sox a shot at the World Series, and eventually it cost Little his job. With Collins not under contract for 2016, you wonder if a similar fate awaits him.

And that’s without even considering, of course, the other blunders Collins made in the World Series.

The call Collins made with Harvey in Game 5 wasn’t his only head-scratching pitching decision. There was also his decision to use Familia in the ninth inning of the Mets’ 9-3 blowout win in Game 3, a decision that had huge implications in Game 4. Rather than call on Familia for a six-out save to protect a 3-2 lead, Collins let Tyler Clippard create a mess before he called on Familia. Alas, he was unable to turn the tide.

Collins also made at least one highly questionable offensive decision. The big one came after after Yoenis Cespedes fouled a ball off his left knee with the bases loaded and nobody out in the sixth inning of Game 5. Collins chose to leave him in to continue his at-bat even though Cespedes could barely stand. He popped out, which helped result in that bases-loaded, no-out situation turning into just a single run.

It is indeed generally unfair to blame a team’s manager for its failings. But in a setting like the World Series, every single managerial decision is put under the microscope for a reason: They are very, very important decisions. Poor decisions can be crippling. And when it comes to Collins, there’s no overlooking that he made his share of those.

But before anyone rushes to place all the blame at Collins’ feet, here’s some advice: don’t. 

Because while Collins hurt the Mets’ chances of winning it all, every manager is only as good as his players. And in this World Series, Collins’ players just weren’t as good as they needed to be.

When looking at the leads the Mets let slip away in Games 1, 4 and 5, the easy thing to do is go straight to what went wrong with the pitching. In Game 1, it was Familia serving up a ninth-inning long ball to Alex Gordon. In Games 4 and 5, it was, well, you know.

What should not be overlooked, though, is that bad defense also helped turn those would-be W’s into L’s. As you might recall:

• Game 1: David Wright’s error with nobody out in the bottom of the 14th inning put the eventual winning run on base.
• Game 4: Daniel Murphy’s error with one out in the eighth inning allowed the tying run to score.
• Game 5: Lucas Duda’s poor throw home with two outs in the ninth inning allowed Hosmer to score the tying run.

You could look at these three plays alone and conclude the Mets played a brutal defensive series. But even beyond these plays, you can get into the ball that clanked off Cespedes’ leg and turned into an inside-the-park home run in Game 1, and another boot by Murphy (sorry, no video) that helped open the floodgates in the 12th inning of Game 5.

Plays like these served to highlight how badly overmatched the Mets defense was in the face of the Royals defense, as it was giving away free outs that the Royals defense was not going to reciprocate. And as Howard Megdal of USA Today pointed out in the middle of Game 4, that put a lot of pressure on the offense to pick up the slack:

The Mets offense outhitting the club’s defense, of course, didn’t happen.

Beyond being outscored 27-19, the Mets offense hit just .193 to Kansas City’s .239 and OPS’d just .552 to Kansas City’s .625. But in keeping with our theme of missed opportunities, nothing stands out quite like how the Mets and Royals hit with runners in scoring position.

Per Baseball Savant:

• Royals: .333 AVG, .410 SLUG
• Mets: .185 AVG, .185 SLUG

The one thing the Mets did on offense was outpace the Royals in the power department, hitting six home runs to the Royals’ two.

But with only one of those six home runs being of the multi-run variety, the Mets needed to cash in with runners in scoring position. That they largely failed to do so gave the club’s pitching and defense small margins for error. Obviously, we know how that turned out.

Mind you, it certainly behooves one to give credit where credit is due. The Royals are an extraordinary baseball team that seemed to play extra-extraordinary baseball when they most needed to. On the flip side of the Mets’ assorted failings are the Royals’ many successes. The overwhelming majority will say they deserved to win. The overwhelming majority will be right.

And yet, that won’t stop the Mets from coming away from this World Series asking the same question that so many other World Series losers have asked throughout history: what if?

What if the Mets defense hadn’t had so many leaks? What if the Mets offense had cashed in on a few more scoring opportunities? What if Collins had played things differently with those key pitching decisions? How would things have changed?

If we can indulge ourselves with an answer, it’s easy to think the 2015 World Series might at least still be going. Or maybe, it could even be celebrating a different victor. Instead of the Royals, perhaps it would be the Mets celebrating their first World Series title in three decades.

But we’ll never know. Not unless somebody shows up with a DeLorean and a flux capacitor, anyway, and that seems unlikely. The events the Mets just experienced are the events they’re stuck with.

Looking back on them is going to hurt. A lot. And for some, there will be no shot at redemption.

For everyone else, however…well, let’s just say they need only to think of their most recent opponent to be reminded that redemption is never too far away.

Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted/linked.

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Almost exactly 12 months ago, Salvador Perez stepped to the plate in Game 7 of the World Series. It was the bottom of the ninth, there were two outs, the Royals were trailing by one and the tying run stood on third base, 90 feet away.

You know what happened next: Perez popped a Madison Bumgarner offering into foul territory, Pablo Sandoval squeezed it and the San Francisco Giants celebrated in front of a crestfallen Kauffman Stadium crowd.

So close, and yet so far.

This year, the Royals stormed into the playoffs on a mission, with the bitter taste of unfinished business lingering in their mouths. Now, they’re champions after defeating the New York Mets 7-2 Sunday night at Citi Field to claim the franchise’s first Commissioner’s Trophy in 30 years.

There are heroes littered across the roster. There’s Edinson Volquez, who overcame the death of his father to pitch two gutsy games. There’s Alcides Escobar, the light-hitting shortstop who transformed into a quasi-Reggie Jackson. Or how about forgotten utility man Christian Colon, who broke a 2-2 tie in the top of the 12th inning, in his first at-bat of the postseason? 

No one, however, better embodied the Royals’ never-say-quit attitude than Perez, who won a well-deserved World Series MVP trophy before bathing in champagne.

Yes, Perez had solid numbers in the Fall Classic, hitting .364 with a couple of doubles and two RBI. More than that, though, the 25-year-old three-time All-Star provided a backbone, a beating heart behind the dish, if you’ll allow for a little schmaltz.

As battered as any regular catcher would be this time of year, and then some, Perez kept strapping on the gear and getting in the squat, deftly handling the Royals staff—including its lights-out bullpen—night after night. He took bats off the hand, balls off the collarbone and simply refused to cry “uncle.”

That’s as apt an analogy as you’ll find for the 2015 Royals. Of K.C.’s 11 victories in these playoffs, eight were of the come-from-behind variety. In seven of those contests, they trailed by two or more runs.

In Game 5 against New York, the Royals were baffled for eight frames by Matt Harvey, the Dark Knight, who had his full array of pitches working and carried a shutout and standing ovation into the ninth.

Kansas City, though, as it has done so often, clawed back. Eric Hosmer doubled home Lorenzo Cain after Cain walked. Hosmer advanced to third on a groundout, then scored with a bit of gutsy baserunning—and an errant throw by first baseman Lucas Duda—on a soft chopper by, who else, Perez.

Perez was also a key part of the Royals’ 12th-inning rally, leading off with a base hit before being lifted for pinch-runner Jarrod Dyson, who ultimately scored the decisive run before Kansas City piled on and sent Mets fans streaming for the exits.

“It’s unbelievable,” Perez told Fox’s Erin Andrews immediately after accepting his MVP trophy. “We feel like a family here. We knew we were going to do something special this year.”

Here’s something else the Royals have known for some time now: Perez will be out there, no matter what.

According to STATS data cited by Chris Fickett of the Kansas City Star, Perez entered Game 5 having caught an MLB-record 2,713 innings between 2014 and 2015, including the postseason. Add 11 more after Sunday’s clincher. 

Best of all for the Royals, Perez is signed through 2019, including a series of affordable team options that begin in 2017, meaning he’s a part of the club’s future as well as its recent, glistening past.

Back in June, the Kansas City Star‘s Vahe Gregorian highlighted what makes a big league backstop such a unique animal:

The catcher is susceptible to getting hurt from an infinite array of means and angles, from sudden bat backlashes to the grinding wear-and-tear of squatting and throwing to the bruising from blocking balls and shock of ever-looming foul tips.

That’s why the position attracts a different sort of temperament.

“He’s a bulldog out there,” outfielder Alex Gordon said, per the Associated Press. “There’s really no ball that could hurt him.”

That’s surely an overstatement. Even a guy as tough as Perez winces now and again. At the moment, though, he’s feeling no pain.

One year after coming agonizingly close to the ultimate prize, he and the Royals got there. They made it back to baseball’s biggest stage, laughing at the odds again and again. And this time, they didn’t relent.

So that’s the buzzword for this Kansas City squad—relentless. And nobody wears it quite like Sal Perez: backstop, warrior and, now, World Series MVP. 

All statistics current as of Nov. 1 and courtesy of MLB.com unless otherwise noted.

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The Kansas City Royals are about to party like it’s 1985.

After winning their first World Series championship in 30 years against the New York Mets, the Royals will hold their victory parade Tuesday in Kansas City at noon CT, per Andy McCullough of the Kansas City Star.

Royals Championship Parade Info

When: Tuesday, Nov. 3

Where: Beginning on Grand Boulevard and ending at Union Station

Time: Noon CT

TV: Fox Sports Kansas City

Live Stream: TBD

The parade will start on Grand Boulevard at the Sprint Center in the Power and Light District. It’s expected to be 2.3 miles long and will conclude with a rally at Union Station. Jeff Rosen of the Kansas City Star provided a map and route of the parade:

Fox Sports Kansas City will carry the parade in its entirety, as will Fox 4, according to VisitKC.com. 

When the Royals last won the World Series, it required a historic comeback for the ages in 1985. Kansas City trailed 3-1 against the St. Louis Cardinals and came back to win in seven games. Thirty years later, the Royals provided some magic again Sunday night against the New York Mets in Game 5.

The Royals scored twice in the top of the ninth and capped off the comeback with five runs in the top of the 12th to win 7-2 and clinch the championship. Salvador Perez earned World Series MVP honors.

Over 300,000 Kansas City citizens attended the Royals’ last parade in 1985, according to the Associated Press.

There’s a good chance that Tuesday’s crowd will top that number as fans decked in blue and white get to celebrate an improbable championship with their Royals. And to think—this will all start again when the Royals open the 2016 season at home April 4 against the same Mets.

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The Kansas City Royals captured their first World Series title in 30 years with a 7-2 win in 12 innings over the New York Mets on Sunday night, and catcher Salvador Perez walked away with MVP honors following his sensational championship display.

Perez went 1-for-5 in Game 5, but his RBI groundout to third base in the top of the ninth scored Eric Hosmer and allowed Kansas City to send the game to extra innings. 

The Royals catcher finished the World Series with a team-high eight hits—three of which came in Saturday’s Game 4 win—and two RBI, while batting .364 as he became the first catcher to take home the hardware since the Toronto Blue Jays‘ Pat Borders in 1992, according to ESPN Stats & Info.

StatsCentre added that Perez became the seventh catcher in MLB history to earn World Series MVP honors, while MLB.com’s Richard Justice pointed out that Perez joined Pablo Sandoval (2012) as the only Venezuelan-born players to accomplish the feat. 

MLB snapped a shot of a giddy Perez in the locker room while he was accepting his trophy: 

ESPN Stats & Info noted Perez’s performance in this year’s Fall Classic served as redemption for how the 2014 edition ended:

“I already forget about last year,” Perez told reporters following the win, according to ASAP Sports. “So I just enjoy the moment now. In 2015 Kansas City is No. 1. Who cares about what happened last year?”

As Baseball Tonight explained prior to Game 5, Perez’s play behind the plate over the past few seasons has been tremendous:

The Royals had worthy MVP candidates galore—including Alcides Escobar and Eric Hosmer—but Perez’s consistency with the title on the line was hard to ignore. According to Justice, Perez played every inning of the World Series before manager Ned Yost removed him for a pinch runner in the 12th on Sunday night. 

The 25-year-old recorded a hit in every game of the World Series, and without his poise behind the plate, Kansas City may not have reached the championship plateau.

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The Kansas City Royals are determined to end the World Series on Sunday night in New York.

And they may do it at the expense of New York Mets closer Jeurys Familia.    

Familia blew his third save of the World Series after allowing Eric Hosmer to score from third base with two outs in the ninth inning, becoming the first player in MLB history to blow three saves in the Fall Classic, per SportsCenter.

The Royals were able to get one run across with an RBI double from Hosmer off Mets starting pitcher Matt Harvey. Kansas City catcher Salvador Perez hit a ground ball to David Wright, who threw out Perez at first. Hosmer made a gutsy call to try to advance from third, and Lucas Duda’s throw was wide at the plate.

MLB.com’s Alden Gonzalez shared his thoughts on the craziness that ensued at Citi Field:

It was a beyond-gutsy decision by Hosmer, but in a situation like the Royals are in, there’s no losing except the game. If Duda’s throw is on line, the Mets win, and the series shifts back to Kansas City with two more opportunities for another win.         

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