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The Kansas City Royals won Game 1 by orchestrating another comeback. They won Game 2 by slowly and methodically wearing out New York Mets starting pitcher Jacob deGrom with patience and constant contact at the plate while Johnny Cueto threw a complete-game gem.

It’s the script the Royals have been writing all season long. It shouldn’t be shocking they’ve performed it perfectly on the biggest stage. 

The Mets have written their own tale to this point, however, and the main protagonists have been the team’s brilliant starting pitchers. Matt Harvey and deGrom haven’t been able to beat the Royals. But perhaps Noah Syndergaard can flip the script.

Syndergaard has been great this postseason, going 1-1 in three appearances with a 2.77 ERA, 1.07 WHIP and 20 strikeouts in 13 innings pitched. That followed an excellent regular season that saw him go 9-7 with a 3.24 ERA, 1.05 WHIP and 166 strikeouts in 150 innings.

The rookie is a large, intimidating power pitcher who doesn’t seem terribly caught up in the moment.

“I’m really excited about Friday’s start,” he told Kevin Kernan of the New York Post, before calmly adding, “It’s just another game.”

Game 3 of the World Series, when your team is down 2-0 and you are a rookie, well…that’s not just another game. But Syndergaard‘s demeanor is a big part of his success, as his manager Terry Collins told Kernan.

He has no fear, he believes he belongs here. And that speaks volumes. When you’ve got that kind of stuff and you’re not afraid to throw it and you’re not afraid to give up a hit because you think you can get the next guy out, you can get dangerous. Noah just got better and better and better as the season went along with the confidence he had that he could be successful here. It all comes with his desire to get better.

Syndergaard has struck out nine batters in each of his last four starts. That may prove to be far trickier against a Royals team that swung and missed just three times against deGrom in Game 2, according to Ben Reiter of SI.com.

That’s right, folks—against one of the best pitchers in baseball, who threw 94 pitches in Game 2, the Royals failed to make contact when they swung at a pitch just three times. That’s insane. That’s the sort of approach that can neutralize a power arm. 

And it wasn’t an outlier performance from the Royals, as Jayson Stark of ESPN wrote:

The Mets’ pitching staff, as a whole, had a swing-and-miss rate in the first two rounds of 31.7 percent. Against the Royals, it has plummeted to less than half of that—to 15.4 percent.

And there’s nothing accidental about that. It’s the philosophy of the house. Swing early. Shorten up. Be aggressive. Don’t surrender.

Maybe Syndergaard can turn the tide. But even if he does stifle the Royals, the Mets still have the small matter of solving Yordano Ventura and his electric stuff. 

Ventura is 0-1 in four starts this postseason with a 5.09 ERA, 1.58 WHIP and 21 strikeouts in 17.2 innings pitched. Those numbers don’t look great, but Ventura has gone five innings in each of his last three starts without giving up more than three runs, so he’s been a bridge to Kansas City’s elite bullpen more times than not. 

It’s been an up-and-down season for Ventura, but there’s no questioning how nasty he can be when he’s on his game. And after Cueto went nine innings, the Royals really only need five innings from him again before turning things over to their amazing bullpen, which Cueto gave some much-needed rest.

And even if the Mets get their bats going, those pesky Royals always seem to come up with hits in crunch time. 

Add it all up, and the Royals sure seem like a pending World Series champion. The Mets don’t feel like a team that is going to go down without a fight either, however, and Game 3 is probably a prime chance to steal a win. Syndergaard has been great and Ventura can be awfully shaky, so the Mets are going to sneak away with a 4-2 win in Game 3. 

They’ll win this battle. Just don’t expect them to win the war. 

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The Kansas City Royals may have found the blueprint to counter the New York Mets’ strong pitching: Hit the ball anywhere and hope for the best.

Through two games of the 2015 World Series, the Royals have done just that. After a thrilling Game 1 that went late into the Kansas City night, the Royals’ bats came alive in Game 2 as the American League champs took a 2-0 lead with a 7-1 win on Wednesday.

As the Fall Classic shifts to Citi Field for Game 3, Kansas City looks to take another step in winning its first World Series since 1985. Here’s all the info you need for the pivotal matchup Friday night in New York.

Game 3 Info

When: Friday, Oct. 30

Where: Citi Field

Time: 8:07 p.m. ET

TV: Fox

Live Stream: Fox Sports Go

Probable Starters: Yordano Ventura (KC) vs. Noah Syndergaard (NYM)

Preview

If you’re a fan of young, stellar pitchers going at it in an all-important playoff game, then this is the game for you.

The Royals will turn to 24-year-old Yordano Ventura, two days after Johnny Cueto pitched the first complete game by an American League pitcher in the World Series since 1991. No pressure, right?

Opposite Ventura will be Noah Syndergaard, the 23-year-old hard-throwing right-hander who is 1-1 this postseason. The last time Thor took the mound, he went 5.2 innings and allowed only one earned run in the Mets’ 4-1 victory in Game 2 of the National League Championship Series. That was back on Oct. 18, so this is the first time in 11 days that Syndergaard will pitch.

Ventura was the Royals’ starter in the Game 6 clincher of the American League Championship Series against the Toronto Blue Jays exactly one week ago. He went 5.1 innings and struck out five while only allowing one run but was awarded a no-decision.

Neither of these two young hurlers has shown any signs that he’s scared of the bright lights of postseason baseball. Although Ventura is 0-1 this postseason and has been involved in three straight no-decisions, he’s struck out 19 batters in the last three games. 

But there is good news for the Mets. Ventura allowed seven runs in those three games. He bounced back against Toronto in Game 6 by only allowing one run, but this might be a good time for New York to get its offense back on track.

The Mets only mustered two hits in Game 2 against Cueto. Both of those came off the bat of Lucas Duda, and while he continues to be a hot bat for the Mets (he’s hit .500 in his last four games), New York needs more production at the plate.

MLB.com’s Michael Baron goes a little more in-depth as to how much of a struggle it’s been offensively for the Mets:

In fairness to the Mets, a lot of their struggles can be attributed to dealing with the buzz saws of Clayton Kershaw and Zack Greinke. Yet, they still went 2-2 in games they pitched and defeated both Jake Arrieta and Jon Lester in the National League Championship Series as well.

But the Mets offense has been missing since the sixth inning of Game 1 of the World Series against Kansas City – they have just seven hits and scored no earned runs in their last 17 at-bats against Royals pitching.

It’s even been a glaring struggle for Daniel Murphy, who had what seemed to be the postseason of his life through the first two rounds. He has hit 2-for-9 in the World Series and went 0-for-2 with two walks in Game 2. If Murphy can’t start any rallies for the Mets like he did in the NLCS, then it’ll be next to impossible for New York to garner any other run support for Syndergaard.

Meanwhile, the Royals are getting contributions from nearly everyone in the lineup. One look at the box score from Game 2 will tell you that. Seven of the nine batters for Kansas City recorded a hit on Wednesday. Eric Hosmer and Alcides Escobar both recorded two hits and two RBI.

That’s the difference in this series at the moment.

Like Baron noted, the Mets have recorded a total of seven hits in the last 17 innings. The Royals have gotten 21 hits and have outscored New York 12-1 since the sixth inning of Game 1. ESPN.com’s Jayson Stark shows just how clutch the Royals have been when they’ve gotten runners in scoring position:

Thirteen games into their postseason, they’re hitting .222 with nobody on base. But guess what they’re hitting with runners on base? How about .330. With runners in scoring position? How about .340. With runners in scoring position and two outs? How about .311.

You can call that luck. You can call that random. You can call that happenstance if you want. But you know what the Royals call it? Winning. And they wonder how long they’ll have to keep winning this way for the world to catch on. This is what they do.

The Royals haven’t faced the caliber of pitching that the Mets have. But even when the Royals faced the San Francisco Giants in the World Series last year, they found ways to score and make contact off the Giants’ strong rotation (with the exception of Game 7 and Madison Bumgarner). The Royals don’t beat teams with power and have shown that once again in this World Series.

Syndergaard is the Mets’ last chance to quiet the Royals’ bats. While Ventura has given up some runs, he doesn’t get rattled. He won twice in the World Series last year, including a seven-inning masterpiece in Game 6 in Kansas City.

While Ventura is the guy the Mets would want to see in this must-win situation, it won’t matter on Friday. Ventura pitches another gem, and the Royals inch closer to ending their 30-year championship drought.

Prediction: Kansas City 6, New York 3

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The New York Mets were within two outs of winning Game 1 of the World Series on the road. Instead, an Alex Gordon ninth-inning home run highlighted a Kansas City Royals comeback victory, and they followed it with a blowout triumph in Game 2.

So while all the American League champions technically did was hold serve at home, it still feels like the Mets return to New York with their backs against the wall. They desperately need a win in Game 3 to avoid the dreaded 0-3 deficit and start rebuilding the positive vibes they had coming out of the National League Championship Series.

Let’s check all of the important viewing information for Friday’s contest. That’s followed by a preview and prediction for Game 3 of the Fall Classic.

Game 3 Details

Where: Citi Field in Queens, New York

When: Friday, Oct. 30, at 8:07 p.m. ET

Watch: Fox

Live Stream: Fox Sports Go

Tickets: ScoreBig.com

Preview

The Mets gave up just eight runs in their four-game sweep of the Chicago Cubs in the last round. They have allowed 12 runs over the first two games against the Royals. And when you neutralize New York’s usual advantage on the mound, the NL champs are far more beatable.

Noah Syndergaard will become the latest member of the team’s outstanding young rotation to make an effort to slow down the red-hot Royals. He posted a 3.24 ERA with 166 strikeouts in 150 innings during the regular season and has carried that success into the playoffs (2.77 ERA in three games).

He’s slated to face off with Yordano Ventura. One of Kansas City’s breakout stars last season, the 24-year-old right-hander has struggled so far this postseason. He sports a 5.09 ERA and 1.58 WHIP in four starts, though his team ultimately won three of those games.

That said, Syndergaard can’t be concerned about what Ventura will do. His hands are full with trying to navigate a Royals lineup that provides a unique challenge by going against the conventional wisdom on how to build a team.

In an era where front offices are increasingly willing to accept high strikeout totals in the never-ending search for power, the Royals are still leaning on an old-school approach. They put the ball in play, which forces defenses to make plays and pitchers to work out of jams.

Kansas City ranked 24th in homers during the regular season, but it was also the only team to strike out less than 1,000 times (973). The Atlanta Braves were the next lowest at 1,107.

Jayson Stark of ESPN.com passed along comments from Royals hitting coach Dale Sveum about the group of batters he works with.

“When we get to crunch time, we can’t strike out, because we’re not going to walk very much,” Sveum said. “It’s a mindset, and to everybody’s credit, everybody buys into it—just to battle and see if we can hit outfield grass with men in scoring position.”

The approach is having a clear impact on the series, as ESPN Stats and Info highlighted:

Along with more typical performances from their pitchers, the Mets also need the offense to wake up if they are going to turn this series around. The quartet of Daniel Murphy, David Wright, Curtis Granderson and Yoenis Cespedes is 6-for-38 (.158) so far.

At the start of the series, it felt like there would be a lot of close, hard-fought games. That hasn’t changed despite the Royals’ convincing win in Game 2. It would still be a surprise if Kansas City just runs away with the title given how well the Mets played to get this far.

So expect a narrow New York victory Friday night to add some more drama to the equation heading into Game 4 and beyond.

Prediction: Mets 3, Royals 2

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NEW YORK — One by one, these hitters who make up the relentless Kansas City Royals lineup are reducing this game to its smallest common denominator.

“You can’t get hits unless you put the ball in play,” third baseman Mike Moustakas said following the Royals’ 7-1 Game 2 rout of the New York Mets late Wednesday night, which gave Kansas City a 2-0 lead as this World Series heads back to Queens.

No truer words were ever spoken.

The Royals are winning in a completely different way than the dominant New York Yankees of 1998 to 2000 and the Boston Red Sox of 2004. Those beastly champions worked hard at driving the rival starting pitcher out of the game by grinding out at-bats and running up pitch counts.

Their goal was to exhaust the poor starter by midgame and then expose the soft spots in their opponent’s bullpen.

Kansas City’s approach behind Moustakas, Alcides Escobar, Eric Hosmer and Co. could not be more different.

And in case the Mets thought the Royals were kidding by, say, Escobar’s penchant for swinging at first pitch fastballs, well, whoops. When he ripped Matt Harvey’s first-pitch fastball for an inside-the-park home run to start Game 1, the only questions were how and why Harvey delivered exactly what everyone in the baseball world knew Escobar was looking for.

“I’m going to continue to be aggressive,” Escobar said after delivering a triple in Game 2.

With the Royals having built a lineup with no weak links, every inning starts out as a potential rally. They are like kids at a birthday party taking whack after whack at a pinata. Maybe it is the next whack that will make the candy fall out.

“We definitely like to swing early in the count,” Hosmer said. “I think we have good game plans going in.”

He noted that the American League Central Division has several hard throwers, such as Cleveland‘s Corey Kluber, Detroit‘s Justin Verlander and the Chicago White Sox‘s Chris Sale, which helps the Royals stay tuned up. He praised hitting coach Dale Sveum’s aggressive philosophy, which encourages the Royals to stay coiled and ready.

“All of that makes for a good fastball-hitting team,” Hosmer said.

But while it is one thing to be aggressive, it is quite another to pull that off while remaining a not good but great contact-hitting team from top to bottom.

The Royals struck out less than any other team in the majors this season, just 973 times. The Royals, in fact, were the only team to finish with fewer than 1,000 strikeouts.

This is what Jacob deGrom, the hottest pitcher going this October, ran into in Game 2.

In obtaining only three swings-and-misses, deGrom had his lowest total of the season. He reached several two-strike counts but finished with just two strikeouts.

Whatever he threw, and deGrom has four above-average pitches in his quiver, he could not put the Royals away.

“As a hitter, if you can spoil a pitcher’s pitch and fight it off and do that until they make a mistake, then you [can] try to do damage on it,” Hosmer said. “It can definitely get frustrating as a pitcher, especially if you’re hitting spots and guys aren’t budging and they’re not swinging at a curveball down that goes in the dirt or fighting your curveball up that’s in a money spot.

“I think the approach of a good hitter is to foul off pitchers’ pitches until they make a mistake.”

As the beleaguered Mets are seeing, Kansas City has a lineup stocked with good hitters.   

The American League average of 7.53 strikeouts per game in 2015 narrowly missed the record of 7.54 set in 2013. In fact, the AL average for strikeouts per game reached 7.33 in 2012 and has remained at least that high in each of the next three years (7.51 in 2014).

Those four seasons are the only times since the advent of the AL in 1901 that team strikeouts per game were at 7.0 or higher.

The Royals in 2015 checked in at 6.00.

“Playing in this big ballpark (Kauffman Stadium) we’ve had to do some things, had to change our swings a little bit,” Moustakas said. “Not trying to go up top all the time [at high pitches, attempting to hit them a long ways], just trying to get base hits and make solid contact.

“Our motto in this clubhouse has always been keep the line moving, and we do a pretty good job of that by getting the next guy up.”

Center fielder Lorenzo Cain said: “We’re not afraid to hit with two strikes. A lot of guys cut their swings down to put the ball in play, and see what happens.

“We’d rather put it in play because a lot of [our] guys can run, and you never know…”

Still stung by their Game 7 loss to San Francisco in last year’s World Series and chapped that the highly respected Baseball Prospectus projected them to go 72-90 this season, the Royals set out from their first workout this spring to do some damage. Not just intent on proving they were no one-hit wonder, the Royals envisioned all spring and summer returning to exactly where they are now.

They are a no-nonsense team that is all about results. Ben Zobrist learned that as soon as he stepped into the clubhouse after the Royals acquired him from Oakland in July.

The Royals and Athletics waged an ugly, three-day brawl in Kansas City in April, and though Zobrist did not instigate it and was not in the middle of it, things could have been really awkward when he landed in Kansas City.

Instead, they weren’t.

“Not really,” Zobrist said. “I talked to [Kansas City closer] Wade Davis about it a little bit because Wade is a former teammate in Tampa Bay, and he said as ugly as some of that was early in the season, it kind of brought the team together. It kind of made them become more of a team.

“For me, nobody ever made me feel uncomfortable about that situation. We just kind of laughed about it and that was it.”

Laughed, and then went out to hit, of course.

What else?

Keep the line moving, they say. And they are.

On the ropes against Houston in the division series, a Royals team that trailed in each of the five games roared back to win.

Against Toronto in the championship series, same approach.

“We’ve won the same way every time,” said veteran Jonny Gomes, who is not on the playoff roster after being acquired from Atlanta in August. “That being said, it’s not a fluke.”

Scott Miller covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.

Follow Scott on Twitter and talk baseball.

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The Kansas City Royals have taken a commanding 2-0 lead in the World Series, but the New York Mets will get a chance to turn things around with three games in a row at home.

After sweeping the Chicago Cubs in the National League Championship Series, the Mets have seen their bats go cold and their young pitchers struggle through the first two games. Based on the way the Royals have played so far, this could lead to a sweep if things don’t change in a hurry.

Still, the Mets were 49-32 at Citi Field this season and should get a momentum boost from their return and the home fans. You can be certain that after getting this far they won’t just give up now.

That could lead to an exciting Game 3 of the World Series.

World Series Game 3

When: Friday, Oct. 30

Time: 8:07 p.m. ET

Where: Citi Field, Queens, New York

TV: Fox

Live Stream: Fox Sports Go

Probable Pitchers: Yordano Ventura (Royals) vs. Noah Syndergaard (Mets)

Preview

The Mets’ biggest strength during the season and in the playoffs has been the depth of their rotation. While other teams might have an ace they can count on followed by mediocre starters, this team can send out a top pitcher every night.

Tampa Bay Rays pitcher Chris Archer, who has worked as an analyst during the playoffs, discussed the Mets starters favorably:

After Matt Harvey and Jacob deGrom failed to get the job done, it’s now Noah Syndergaard‘s turn. The rookie has looked good all season with a 3.24 ERA, which has improved to 2.77 in three postseason appearances (two starts). Considering he also has a 7-2 record with a 2.46 ERA at home this season, there is reason for the Mets to be excited about another shutdown performance.

The problem is that Syndergaard‘s strength—a fastball that reaches 100 mph with regularity—doesn’t seem to faze the Royals.

Kansas City has an incredibly deep lineup that features contact hitters at every spot of the batting order. No matter what you throw at them, the Royals find a way to get the bat on the ball and wait for good things to happen.

Alec Dopp of Gammons Daily provided a look at what the Royals have done against the other Mets starters in this series:

Both managers had similar thoughts after Game 2:

It might sound simple, but putting the ball in play is enough to start rallies and win games. With the Mets infielders lacking range defensively, the balls are going to find more holes than usual.

Syndergaard doesn’t have as good of secondary stuff as Harvey and deGrom, which doesn’t bode well for his chances of success in Game 3.

On the other side, Yordano Ventura has pitched just well enough to help his team win in each of his last three starts. He hasn’t completed six innings yet in the postseason, but he also hasn’t given up more than three runs in any appearance. With a well-rested bullpen that can be dominant at times, this should be enough.

The Mets offense hasn’t really shown up as expected after the long layoff from the NLCS. The red-hot Daniel Murphy is just 2-for-9 with no extra-base hits in two games, while the team as a whole is batting just .165, thanks mostly to the great work of Johnny Cueto.

If this lineup can’t get to Ventura early, the trio of Kelvin Herrera, Ryan Madson and Wade Davis will do the rest and prevent any chance of comeback.

The New York fans will be excited for their first World Series home game since 2000, but the excitement will wear off quickly as the Royals take Game 3.

Prediction: Royals 4, Mets 2

Follow Rob Goldberg on Twitter for more year-round sports analysis. 

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Noah Syndergaard wasn’t even alive the last time that the New York Mets climbed out of a 2-0 hole in the World Series way back in 1986.

In Game 3 of the 2015 Fall Classic, the 23-year-old right-hander will be responsible for jump-starting a similar comeback as he takes the mound opposite of Yordano Ventura at Citi Field.

The matchup between Syndergaard and the Kansas City Royals righty promises to be downright electric. During the postseason, Syndergaard’s four-seam fastball has averaged 98.5 mph, which makes it the fastest pitch thrown by any big league starter, per MLB.com’s Statcast. Meanwhile, Ventura’s two-seamer clocks in at second on that list with an average speed of 96.9 mph.

As Syndergaard aims to pitch the Mets back into the series and Ventura attempts to hand the Royals a commanding 3-0 advantage, here are the biggest keys for both sides.

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NEW YORK — You don’t bother asking Omar Minaya if the New York Mets are still his team, because you know they always have been. You don’t need to ask if he feels good about the World Series coming back to Queens this weekend, because you know he does.

“No doubt about it,” Minaya said this week. “For the neighborhood, it’s great.”

He grew up here, Minaya did, just a few blocks from what was then Shea Stadium and is now the parking lot for Citi Field. Need a restaurant recommendation in Elmhurst or Jackson Heights, Corona or Flushing, Minaya’s your man.

And, oh yes, he’s also the guy who brought Matt Harvey, Jacob deGrom, Steven Matz, Daniel Murphy, Lucas Duda, Wilmer Flores and Jeurys Familia to the Mets.

You may have heard that by now, because the Mets’ success has fired up a sometimes silly and sometimes petty discussion about who should get the credit. It’s silly enough that some are still trying to maintain that Minaya left Sandy Alderson a “mess” when the Mets changed general managers five years ago, and it’s petty enough that others seem to want to discount the work Alderson has had to do in the five years since.

It’s funny enough that when Minaya’s son, Justin, a promising high school basketball player, said he would visit St. John’s, writer Howard Megdal tweeted:

The truth is pretty simple. Minaya and his staff left the Mets in much better shape than plenty of us thought or said at the time, and Alderson and his staff have done a fine job taking those players and more and turning them into a team that could win a championship.

Minaya says he’s gotten over the slights, and over the firing.

“I’m beyond that,” he said. “I know everyone in the front office there, and they’re nice people. My relationship with the organization from top to bottom is great.”

Besides, he’s been in baseball long enough to know this is how it works. Most general managers succeed at least in part with players they inherited from their fired predecessors. J.P. Ricciardi traded for Jose Bautista. Allard Baird drafted Alex Gordon and Zack Greinke, whom the Kansas City Royals used to get Lorenzo Cain and Alcides Escobar (and, in a way, Wade Davis).

The difference with the Mets is the volume of players who come from Minaya’s time as general manager. You can even give him credit for signing R.A. Dickey off the scrap heap, because Alderson was able to turn Dickey into Noah Syndergaard and Travis d’Arnaud.

But none of that means Minaya would have built the Mets into what they are now if he had been allowed to stay. We’ll never know what a Minaya Mets team would have looked like in 2015.

We do know that his relationship with these players has remained strong, even as he went to work for the San Diego Padres, even as he moved on to his current job helping Tony Clark with the Major League Baseball Players Association. He’ll be at Citi Field in that capacity this weekend, and he’s supposed to be neutral.

No one will blame him if he’s not.

“A lot of these kids, I’ve known since they were 16,” Minaya said. “Familia, Flores, [Juan] Lagares, Ruben Tejada.”

He’s known the Mets since he was 16, and really for quite a few years before that. His family moved to Elmhurst from the Dominican Republic when he was young. He went to Newtown High School, where he’s joined in the school’s Hall of Fame by Estee Lauder, Don Rickles and Carroll O’Connor.

He lives in New Jersey now, but he’s still a kid from Queens. He’s still a Met. This really is his team, and it would be even if he hadn’t signed any of the players.

He signed a whole bunch of them, though, and it should take nothing away from Sandy Alderson to say Omar Minaya played a big part in getting the Mets to this World Series.

No doubt about it.

Danny Knobler covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.

Follow Danny on Twitter and talk baseball. 

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

After holding serve on their home field, the Kansas City Royals will have a chance to win their first World Series in 30 years by winning two of the three games against the New York Mets at Citi Field starting on Friday. 

Things could not have worked out better for the Royals thus far. After the bullpen fired eight innings of one-run ball in Game 1 with 12 strikeouts, Johnny Cueto gave them a rest with a complete game two-hitter in Game 2. 

Everything that could have gone wrong for the Mets did. Jeurys Familia, who hadn’t given up a run since Sept. 23, allowed a game-tying home run to Alex Gordon in the ninth inning of Game 1. Matt Harvey and Jacob deGrom combined to have more walks (five) than strikeouts (four), and the offense has scored just one run in the last 15 innings. 

World Series Tickets: ScoreBig.com

Series Prediction

At this point, there’s no reason to think Kansas City won’t win the World Series. The Royals will be able to return home at worst trailing 3-2 for a potential Game 6, and they haven’t lost at home since Game 1 of the American League Division Series. 

Trying to find reasons for optimism in New York really doesn’t require much work. The Mets’ only loss at Citi Field this postseason was in a game started by Clayton Kershaw, and the Royals don’t have any starting pitcher of his caliber. (For the record, no one in MLB does.)

However, there seems to be a bigger problem for the Mets that’s not generating a lot of discussion: Yoenis Cespedes.

The slugger who was credited with turning the team’s season around after being acquired from the Detroit Tigers is dealing with a shoulder injury suffered in Game 4 of the NLCS against the Chicago Cubs. 

Speaking to ESPN’s Marly Rivera (via ESPN.com’s Adam Rubin), Cespedes said his shoulder wasn’t going to be 100 percent before Game 1 of the World Series. 

“The cortisone shot relieved the pain and inflammation,” Cespedes said. “But even if I’m not 100 percent, I am certain I will play on Tuesday. The doctor told me my AC joint is a bit swollen, and that’s why it hurt. It happens to many athletes, but it is not a serious injury, and will heal quickly.”

Cespedes can say what he wants, but his postseason OPS of .631 is just 27 points better than his .604 slugging percentage in 57 regular-season games with the Mets. His injury is limiting what he can do offensively. 

Making matters worse are David Wright and Daniel Murphy, the two hitters ahead of Cespedes in the lineup, who are a combined 4-for-20 with six strikeouts, two walks and no extra-base hits. 

With the Mets’ offense struggling, their pitching staff has had to pick up a lot of slack. Normally that would be a good problem to have, but Kansas City’s ability to make contact has finally gotten the recognition it deserves. 

In fact, per Alec Dopp of GammonsDaily.com, the heat that Harvey and deGrom are bringing wasn’t fooling anyone in the Royals lineup:

Facing Kansas City’s lineup doesn’t sound as intimidating as a Cubs lineup that features sluggers like Kris Bryant, Anthony Rizzo and Kyle Schwarber, but the Royals are more frustrating because no matter what, they always put the ball in play. 

This is an era of baseball in which strikeout rates for pitching staffs have increased every year since 2005, yet Kansas City’s lineup has decreased its strikeout total from 1,048 in 2013 to 973 in 2015. 

The lost art of making contact is going to help Kansas City win a championship. The Mets will not go quietly because they are a really good team and earned their spot in the World Series, but the Royals are operating on a different level than anyone else right now. 

Prediction: Royals win series in five games

Stats via Baseball-Reference.com and ESPN.com

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The World Series shifts back to New York Friday for Game 3, and the Mets have their backs against the wall after dropping each of the first two contests to the red-hot Kansas City Royals.

New York seemingly had the starting pitching advantage in Games 1 and 2, but that didn’t lead to victories. The Mets once again look to have the upper hand on the mound leading up to Game 3 with Noah Syndergaard going up against Yordano Ventura, and they simply can’t afford to let the opportunity slip away.

Ahead of Friday’s pivotal Game 3, here is a look at the latest odds, stat projections for both teams and a prediction for which side will ultimately come out on top.

Where: Citi Field in Queens, New York

When: Friday, Oct. 30 at 8:07 p.m. ET

Watch: Fox

Game 3 Odds Breakdown

Royals Stat Projections

Mets Stat Projections

Game 3 Prediction

The Mets were favored to even the World Series up in Game 2 with Jacob deGrom on the mound, but they were instead blown out 7-1. Despite the result, New York is once again favored to win its first game of the series Friday.

If the Mets are going to get back on track, though, they must find a way to to take away what have been the Royals’ biggest strengths in the World Series thus far.

Chief among them may be the Kansas City lineup’s propensity for making contact and putting the ball in play. According to Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports, the Royals swung and missed on just three pitches in Game 2 despite going up against a strikeout pitcher with nasty stuff in the form of deGrom.

The Royals simply don’t help the opposition out at the plate, which is why they are capable of manufacturing so many runs and putting together big innings.

Syndergaard will look to put a stop to that in Game 3, and third baseman David Wright believes he is more than capable of getting the Mets back in the series, per Kevin Kernan of the New York Post:

“He’s throwing the ball as well as anybody in the playoffs,” Wright said. “I think when you have that type of stuff and the command he has shown especially in the playoffs, you should have a lot of confidence. Just look at him, he’s ready to roll.”

In addition to slowing down the Royals’ hitters, New York must start generating some offense of its own. Aside from first baseman Lucas Duda, nobody is doing damage at the plate for the Mets right now.

That includes second baseman Daniel Murphy, who entered the World Series having homered in six consecutive games.

According to Mike Puma of the New York Post, Mets hitting coach Kevin Long believes the Royals have done an excellent job of essentially pitching around Murphy:

“He really hasn’t gotten too many pitches to hit, that is the bottom line,” Long said. “Pitches are off the plate, low, high. Murph walked twice today, he is doing what he needs to do. He is taking what they are giving him. They haven’t given him a whole lot.”

Murphy’s hot hitting opened things up for the entire lineup in the National League Division Series and National League Championship Series, so the Mets need him to find a way to get going again regardless of how well the Royals have done in terms of staying out of his wheelhouse.

If they can do that, then a comeback is certainly possible—as the Mets have pulled it off before, per ESPN Stats & Info:

Being down 2-0 in the World Series isn’t an ideal place to be, but trailing 3-0 is as dire as it gets. Because of that, the Mets can’t afford to feel sorry for themselves, and they must empty the tank to get back in the series.

Much of that rides on the right arm of Syndergaard, and he’ll be up to the task in a 4-2 Mets victory at home.

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The New York Mets had the pitching advantage in the 2015 World Series, but that didn’t matter to the Kansas City Royals, who took both games at home and jumped out to a 2-0 series lead. The series now shifts to Citi Field, where the Mets will look to get back into it and challenge for the title.

The two teams have a travel day Thursday, and then the series will resume Friday night. Here’s a look at the schedule for the rest of the series, as well as where you can catch the game on TV or stream it on your mobile device:

*if necessary

After dropping Game 1 in a 14-inning classic, the Mets looked to bounce back in Game 2 with their ace, Jacob deGrom, on the bump. DeGrom had been on his game the entire postseason, and his regression to the mean came at the worst possible time. He managed only five innings in Game 2 and gave up four runs on six hits while striking out just two batters.

Meanwhile, Royals starter Johnny Cueto tossed an absolute gem, going the distance while giving up only one run on a measly two hits.

As ESPN Stats & Info noted, Cueto‘s performance put him in elite company:

After spotting the Royals two games, the Mets will turn to rookie sensation Noah Syndergaard in Game 3. The Royals will counter with Yordano Ventura, who is 0-1 in the postseason with a 5.09 ERA.

Coming off 11 days of rest, Syndergaard will surely be fresh. The Mets will hope that isn’t too much time off, however, and that the one they call “Thor” can continue his success in the postseason and build off his 2.77 ERA and 1.07 WHIP. Syndergaard will need to turn in another superhuman performance to keep his team’s chances alive.

Luckily for the Mets, they have three games at home, so they have plenty of opportunity to notch a couple of wins. If they can use their return home to help get their bats going the way they were in the National League Championship Series, they can make this a competitive series.

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