It has been a thrilling October (and soon to be November) in the baseball world and Game One of the World Series proved no different. There was drama early, late, and everywhere in between. In essence, it is just what baseball fans expected.
The evening started off on a somber note with the news that Kansas City’s starter Edinson Volquez had lost his father at the age of 63 prior to the game. Reports conflicted throughout the opening innings as to whether he was aware of the passing, but either way that is a heavy thing to heap on a man making his first World Series start. Luckily, Alcides Escobar had his back.
The ALCS MVP kept his hot streak from the early rounds going in a big way. After the Mets went down in order in the top of the first, the speedy Escobar took the first pitch he saw from Matt Harvey deep to left center field. Michael Conforto and Juan Lagares seemed to have a beat on the ball but it hit the bottom of the wall and took a horrendous carom away from the duo. All the while, Escobar kept running and an easy triple turned into a leadoff inside-the-park home run standing up. It pumped extra life into an already raucous Kauffman Stadium and the tone was set for another fall classic.
The next couple innings would see Harvey and Volquez settle into their respective grooves and carve up lineups that had both been very potent in the previous rounds. The cruise control came off in the fourth inning when the NLCS MVP would come to bat.
Daniel Murphy made the first true contact of the night for the Mets as he lined a single into shallow center. The Mets continued to swing early in the count against Volquez, neutralizing his off speed offerings. After Yoenis Cespedes unsurprisingly popped up the first pitch for out number one, Murphy went first to third on a single by Lucas Duda through the shift. Travis D’Arnaud would knock in Murphy two pitches later.
The teams would punch/counter punch over the middle innings with the Mets going in front on a Curtis Granderson home run followed two innings later by a Michael Conforto sacrifice fly. The Royals would get back on level terms in the bottom of the sixth as both Eric Hosmer and Mike Moustakas fought off good pitches from Matt Harvey to bring home the tying runs via sacrifice fly and single respectively. It would be an uncharacteristic error from the former though that would lead to the drama late.
In the top of the eighth inning, Juan Lagares singled to center with two outs and would promptly steal second. This would prompt the patron sitting next to me to ask if he would be able to get a second AM Crunchwrap for free. (Taco Bell was giving away a free breakfast if there was a stolen base in the World Series and Lorenzo Cain had already won it for America with a steal in the 6th. Some people are just so greedy.) Taco Bell promotions aside, what would happen next looked like we would have an early candidate for the series’ goat.
Wilmer Flores hit a two hopper towards first base that Gold Glover Eric Hosmer would field 99 out of 100 times. It just so happens that the one time happened in the eighth inning of a World Series game. Lagares was running on contact with two outs and easily scored from second to give the Mets the lead again. The lead in the ninth was something they hadn’t relinquished all playoffs and the broadcast team (when they weren’t dealing with a laundry list of their own technical difficulties) made sure to let you know that over and over. Has nobody at Fox ever heard of jinxes before?
Jeurys Familia got the Mets out of a jam in the bottom of the eighth and headed into the ninth inning with some absolutely filthy postseason numbers. He had allowed just two hits and zero runs in over a game’s worth (9 2/3 innings) of work in the postseason against the Cubs and Dodgers. Neither of the two hits were hard hit. That made the scenario that occurred in the bottom of the ninth that much more surprising, unless you consider yourself a conspiracy jinxist.
Alex Gordon stepped up to face Familia having never faced the hard throwing right hander before. His batting history against the closer got a great first entry though as he parked a 1-1 fastball away to dead center field to tie the game and break Familia’s scoreless streak. You could see the souls in the scattered Mets fans throughout the stadium die as Lagares couldn’t even make an attempt to bring the long drive back into the yard. The game that started off with an early bang for the Royals had been kept alive by one real, real late.
Extra innings as always began as a cagey affair with both teams looking to get the best matchups in the right situations. It was clear though that if it got to a certain point in the evening we would see a second set of starters start what would amount to Game 1.1 of the World Series. That would happen in the 12th inning as Chris Young came on for Kansas City and Bartolo Colon came on for New York.
Though the ending was anti-climactic with a calamitous 14th inning for the Mets leading to a redemptive sacrifice fly for Hosmer, Game One gave everything that a baseball fan could want and then some. If this any type of indication of what’s in store tonight and over the next week as the calendar turns, we’re in for one hell of a World Series.