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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Royals outlast Mets in marathon World Series opener, 5-4

Andy Mccullough Kansas City Star

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – He strode to the plate at 15 minutes past midnight, six innings and a calendar day removed from exiting this ballpark looking like a goat. Eric Hosmer came to the plate with the bases fully stocked with Kansas City Royals and none out in the 14th inning of Game 1 of the World Series. He did not have to do too much. He did not try.

Hosmer lifted a sacrifice fly to right field, deep enough to plate Alcides Escobar, the winning blow after five hours and nine minutes of gut-wrenching baseball in a 5-4 victory over the Mets. No World Series game has ever lasted 15 innings. Only three have gone 14. Hosmer assured the Royals could go home happy, even if Tuesday had turned to Wednesday.

The game required the bottom of each team’s roster to contribute. The Royals scored in the 14th off pitcher Bartolo Colon, who was working his third inning of relief.

The Mets left 11 runners on base; the Royals countered with 11 of their own. The Kansas City relievers allowed one run across eight innings and struck out 12. The victory belonged to Chris Young, the team’s Game 4 starter, who contributed three innings of emergency relief.

And to think it all appeared over when the ninth inning began.

Two outs away from defeat, Alex Gordon unloaded a titanic blast over the center-field fence off Mets closer Jeurys Familia. Familia had not blown a save in three months. The baseball traveled an estimated 428 feet and awakened a sullen stadium. In the dugout, Hosmer found Gordon and gave him a hug. Gordon removed some guilt from Hosmer’s conscience.

On the 29th anniversary of the Mets last world championship, New York grabbed the lead with the mirror image of their final flourish against the Red Sox in Game 6 of that World Series. The grounder that conquered Hosmer represented a far greater challenge than the one that rolled between Bill Bucknor’s legs. But still it stung.

The ball chopped off the bat of shortstop Wilmer Flores. Ready to run at second was mid-game entrant Juan Lagares, who had singled off Kelvin Herrera and stolen second. Now he jetted home after the ball skipped by Hosmer for a 4-3 Mets’ lead.

In the bottom of the frame, after a leadoff double by Zobrist, the Royals made a curious strategy decision. Lorenzo Cain, the team’s No. 3 hitter and a potential American League MVP candidate, tried to bunt twice against Mets reliever Tyler Clippard. Cain failed, and struck out on the third pitch.

Hosmer struck out next. Zobrist took third on a wild pitch and Kendrys Morales walked. But Familia came in to record a four-out save. He produced a groundout by Mike Moustakas. But Familia could not finish the job in the ninth.

Edinson Volquez turned in the minimum requirement of a quality start, with three runs allowed across six innings. He still matched the output of Mets starter Matt Harvey, who the Royals toppled with a two-run rally in the sixth. Shortly after Zobrist doubled and scored, Moustakas tied the game with an RBI single to plate Cain.

Oddities marked the early portion of the game. Escobar smashed the first pitch he saw for an inside-the-park homer in the first. The Fox broadcast went out in the fourth, which forced both teams to play without replay reviews for a stretch. A misty drizzle covered the park.

The forecast dominated discussion as the evening approached. The tarp covered the diamond all afternoon, slightly elevated by a pair of fans drying the surface underneath. Two smaller, blue tarps protected the World Series logo along the lines.

With the field unavailable, the Royals warmed up inside their indoor batting cage. As drizzle soaked the field, first-base coach Rusty Kuntz warmed his arm in a T-shirt and shorts. He soon departed, along with the majority of the on-field demimonde when a downpour fell.

The clouds cleared, relatively, in time for the game to begin without delay. As Volquez took the mound, reports proliferated on social media about the death of his father in the Dominican Republic. ESPN Deportes reported that Daniel Volquez, 63, died as a result of heart disease.

The reports emerged as Volquez loosened up in the bullpen about 30 minutes before the first pitch. It was unclear if the news had reached Volquez. A team official insisted Volquez was not aware of it, but ESPN Deportes wrote Volquez learned during his drive to the ballpark on Tuesday.

After Volquez vanquished the first three hitters he faced, Escobar handed him a one-run lead. The Mets opened this series with Harvey, the burly right-hander who wears the nickname “The Dark Knight of Gotham” when he is not sparring with Mets officials about his self-imposed innings limit.

Escobar came to the plate for his first at-bat since winning the American League Championship Series MVP. He hit .478 against Toronto, and swung at the first pitch in the first inning in all six games. At one point, he admitted he hacked so often in those spots because 99 percent of the time, the opposing pitcher threw a fastball for a strike.

Either Harvey ignored the scouting report or he refused to bend to Escobar’s tendencies. Harvey heaved a 95-mph fastball over the plate. True to form, Escobar swung.

Perhaps the greatest discrepancy between these two clubs – greater even than the Mets’ advantage in starting pitching – is the difference between the two defenses. The Mets dispatched Yoenis Cespedes, typically a corner outfielder, into center field for Tuesday. The assignment paid immediate dividends for Kansas City.

Escobar cracked the baseball into the left-center gap, closer to Cespedes than rookie left fielder Michael Conforto. The duo converged but struggled to communicate. At the last moment, Cespedes opened his glove for a half-hearted, hopeless stab. The baseball fell to earth and rattled along the warning track.

Escobar never stopped running. He spotted the green light from third-base coach Mike Jirschele. Escobar did not even need to slide.

The ambush did not jostle Harvey into a collapse. He lugged his team through the inning and his teammates tied the game in the fourth.

Daniel Murphy, the Mets’ postseason version of Babe Ruth only able to survive at second base, led off with a single up the middle. Lucas Duda chopped a single up the middle. Moustakas dove to smother a grounder off the bat of catcher Travis d’Arnaud, but could not make a play on the RBI infield single.

The game veered off the path in the bottom of the fourth. After Harvey fanned Kendrys Morales, Mets manager Terry Collins emerged from his dugout to speak with umpire Bill Welke. Welke left to speak with Ned Yost. The Fox truck at the ballpark lost power, which cut out the video feeds inside the clubhouses, robbing both teams of replay capabilities.

In an odd scene, Collins chatted with Moustakas in the batter’s box as Welke conferred with Yost. Loping down from the stands was Joe Torre, MLB’s chief baseball officers. The two teams agreed, temporarily, to play without replay.

The delay lasted about five minutes. Both teams reacquired replay in the top of the fifth, using an international feed from MLB. This left the Royals with the renewed ability to re-watch Granderson’s go-ahead homer in the fifth.

Volquez led in the count, 1-2, when he fired a 95-mph sinker. The pitch bisected the plate. Granderson made it disappear inside the Mets bullpen in right field.

An inning later, the Mets continued to harass Volquez. Yoenis Cespedes led off with a single. Duda grounded a single up the middle, where the Royals presented an infield shift. Moustakas stood along on the first-base side of second. He had to range to his left, toward first, to corral Duda’s grounder. He could not handle it, and Cespedes rumbled to third.

Two batters later, Conforto lifted a flyball to left field. Alex Gordon settled underneath. Cespedes waited like a sprinter at the blocks. As soon as Gordon caught the ball, Cespedes sprinted home. The throw was not close, and the Mets led by two.

Zobrist did not allow his teammates to hang their heads for long. He stroked Harvey’s first pitch in the bottom of the frame, a 94-mph fastball, into the right-field corner for a double. Cain shot a single into right. With runners at the corners, Eric Hosmer managed a run-scoring flyball to center.

The inning created a microcosm of Kansas City baseball. Harvey occupied himself with the task of keeping Cain at first. He threw to first four times as he faced Hosmer and Kendrys Morales. And still Cain swiped the bag. The stolen base also protected against a double play, because Morales grounded back to Harvey for the second out.

Moustakas passed on a pair of curveballs to start his encounter with Harvey. He did not ignore the subsequent changeup, even though it dove toward the opposing batter’s box. Moustakas ripped the pitch into right-center to score Cain.

Yet two innings later, in a similar situation, the Royals shifted away from their strengths. Cain could not put down the bunt. Kansas City could not even the game.