Thursday morning. It wasn't a dream.
Last night the Kansas City Royals emphatically took a 2-0 series lead on the Mets, pounding out 10 hits in the 7-1 Game 2 win. Johnny Cueto dominated a Mets offense that's looked nothing like its NLCS self. Two hits, one run, nine innings. It was the best game ever pitched by a Royal in a postseason game, according to Bill James' game score metric. Incredible.
The best thing about following these Royals isn't that they're accomplishing these feats night after night, conquering the best baseball has to throw at them. It's how they do it. They start rallies from any and every spot in the order. They've handily out-pitched a Mets group that was touted in the days leading up to the Series as the best young rotation maybe ever to be deployed in the playoffs. They field their positions. Boy, do they field their positions. Right now the USS Dayton Moore isn't leaking a drop, and as they set sail to the east, to New York and to glory, the sun is beginning to set on a dream run.
When the Mets took the lead 1-0 in the fourth inning on a Lucas Duda Texas leaguer to right field, the Royals had it coming. The previous batter was allowed to reach via fielder's choice on what should have been an inning-ending double-play ball to third baseman Mike Moustakas. But, Moose sailed his throw a touch wide and first baseman Eric Hosmer, who's looked uncharacteristically uncomfortable this series in the field, couldn't hold the bag. Analysts seem to think a chance at replay would've been worth it. Looked to me like Hosmer stretched a bit too early, and when Moose's throw wasn't as pinpoint as usual, it caught him flatfooted and out of position. He pulled his foot. The Mets got 4 outs instead of 3 in the 4th inning, and in the playoffs, it doesn't typically take long to pay for your miscues.
The fourth was also when Cueto seemed to come to a fork in the road. He was wavering badly, taking long pauses in between pitches and staring a hole through homeplate umpire Mark Carlson while his strike zone seemingly shrank with each pitch. He no longer was awarding Cueto the high strike. He no longer awarded the inside strike to left-handed hitters. This is a scene Royals fans had witnessed before. In the third inning of the ALCS, in Toronto, right before the Blue Jays exploded in front for good. The jeers rained down like poutine (I'm imagining poutine fountains and Molson Ice moats around Rogers Centre). Cueto was shaken, and couldn't recover.
But this time around, there were no jeers. Only cheers from the more than 40,000 in attendance at friendly Kauffman Stadium. And Cueto steeled his resolve, buckling down to retire Travis D'Arnoud and turn the inning over to the Royals' offense. But the dam had yet to break for Mets' ace Jacob deGrom. He looked to be tottering a bit on his long, stork legs, but the Royals had yet to break through.
Then the fifth rolled around.
deGrom started the inning by walking 8-hitter Alex Gordon. This lineup is relentless. deGrom had been fantastic all season, and lights out this postseason. He has the flowing locks and the high-90s fastball so en vogue these days. But on this day, for perhaps the first time in his baseball life, deGrom was overmatched. The Royals swung and missed only 3 times Wednesday night, by far the lowest number induced by deGrom in his professional career. They peppered the Mets' defense with hard-hit ground balls and line drives. They fouled off 23 deGrom pitches. They took 3 walks from him. They made him pack his lunch and put in an honest day's work. And it wasn't enough. Not by a longshot.
After the Gordon walk, Alex Rios followed with a base hit to left. 2 on, nobody out. The Royals were finally in business after putting only a couple of guys on base the previous 4 innings. The dam was cracking after so many repeated blows.
Then, in a way it seems only the Royals are capable, the offense broke through. After Alcides Escobar failed to get a bunt down on consecutive pitches, he rapped a 2-strike single into center, scoring Gordon and tying the game 1-1. Ben Zobrist kept the line moving, to qoute the Royals' motto this year, grounding out to first baseman Duda but moving both runners in the process. Lorenzo Cain lined out hard to center, increasing the already palpable drama at the K. Then Hosmer made up for his blunder in the fourth with a 2-run single up the middle- a hard-hit ground ball that was his first good contact all night. He extended his Royals playoff record for RBI to 28 in only 27 games, the kind of stat that makes you shrug and say "baseball". The inning finally came to a close, but not before Moose could drive in Cain to extend the Royals lead to 4-1. They never looked back.
Cueto dominated the remainder of the way, sitting down 15 straight at one point. The Royals kept the pressure on the Mets' bullpen and defense, adding 3 more runs in the eighth inning. The game was well in hand when Cueto came trotting out to finish what he'd started in the ninth inning. He walked a batter, but was otherwise sound, stirring what could potentially be the last Royals home crowd of 2015 into a frenzy.
And so the world turns. Coming into this Series, Vegas had the odds of winning dead even, -110 for both sides. It was supposed to be power pitching versus contact hitting with a side of excellent closers. But what was overlooked is the fact this Mets' offense doesn't pack much punch. Daniel Murphy's incredible home run binge in the NLDS and NLCS masked a bottom of the order that doesn't inspire much confidence. Outside of the Mets top 4 hitters, none look like they belong hitting postseason pitching.
On the flip side, this Royals offense is GREAT. Every regular outside of Hosmer and DH Kendrys Morales has been named to at least one All-Star team. The homegrown core of Escobar, Hosmer, Cain, Moose and, last but certainly not least, Salvador Perez, have come into their own as baseball's best young foundation. Their veterans have made their mark, with Zobrist looking like he's played in every World Series the last 10 years and Rios holding his own at the bottom of the order. They take big swings in 3-0 counts. They do not conceded anything. I can't imagine pitching against this bunch. It's a Murderer's Row, post-Moneyball. If you're holding ticket for the Royals to win the World Series right now, it wouldn't be weird to feel like you've stolen something.
So, it turns out the narrative coming into this World Series was spot on. Except it appears to this fan that both the power pitching and the contact hitting reside in the same dugout. The team in Royal Blue is not backing down but doubling down. The dream run that began in the Wild Card game last October is nearing the ending it deserved all along- with the Kansas City Royals as World Champions.
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