I have some turns to report on, but I wanted to finish this up first.
Game 5
Video summary: Here.
“Harvey! Harvey! Harvey!”
A tidal wave of sound crashed down over the Mets’ dugout at Citi Field, where an argument was taking place just before the top of the 9th inning of Game 5 of the World Series.
“No way,” Mets ace Matt Harvey was saying, punctuating his words with an emphatic shake of the head. “No way are you taking me out of this game.”
The Mets’ backs were against the wall in this fifth game of the World Series, and Harvey had been brilliant for 8 innings for them. Now Terry Collins wanted to replace him with the Mets’ dominant closer, Jeurys Familia. But Harvey was having none of it, demanding the right to finish the game he started and preserve his team that much longer from elimination.
And so Terry Collins wrestled with one of the toughest decisions of his career.
Going into Game 5, the Mets were in trouble, and everyone knew it. Just 6 outs away from tying the World Series at 2-2 the night before, Daniel Murphy’s disastrous error (the worst in 30 years) had instead cost the Mets the game and put them on the brink of elimination by the Royals. The Royals, for their part, were baying at the wall, hungry, desperate for a World Series win after coming within 90 feet of winning the year before. Now, in the playoffs for just the second time in thirty years, they were eager to resolve the unfinished business of last year and at last fulfill the promise that had begun with that crazy wild card game, so long ago.
The Mets needed a hero, and they got one in Matt Harvey. The star of the Mets’ rotation, the ace of aces, Harvey was a fierce competitor. His agent had tried to limit his innings thrown in the postseason, protesting his need to protect Harvey’s arm and his career. The New York media and public had howled, and Harvey had taken their side, vowing to throw as many innings as it took to bring the Mets home a World Series victory. In Game 1, his competitive instincts had gotten the better of him and he had thrown a first-pitch strike to Alcides Escobar - who had promptly returned it for a home run. Harvey had settled down, though, and exited the game with a tie and a chance for the Mets to bring it home. Now it was 5 days later, and his team needed him.
He was magnificent. He scattered four hits and a walk through the first 8 innings, but no Royal threatened. For the first time all posteason, the relentless Kansas City offense was baffled.
Equally heroic, but less magnificent, was Edison Volquez. Five nights before, he had unknowingly thrown Game 1 hours after his father had passed away. Volquez had traveled to his home in the Dominican Republic, had attended the funeral. No one expected him to return - but here he was, determined to be there for his team when they needed him.
On the first pitch of the home half, Volquez had yielded a home run to Curtis Granderson. 1-0, Mets. But after that, he did his level best to keep up with Matt Harvey. For five innings, Volquez did his level best to hold the Mets down, and for five innings, he did just that. But in the 6th - stop me if you’ve heard this one before - Ned Yost stuck with his starter too long. The flagging Volquez faced the Mets order for the 4th time that night. Granderson walked on a full count. Then Wright followed with a single, then Murphy reached on an error. The bases were loaded, there were no outs, Harvey was untouchable, and the Mets already led 1-0. The Royals’ win expectancy had already shrunk to 11%.
Ned Yost had let Volquez get into a massive jam. Terry Collins let him get out of it. Cespedes, the star outfielder, who had propelled the Mets past the Nationals to win the NL East, fouled a ball off his own leg. The blow crippled the outfielder, made him incapable even of walking. Nevertheless, inexplicably, Collins left him in the game. Remember: Cespedes couldn’t even walk. He could barely stand. A ground ball would have been an easy double or even triple play for the Royals. As it was, Cespedes popped the ball up in the infield and then limped off the field, his game - and his World Series - over. It was a huge out for the Royals. Duda followed with a sacrifice fly to extend the lead to 2-0, but the damage could have and should have been much, much worse.
At the time, though, it didn’t seem to matter. The Royals were getting blown away by Matt Harvey. Not one batter reached base in the 7th or 8th innings, and the Mets’ ace reached 9 strikeouts on the night.
Harvey had been everything his team needed, and more.
Now he was asking for one more inning from Collins.
“Harvey! Harvey! Harvey!”
The Mets’ manager wavered - and yielded. Harvey would get his complete game. Three more outs from the man who had already gotten 24, and the Series would return to Kansas City, with Jacob deGrom and Noah Syndergaard, two of the best pitchers in the world, ready to go for the Mets.
To thunderous applause, Harvey raced out of the dugout towards the pitcher’s mound, nimbly hopping the baseline and lightly acknowledging the adoration of the packed Citi Field crowd, nearly 45,000 strong.
He quickly stepped up to the mound and prepared to face the Royals’ first batter of the inning, Lorenzo Cain.
7 pitches later, Cain walked to first base. Suddenly, the crowd grew slightly nervous, glancing towards the dugout to see what Collins would do. They remembered the Royals’ comebacks in Games 1 and 4. But Collins remained motionless, his eyes on Harvey, who prepared to face Eric Hosmer.
Time seemed to slow, the Mets’ fans in agony, the Royals’ in sudden hope, and each pitch was seemingly separated by hours.
One pitch, and Cain stole second. The tension ratched even higher. And on the second pitch, Harvey’s 111th and final pitch in his final game of the 111th World Series, he threw a 94 mph fastball that tailed away, and Hosmer did a masterful job of slicing the ball deep to left field, over Michael Conforto’s head and off the wall. Cain raced around third and was home easily, while Hosmer coasted into second with a double. 2-1, Mets - but the Royals had the tying run on second.
The crowd gasped in horror, and Collins at last sent for Familia.
Eighty thousand eyes were on Familia, Mike Moustakas, and Eric Hosmer. Moose had one job: get the man to third. Forty thousand people held their breath as the third baseman hit a slow grounder, and was thrown out - but Hosmer was now standing at third. Moustakas did his job, bringing up Salvador Perez.
The play that followed would be one of the most dissected and analyzed of the entire postseason.
Jeurys Familia had been the Mets’ answer to Wade Davis. The young Dominican pitcher had come up in 2012 and had established a role for himself as the Mets’ closer, converting 43 straight saves in the regular season. Flawless performances in the division series and the championship series had won the Mets the pennant. He had struggled against the Royals, though - the home run to Alex Gordon had cost the Mets Game 1, and then the previous night he had induced an easy grounder from Hosmer - but his defense betrayed him and cost him another save. Now he came in to put out the fire Matt Harvey had started by getting Salvador Perez out.
Perez, who had popped out to end the 2014 World Series. Who now once again came up to bat in the 9th, once again with the tying run at third base, once again with the chance to clinch a championship for his team. Rarely does history repeat itself - but sometimes it does, indeed, rhyme. On Familia’s second pitch, Perez slapped at the ball and chopped it down. The ball caromed across the infield towards the gap between second and third base. Two players converged on it.
Wilmer Flores had been the Mets’ shortstop since the Division Series, when Ruben Tejada had his leg broken by a hard slide from Dodger Chase Utley. At mid-season, Flores had been told that he had been traded shortly before a game, and had come out to play one last game with his beloved Mets. TV cameras quickly picked up on the tears in the young shortstop’s eyes. In the end, though, the trade had not happened, Flores stayed with the Mets, and had hit a walk off home run to put the team over the Nationals in the standings for good. Now he raced towards Perez’s grounder, but he was cut off by the third baseman.
David Wright was the longest tenured Met. A rookie in 2004, he had been with the team during the 2006 NLCS - when they had lost in 7 games to the world champion St. Louis Cardinals. For nearly a decade, the Mets had labored to return to the pinnacle of baseball, and Wright, a perennial All Star, had been with them every step of the way. The Captain was aging, though, with longer and longer stints on the DL, and now spinal stenosis had seriously harmed his ability to play. Wright had adopted a side-arm throwing motion to minimize the strain on his back, and had given the Mets their first lead at home in the World Series in Game 3. As Perez’s ball bounced towards the gap, Wright swooped in and scooped it up.
He glanced to his right, where Eric Hosmer was edging away from third towards home. The Royals’ first baseman froze, but didn’t return to the base. There was no need to - Wright was the third baseman, and to threaten Hosmer he’d have to race for the bag, giving up the easy out at first. Wright settled for looking Hosmer back, then threw to first.
Mike Jirschele was perhaps the most famous third base coach in baseball. Coaches aren’t usually well-known - usually, their names are only mentioned if they screw up somehow. But Jirschele had been at the center of the 2014 World Series. The Royals’ aggressive tactics on the basepaths had been central to their success, but Jirschele’s controversial decision to hold Alex Gordon at third base against Bumgarner in Game 7 had been debated all winter long. He had vindicated himself in the ALCS, as he sent Lorenzo Cain to score the deciding run of Game 6 on Eric Hosmer’s single. Now, though, he saw the slow ground ball and put his hands in his pockets. He wouldn’t send Hosmer on this one.
Hosmer was the face of the Royals’ revitalization. The young first baseman was the most charismatic of the new generation of Royals, and had a reputation of coming up big when the team needed him. He had struck out to start the 9th inning of Game 7 the year before, and had watched Alex Gordon come up just short. At the time, Hosmer vowed that if he were ever in the same situation, he wouldn’t come up short. Now was that time.
As Wright threw to first, Hosmer broke for home.
![[Image: hosmerandwright_box1.gif]](http://www.espn.com/prod/styles/pagetype/otl/20160325_hosmer/hosmerandwright_box1.gif)
Lucas Duda was standing at first base, glove outstretched, waiting for Wright’s throw. Duda had played 3,000 innings at first base. In those 3,000 innings, he had made just 3 throwing errors. But it’s very rare for a first baseman to ever have to throw the ball - sometimes to the pitcher at first, after making a stop, sometimes to second, for a double play. Virtually never to third, and to home in only the most desperate circumstances. As the ball came in, Duda saw Hosmer in the corner of his eye, barrelling down the third baseline. It was a desperate circumstance. Duda made the catch, snatched the ball out of his glove, and hurled the ball towards home.
Standing at home plate was catcher Travis d’Arnaud. d’Arnaud had come to the Mets in 2013, as part of the same trade that saw the Blue Jays send over Noah Syndergaard in return for R.A. Dickey (who had been destroyed for 14 runs in the ALCS a week before). d’Arnaud was a solid defender and a good hitter, playing in his first ever postseason. He saw Hosmer charging towards him. He saw Duda turn and fire the ball home. He turned to make the catch, and behind him, Hosmer started to dive. d’Arnaud stretched out his glove -
![[Image: dudaandcatcher_box1.gif]](http://www.espn.com/prod/styles/pagetype/otl/20160325_hosmer/dudaandcatcher_box1.gif)
In the days and weeks to come people would say the Royals planned it. That they had studied David Wright’s back injury and planned to test him. That they had exhaustively analyzed Duda’s throws and knew they had a tendency to tail. That Hosmer, a first baseman himself, knew that it was a difficult throw to make.
The most likely explanation is that one last time, the Royals got lucky, and the Mets didn’t.
Duda’s throw tailed past d’Arnaud, who lunged for it in a futile attempt to corrall the ball. Hosmer slid home, 45,000 people rose to their feet in dismay and disbelief, and
just like that the game was tied.
Rany:
Quote:“In 2014, Alex Gordon held at third. In 2015, Eric Hosmer didn’t.
Seriously, who writes a script like this? Who produces a screenplay in which the protagonist falls just short of the perfect ending in part one, and then finds redemption and vindication in the exact same situation in part two?
Actually, that describes most of Hollywood. Which is why the sequel is so rarely as good as the original. The 2014 Royals were Rocky; the 2015 Royals were Rocky II. And Rocky II was the more enjoyable movie to watch growing up as a kid who was always a sucker for happy endings, but Rocky was the one that won Best Picture.
The difference is that the 2014-2015 Royals weren’t fiction. They actually happened. We mock Hollywood endings in Hollywood because they’re so clearly fictional. So what do you do when a Hollywood ending happens before your eyes, and it’s 100% real?
You savor it. You appreciate it. You thank God that after a generation of watching in vain, you finally got to see the team you had been waiting your entire lifetime to see.”
Hosmer's mad dash, as it came to be known, was the most controversial, discussed, and iconic play of the 2015 postseason. It was debated. It produced this photo, which has been my desktop background for nearly three years now:
It is not as well remembered that of course the Mets still had a chance to win this game - in fact, the Win Expectancy percentage still favored the Mets at this point. But of course the Mets would fail to score in the 9th, and in the 10th, and in the 11th. In the 12th, Salvador Perez came up to bat one last time. After a pretty terrible 2014 postseason in which he hit .207/.233/.276 and made the final out of the World Series with the tying run 90 feet away, Perez redeemed himself in 2015, hitting .259/.328/.517 in the playoffs and hitting two homers apiece in the ALDS and ALCS. He didn’t homer in the World Series, but he did go 8-for-22 with a hit in every game.
One remarkable thing about those two years is the symmetry of it all. In 2014, in the 12th inning of the game that started everything, Perez had come up to bat with his team needing a hit. He had delivered and started this incredible journey. Now, more than a year later, a year of ups and downs, it was again the 12th inning - and once more it was Perez. This time, he dumped a single into right field. He trotted to first easily - and back in the Royals’ dugout, the glass “Break in case of need of stolen base” was broken one last time, and out came Jarrod Dyson.
Mets catcher Travis d’Arnaud was playing with a gimpy arm – while he had thrown out 14 of 43 (33%) of attempted basestealers during the regular season, his times to second base in the World Series were terrible, and the Royals were already 6-for-6 stealing bases in the Series. Meanwhile, Addison Reed has been terrible at holding runners throughout his career – attempted basestealers were 28-for-30 (93%) against him, averaging a steal roughly every nine innings. Weak-armed catcher; slow-to-the-plate pitcher; elite baserunner. It looked like the Royals had a weapon that the Mets simply had no counter for.
Looks can be deceiving, but you wouldn’t want to bet that way. Reed threw over to first base twice before he had even thrown a pitch to Alex Gordon, but it didn’t matter. On a 2-0 pitch – one on which he could be fairly sure Reed would be focused on throwing a strike – Dyson took off for second base, and was safe easily. It was shades of the Wild Card Game all over again, when the other team simply had no counter for the Royals speed. Once again, a Royal had stolen a base in the 12th inning of a tie game. Once again, he would score the winning run. Gordon grounded out, moving Dyson over to third, bringing up the pitcher’s spot in the batting order. Yost opted - sensibly - to pinch hit for Luke Hochever. The best man on the bench was none other than Christian Colon.
Christian Colon had not had a base hit in four weeks.
No, scratch that: Christian Colon had not played in a game in four weeks. His ass had been stapled to the bench since October 4th, the final game of the regular season, when he pinch-hit in the 7th inning (he singled that day too). And then, through three rounds of playoffs, Colon’s name had not appeared in a box score. Every other player on the 25-man roster had appeared in a game. Raul Mondesi appeared in a game, and he only got added to the roster before the World Series. Colon waited, and practiced, and waited some more.
And then, with the go-ahead run on third base with one out in the 12th inning, and with the pitcher’s spot due up, Ned Yost figured that this was a situation in which he had faith in Colon. As well he should have.
Colon pinch-hit against Addison Reed, took a strike, and then swung and missed to fall behind 0-and-2. The game was still very much up for grabs at that point; had Colon struck out, the Royals would have needed a base hit from Paulo Orlando to take the lead, or otherwise the Mets would get yet another chance to walk off in the bottom of the inning and force a Game 6. But the next pitch was in the dirt, and Colon fouled off the next pitch, and finally, Reed hung a slider and Colon hit a line drive to left field, and I’m pretty sure that the moment it got over the shortstop’s head I blacked out for a second. The Royals were three outs away from winning the World Series. It didn’t matter whether the ball carried to the left fielder or not – Jarrod Dyson was on third base, and he was scoring either way.
But it didn’t carry, it fell, and Colon was on base and the Royals had a lead in a World Series clinching game for the first time since 1985 and Wade Davis was warming up and oh. My. God.
The final unraveling of the New York Mets had begun. Paulo Orlando followed Colon up with a groundball to Daniel Murphy - who booted the ball, again.
![[Image: hjeyINQ.gif]](https://i.imgur.com/hjeyINQ.gif)
The botched play cost the Mets a double play, moving Colon into scoring position. Addison Reed got to a 2-2 count against Alcides Escobar, but twice Escobar stayed alive with a foul ball, and then Reed threw a pretty terrible pitch – an 84 mph cement-mixer of a slider that forgot to slide – and Escobar rifled it down the left field line. Colon scored – and was greeted like a conquering hero in the dugout – and only an excellent play from leftfielder Michael Conforto kept Orlando at third base. The Royals now led by two runs, and they had two runners in scoring position with one out. The Mets were wobbling on their feet, and the Royals needed only one more hit to administer the knockout blow. It was coming. Reed walked Zobrist to load the bases, and finally, finally Collins pulled him in favor of Bartolo Colon.
Colon came in to face Cain, and on a 1-0 pitch, Cain rifled the ball into the gap in left center. Every single baserunner took off - Orlando, rushing home, Escobar right behind him, Zobrist doing his level best to catch up. All three scored, Cain was roaring into second base, every fan in the stadium was on their feet, and there was no doubt left: The game that had been 2-0, Mets, when Harvey begged his way into th 9th inning was now 7-2, Royals, and Wade Davis, in the peak of the most dominant relief season by any pitcher in history, was warming up.
There was more of the game to play. Hosmer and Moustakas would both make outs, there was still the bottom of the 12th. But this was the emotional peak of the Series, of the entire journey. This was the moment we knew it was over. Cain pounded his chest and roared in triumph, Mets fans started to stream for the exits, and just behind the third base dugout a small scrum of Royals fans was gathering for the inevitable celebration to come.
Cain’s double didn’t have a dramatic impact on the game – its WPA was just 3%. But its emotional impact was incalculable. I could watch this highlight a thousand times and not get tired – hell, I may have already. It was about to be over. After all these years, after coming so close 12 months before, after being on death’s door less than three weeks before, it was all about to be over. The six-fingered man wasn’t dead, but he was bleeding out before our eyes.
In the bottom half, Wade Davis came out. Drew Butera (remember him from Game 4 in Houston?) was catching for him. Two outs and a harmless single later, Davis faced Wilmer Flores with a 1-2 pitch. Flores looked like he’d rather be anywhere else in the world, as Davis prepared to finish the business that had been started the night my grandfather passed away, more than a year before.
The last pitch of the 2015 season was a fastball that was just a little bit inside. The ump didn’t care. He called it a strike, and no one argued.
This was the moment that every other moment I’ve described in these pages was in service towards. This was the moment we had been waiting for since Darryl Motley caught a fly ball at Kauffman Stadium 30 years before. This was probably the closest I’ve ever come to an out-of-body experience, kneeling on the TV in the midnight darkness of my living room, already in celebration mode, waiting for the party to start.
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This was a nothing moment. This was an everything moment. This was the final step in a generation-long journey. This was one giant leap for an organization, a fan base, and a city that 15 months before was the most downtrodden franchise in American sports. This was validation. This was a line on my bucket list being checked off. This was the moment I had waited my entire adult life and much of my childhood for. This was the moment that, in an instant, paid me back for a lifetime of devotion. This was the moment that I finally felt the hole in my heart that had opened up on September 30, 2014, finally begin to close.
To David and Dan Glass; to Dayton Moore and the front office that put together the team and dealt with the frustration and anger of their fan base for nearly a decade; to Ned Yost and the coaching staff; to the support staff and trainers and scouts and all the unsung heroes in the organization; to all the players who weren’t on the playoff roster but made their contributions throughout the season; to Raul Mondesi; and to The 25, the guys who, if I were granted absolute power, all Royals fans would be forced to give a standing ovation for the first time their name was mentioned over the PA system in a game, from now until the ends of their careers, even if it meant 40,000 fans rising as one to salute them when they entered a game in 2029 as a pinch-hitter for the opponent:
Drew Butera, Lorenzo Cain, Christian Colon, Johnny Cueto, Wade Davis, Danny Duffy, Jarrod Dyson, Alcides Escobar, Alex Gordon, Terrance Gore, Kelvin Herrera, Luke Hochevar, Eric Hosmer, Ryan Madson, Kris Medlen, Franklin Morales, Kendrys Morales, Mike Moustakas, Paulo Orlando, Salvador Perez, Alex Rios, Yordano Ventura, Edinson Volquez, Chris Young, and Ben Zobrist.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
You want to know why I decided to name my cities after baseball players? Now you know.
![[Image: z2L5Mo62k_AalvkjoH0K4P9vwHYk9AbuCL8RfRBr...GHSIX46eok]](https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/z2L5Mo62k_AalvkjoH0K4P9vwHYk9AbuCL8RfRBrSqXQt7hDWojRgeGCWwmcrSZPKCeetDZGfbHUmC7NbbULXrSmgMGJpYv9xYQ764abBS4Eg347_Y9roqIFjVznYGHSIX46eok)
Thanks for reading along with me.
________________
Here are sources I used for this game, and for a few others. I'll probably do an epilogue and aftermath post, too. And then we'll be back to Civ. Thanks a lot for indulging me, everybody. I know this isn't a baseball site or a baseball thread, but, well, it was a story I wanted to share. I hope I did it justice.
General postseason information:
The Story of the 2015 Royals, Royals Review
Hosmer's Mad Dash:
Hosmer's Mad Dash, ESPN Oral History
Hosmer photo:
A Front Row Ticket - To Misery, the New York Times.
Lucas Duda:
Let's Build A Scouting Report on Lucas Duda's Arm, Fangraphs
Game 5 in general:
The epic story of the 2015 Royals and their World Series championship, Jeff Passan, Yahoo Sports
Game 5 in general:
Royals are World Series champs, Andy Mellinger, Kansas City Star
). Exact details are here:
