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October 29, 2015

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Royals outlast Mets in marathon

Unflinching despite on-field setbacks and off-field heartbreak, the Kansas City Royals outlasted the New York Mets 5-4 in 14 innings on Tuesday to win Game 1 of the 111th World Series.

Eric Hosmer drove in Alcides Escobar with a sacrifice fly to give the Royals an emotional victory in a thriller at Kansas City that matched the longest game by innings in the history of Major League Baseball’s best-of-7 final. “To grind through that game and win it in the 14th inning was big,” Royals manager Ned Yost said. “Two things you don’t want in Game 1 of the World Series — one is to go 14 innings and the other is to lose.”

The intense matchup lasted five hours and nine minutes at Kauffman Stadium, the longest World Series opener by time or innings, and featured Escobar leading off with the first inside the park World Series home run in 86 years.

But much of the joy was stolen from the achievement as players learned of the death of Royals starting pitcher Edinson Volquez’s father just hours earlier — the third Royals player parent to die in the past three months.

Volquez’s 63-year-old father Daniel died of heart disease before the game in their native Dominican Republic. Volquez’s wife asked that her husband not be told until he was out of the game, according to a Royals spokesman, and Volquez departed before the game ended.

The Royals lost pitcher Chris Young’s father Charles to cancer last month and third baseman Mike Moustakas’ mother Connie died of cancer in August.

Juan Lagares gave New York a 4-3 lead in the eighth, scoring from second base on a fielding error by first baseman Hosmer. But the drama stretched to extra innings when Alex Gordon blasted a one-out homer over the centerfield wall in the ninth inning, the latest tying homer in a Series game since 2001. It came off Mets closing relief ace Jeurys Familia, his first blown save opportunity since July 30.

“He doesn’t give up home runs so we were all shocked by it. We liked where we were at,” Mets boss Terry Collins said.

Kansas City’s Paulo Orlando, the first Brazilian player in World Series history, reached third with the bases loaded in the 12th but could not score and missed a chance to be the hero again in the 13th, grounding out to end the inning with a runner in scoring position.

The tension finally ended when Escobar reached first on a throwing error by Mets third baseman David Wright, took third on Ben Zobrist’s single and scored the winning run on Hosmer’s fly out to right field. Young, the Royals’ scheduled Game 4 starter, hurled three shutout innings of relief but his status for Saturday is now uncertain.

Kansas City hosts Game 2 today before the final shifts to New York. The Royals won their only World Series in 1985. The Mets last captured the crown in 1986.




 

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