G5 WS: Corleone, Harvey, Goins, Gordon, Price
By Bob Elliott
NEW YORK _ They are like the golfer who spots you a few holes in an early morning round and then wipes the sleep from his eyes.
You wind up paying for drinks and lunch.
Just when you think you have the Kansas City Royals down and deflated ...
Just when you have them beaten ...
Just when you think you have them out ...
Your dugout goes into a Michael Corleone impression from the Godfather saying “Just when I thought I was out ... they pull me back in.”
And the Royals dugout celebrates.
On this night they scored a 7-2 win over the New York Mets in 12 innings to win the best-of-seven 111th World Series in five games. It was K.C.’s first Series title first since 1985 and Don Denkinger didn’t have a thing to do with their successs.
K.C. and its relentless attack not only poked holes in the Mets bullpen, but Toronto Blue Jays in the American League Championship Series and the Houston Astros in the AL Division Series as well.
The Royals dugout at Citi Field had a few players empty on Eric Hosmer’s mad dash from third to tie the score in the eighth, a few more spilled out when pinch hitter Christian Colon lined a single to left off Addison Reed in 12th to break the tie.
And the dugout emptied completely when Wade Davis struck out Wilmer Flores.
The Mets reached the Series on starting pitching and home runs. Bullpen depth and defence were not a strength as was evident throughout the five games.
The roll the Royals are on they may have rallied down by four in the bottom of the ninth against the 1927 Yankees, a strike away and still rallied to win.
Consider this was the Royals 16 post-season game.
They had scored 11 wins, four over the Mets and the Jays and three over the Astros.
And seven have been come-from-behind wins, the sneak attacks went like this:
World Series, Game 5: Down 2-0 in the ninth against Matt Harvey a lead-off walk, a run-scoring double and a ground ball out forced extras.
World Series, Game 4: Down 3-1 in the sixth, they rallied thanks to two lead-off walks and a Daniel Murphy clank on harmless grounder in the eighth to win 5-3 at Citi Field. The Mets had been five outs away from evening the series 2-2.
World Series Game 1: Down 3-1 in the sixth, won 5-4 in 14 innings after Alex Gordon homered with on out in the bottom of the ninth off closer Jeurys Familia.
The ALCS Game 2: Down 3-0 to the Jays in the seventh, they won 6-3. David Price had set down 18 men in order when second baseman Ryan Goins waved off right fielder Jose Bautista and then Goins bailed thinking he had been called off. Gordon hit a two-run double in the five-run rally.
The ALDS Game 5: Down 2-0 in the fourth to the Astros, Alex Rios hit a two-run double down the left field line to break the tie and K.C. was on its way to a 7-2 win.
The ALDS Game 4: Down 6-2, they scored five with Gordon kncoking in the lead run on a grounder in the eighth and two more in the ninth for a 9-6 victory.
ALDS Game 2: Down Astros 4-1 in the third, won 5-4 as Ben Zobrist singled.
For eight innings it looked as if the Mets were forcing the Series back to K.C. They took a 2-0 lead into the ninth. Matt Harvey won an argument with manager Terry Collins to pitch the ninth.
Harvey won the debate.
Two batters later -- walk, run-scoring double -- Harvey was gone and two batters after that Hosmer made the dash home like Little League to even the score.
They outscored the Houston Astros, Toronto Blue Jays and the Mets 51-11 from the seventh inning on, on their way to winning the World Series.