NEW YORK (AP) Two balls launched over the wall, one fired over an opponent’s head and just like that, the New York Mets are right back in this World Series following a 9-3 win against Kansas City on Friday.
David Wright homered and drove in four runs, Curtis Granderson also connected and rookie pitcher Noah Syndergaard set a nasty tone with the first pitch as the Mets won the first of three straight games at their Citi Field home and cut the series deficit to 2-1.
Syndergaard caught everyone’s attention with his first delivery to aggressive leadoff hitter Alcides Escobar.
Well aware of Escobar’s penchant for attacking the first pitch – he opened Game 1 with an inside-the-park homer – Syndergaard threw a high fastball, and Escobar fell to ground in his evasive action.
”I feel like it really made a statement to start the game off, that you guys can’t dig in and get too aggressive because I’ll come in there,” said Syndergaard.
”My intent on that pitch was to make them uncomfortable, and I feel like I did just that.”
Escobar, having a huge postseason, acknowledged he was caught off guard.
”I didn’t like it one bit. He was saying yesterday that he had a plan against my aggressiveness. If that’s the plan, that’s a stupid plan,” Escobar said. ”I cannot fathom a pitcher would throw to the head a 98 mph pitch on the first pitch of the game.”
Kansas City players spent the next few innings shouting at Syndergaard from the dugout.
”I think the whole team was pretty upset. The first pitch of the game goes whizzing by our leadoff man’s head,” Mike Moustakas said. ”I think all 25 guys in that dugout were pretty fired up.”
Shut down at the plate in Kansas City, the Mets broke loose with 12 hits from nine different players as they quickly dismissed Royals starter Yordano Ventura.
Syndergaard recovered from a shaky start and went six innings, giving the Mets the winning performance they didn’t get from fellow young starters Matt Harvey and Jacob deGrom at Kauffman Stadium.
”Real big game for us,” Collins said. ”He delivered. He came through exactly as we expected.”
Another rookie, hometown favorite Steven Matz, will try to pull New York even Saturday in Game 4 when he faces former Met Chris Young.
After the Mets fell behind in the top of the first inning, Granderson started the bottom half with a single and Wright hit his first World Series home run, a two-run shot that delighted a packed crowd.
The captain added a two-run single on Kelvin Herrera’s first pitch during a four-run sixth inning that broke the game open. Juan Uribe, just back from a chest injury, had an RBI single in his first plate appearance for over a month. Slugger Yoenis Cespedes added a sacrifice fly.
The Mets are trying to rekindle the comeback spirit of 1986, when the Mets rallied from a 0-2 World Series hole to beat Boston for their most recent championship.
The Royals hardly looked intimidated by Syndergaard’s first-pitch warning, and scored three runs in the first two innings.
Ben Zobrist doubled and scored on a groundout by Eric Hosmer that gave him 16 RBIs in 14 postseason games this year. Alex Rios had an RBI single in the second, and another run scored on a pitch that got away from the catcher.
But the Royals ran themselves out of a chance at a bigger inning when Alex Gordon was thrown out at third. He was initially called safe but that was reversed following a replay review.
Syndergaard helped himself at the plate. He singled leading off the third ahead of Granderson’s second homer of the Series, a line drive off Ventura to the right-field corner.
”He just wasn’t sharp,” Royals manager Ned Yost said about his starter. ”Fastball velocity was down. Made a couple mistakes.”
That put the Mets ahead to stay at 4-3, making it the first World Series game with three lead changes in the first three innings, according to STATS.
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