Hail to the Royals
Hail to the Royals.
I know, I know. I went with the sterling starting staff of the Mets to beat Kansas City in the Fall Classic, now history.
But it was the AL champs who did just about everything right in winning in five games.
Their style of putting the ball in play nullified the strikeout style of the New York hurlers.
Add to that, the mind-set of Ned Yost’s crew to pound away, no matter the deficit, a brilliant bullpen, and an amazing string of untimely errors by the Mets and there you have it.
Now a word about second-guessing. Terry Collins who did a masterful job managing the NL champs all season and getting them to the World Series admits he went with his heart instead of his gut in sticking with the Matt Harvey in the ninth inning of the deciding game. Harvey went ballistic when it appeared he would be removed for closer Jeurys Familia to protect a 2-0 lead and send the Series to KC for a 6th game.
So he got to try to finish what he started.
Harvey faltered and the rest is history.
Collins didn’t have the luxury of hindsight, even though he now regrets his decision.
What really drives me up a wall is the knee-jerk pattern of bringing in pitchers in the 8th when the guy on the mound in the 7th was spotless. If Addison Reed was perfect in the 7th, why does Tyler Clippard get the call in the 8th? We saw how that worked out, didn’t we?