Eric Hosmer lifts Royals to 14-inning 5-4 win over Mets in World Series opener

Eric Hosmer strode to the plate 15 minutes past midnight, six innings and a calendar day removed from a stomach-turning gaffe in the field. All around him, a Kauffman Stadium crowd begged for deliverance in the 14th inning of a game tied for the longest in World Series history. One thought throbbed inside Hosmer’s head.

“It’s time for me to do my part,” Hosmer told himself, moments before he struck the winning blow in a 5-4 victory.

Game 1 of the World Series came down to this: The bases loaded with Royals, the infield of the Mets drawn to the edge of the grass, desperate to defuse a bases-loaded jam. Hosmer arrived 140 minutes after committing the error that placed his team in peril. Now he received a chance at redemption on a night that reminded how trivial these moments can feel in the face of loss.

The evening demonstrated Kansas City’s ability to trump their competition despite an onslaught of adversity from outside their clubhouse. The game caused hearts to pound. The players dealt with the heartburn of defensive miscues and a late-game deficit. And they exited the park dealing with heartache for their teammate, Edinson Volquez.

Volquez toed the mound for six innings, apparently unaware of his father’s passing. After his departure, the Royals emptied their bench and fired most of their bullpen bullets. Two outs away from defeat, Alex Gordon tied the game and vanquished a fire-breathing closer with a solo homer. Then the two teams drifted into extra innings, like prize fighters wearied by the toll, searching for a knockout in the championship rounds.

Inside the dugout, as the Royals stoked a 14th-inning rally against Mets reliever Bartolo Colon, manager Ned Yost stood watch. He sidled up to Gordon.

“Let’s win this for Eddie,” Yost said.

Earlier in the night, Royals officials said, Volquez learned about the death of his father after he left the game. He departed the stadium with the outcome still in doubt. Hosmer would provide the winning blow with a sacrifice fly to right field. Alcides Escobar raced home from third. Hosmer flipped his bat and disappeared inside a mob of teammates.

The game took five hours and nine minutes, extended partially by a mid-game, broadcast power outage. Only three World Series games have ever lasted 14 innings. None have gone 15. The Mets left 11 runners on base; the Royals countered with 13 of their own. The Kansas City relievers allowed one unearned run across eight innings and struck out 12. The victory belonged to Chris Young, the team’s Game 4 starter, who contributed three innings of emergency relief.

“A lot of baseball today,” third baseman Mike Moustakas said. “You want to talk about grinding it out? That’s grinding it out. That’s what this team does, though.”

“This,” Hosmer said, “is why we’re the best team in the world right here.”

And to think, a defeat looked so likely when the bottom of the ninth began. Hosmer looked like he would play the goat. A two-time Gold Glover, he was charged with an error when Mets shortstop Wilmer Flores’ grounder skipped off his glove in the eighth. The mistake allowed the go-ahead run to score from second against Kelvin Herrera.

Ben Zobrist did not allow his teammates to hang their heads for long. He smashed a leadoff double, his second on the night, to start the bottom of the inning. But Lorenzo Cain made a curious, misguided choice. He tried to bunt Zobrist to third. After he struck out, Cain stomped and swore in front of third-base coach Rusty Kuntz.

“I told Rusty I’m never bunting again,” Cain said.

The Royals missed a chance to tie the game as the rally petered out. Mets closer Jeurys Familia collected the last out of the eighth and prepared for a four-out appearance. Until he elevated a 97-mph sinker to Gordon in the ninth.

Gordon unloaded a titanic blast over the center-field fence off Familia. Familia had not blown a save in three months. The baseball traveled an estimated 428 feet and awakened a sullen stadium. In the dugout, Hosmer found Gordon and gave him a hug. Gordon removed some guilt from Hosmer’s conscience.

“I was the happiest person in the stadium,” Hosmer said. “That’s why he’s a leader. That’s why he’s the captain of this team.”

By early Wednesday morning, the events of Tuesday evening seemed culled from a different series. Escobar shocked the crowd with a first-inning, inside-the-park homer on the first pitch he saw from Mets starter Matt Harvey. The Mets punched up runs in the fourth, fifth, sixth and eighth. The Royals tied the game with a two-run, sixth-inning rally, then saw a deadlock break when a tricky groundball by Mets shortstop Wilmer Flores skipped past Hosmer’s glove.

In the aftermath, the discussion centered on Volquez. He became the third Royal to lose a family member in the last three months. Moustakas lost his mother in August. Young lost his father in September.

“I know the pain he’s going through right now,” Young said. “Certainly, he’s in our thoughts and prayers.”

As Volquez warmed up before the game, reports proliferated on social media about Daniel Volquez, a 63-year-old from the Dominican Republic, who was dealing with a heart condition, according to The Associated Press.

The situation caused awkwardness on the television broadcast and within the news media. Citing conversations with family members, ESPN Deportes reported that Volquez learned about his father’s death as he drove to the park on Tuesday. Multiple Royals officials insisted that was not true, and that the Volquez family asked that Edinson not hear the news until after he left the game.

In the afternoon, Yost said, general manager Dayton Moore received a phone call from Volquez family. Moore and Yost conferred with catching coach Pedro Grifol and bench coach Don Wakamatsu on how to handle the situation.

“We just decided that we were going to honor the family’s wishes,” Yost said, adding “I love Eddie Volquez. And if his family asked me to do something, I’m going to do it.”

Even so, about an hour before the game, Yost approached Young. Young needed to be ready to pitch in case Volquez found out through friends or social media. Young activated his mind for the challenge, but Volquez continued his usual routine and went to work.

After Volquez vanquished the first three hitters he faced, Escobar handed him a one-run lead. The Mets opened this series with Harvey, the burly right-hander who wears the nickname “The Dark Knight of Gotham” when he is not sparring with Mets officials about his self-imposed innings limit.

Escobar came to the plate for his first at-bat since winning the American League Championship Series MVP. He hit .478 against Toronto, and swung at the first pitch in the first inning in all six games. At one point, he admitted he hacked so often in those spots because 99 percent of the time, the opposing pitcher threw a fastball for a strike.

Either Harvey ignored the scouting report or he refused to bend to Escobar’s tendencies. Harvey heaved a 95-mph fastball over the plate. True to form, Escobar swung.

“When I walk up to home plate, I’m ready to swing the bat,” Escobar said.

Perhaps the greatest discrepancy between these two clubs – greater even than the Mets’ advantage in starting pitching – is the difference between the two defenses. The Mets dispatched Yoenis Cespedes, typically a corner outfielder, into center field for Tuesday. The assignment paid immediate dividends for Kansas City.

Escobar cracked the baseball into the left-center gap, closer to Cespedes than rookie left fielder Michael Conforto. The duo converged but struggled to communicate. At the last moment, Cespedes opened his glove for a half-hearted, hopeless stab. The baseball fell to earth and rattled along the warning track.

“When I hit it, I said, ‘That’s a double or triple,’” Escobar said. “And then I saw my third-base coach, and he sent me to home plate. I was like, ‘Wow. Where’s the ball?’”

The ambush did not jostle Harvey into a collapse. He finished the inning without further incident. His teammates tied the game in the fourth on an infield single by catcher Travis d’Arnaud.

The game veered off the path in the bottom of the frame. After Harvey fanned Kendrys Morales, Mets manager Terry Collins emerged from his dugout to speak with umpire Bill Welke. Welke left to speak with Ned Yost. The Fox truck at the ballpark lost power, which cut out the video feeds inside the clubhouses, robbing both teams of replay capabilities.

In an odd scene, Collins chatted with Moustakas in the batter’s box as Welke conferred with Yost. Loping down from the stands was Joe Torre, MLB’s chief baseball officers. The two teams agreed, temporarily, to play without replay.

The delay lasted about five minutes. Both teams reacquired replay in the top of the fifth, using an international feed from MLB. This left the Royals with the renewed ability to re-watch Curtis Granderson’s go-ahead homer in the fifth.

Volquez led in the count, 1-2, when he fired a 95-mph sinker. The pitch bisected the plate. Granderson made it disappear inside the Mets bullpen in right field.

An inning later, the Mets added another a run on a pair of singles and a sacrifice fly off Volquez. From the bench, Yost felt wrenched with emotion. He knew what loomed for Volquez once he left the game.

“It was hard for me to know what I knew and see him compete the way that he competed,” Yost said. “It was just hard.”

After the sixth, Yost informed Volquez he was done. Volquez finished with a quality start, but he wanted to pitch longer. Yost considered telling Volquez he should call his wife. Instead, he let Volquez walk back to the clubhouse, where family members were waiting. The team opened up Yost’s office to give the Volquez family some privacy.

“During a time like this, it’s so tough,” Hosmer said. “But the way he went out and battled for us, you always hate to hear news like that. But it’s just another angel above watching us, and behind us, all the way.”

Back on the diamond, Zobrist stroked Harvey’s first pitch in the bottom of the frame, a 94-mph fastball, into the right-field corner for a double. Cain shot a single into right. With runners at the corners, Hosmer lifted his first sacrifice fly of the day.

The inning created a microcosm of Kansas City baseball. Harvey occupied himself with the task of keeping Cain at first. He threw to first four times as he faced Hosmer and Kendrys Morales. And still Cain swiped the bag. The stolen base also protected against a double play, because Morales grounded back to Harvey for the second out.

Moustakas passed on a pair of curveballs to start his encounter with Harvey. He did not ignore the subsequent changeup, even though it dove toward the opposing batter’s box. Moustakas ripped the pitch into right-center to score Cain.

Yet two innings later, in a similar situation, the Royals shifted away from their strengths. Cain could not put down the bunt. Kansas City could not even the game.

Until the ninth.

Both teams ran out of arms during extra innings. The Mets chose Colon, a starter for much of the season. Kansas City countered with Young, who is still on track to start Game 4. In the bottom of the 14th, Escobar reached on an error and Zobrist singled. With Cain intentionally walked, Hosmer played the hero.

He would say later, he was only doing his part. The Royals savored this win, which brought them that much closer to their coveted championship. Yet they still felt the gravity of Volquez’s loss.

In the aftermath, Escobar said, a few Royals received a text from Volquez. He interrupted his grieving to congratulate his teammates.

“Thank you guys for winning,” the message read, “for me, and for my family.”

Royals 5, Mets 4, 14 inn.

One out when winning run scored.

1-ran for K.Morales in the 8th.

E: D.Wright (1), Hosmer (1). LOB: New York 11, Kansas City 13. 2B: Zobrist 2 (2). HR: Granderson (1), off Volquez; A.Escobar (1), off Harvey; A.Gordon (1), off Familia. RBIs: Granderson (1), T.d’Arnaud (1), Conforto (1), A.Escobar (1), Hosmer 2 (2), Moustakas (1), A.Gordon (1). SB: Lagares (1), L.Cain (1). CS: D.Wright (1). S: W.Flores, A.Escobar. SF: Conforto, Hosmer 2.

Runners left in scoring position: New York 5 (D.Wright 2, W.Flores 2, Cespedes); Kansas City 5 (A.Escobar, Moustakas, J.Dyson 2, Orlando). RISP: New York 1 for 10; Kansas City 2 for 11. Runners moved up: L.Cain, A.Gordon.

Hold: Clippard (1). Blown save: Familia (1). Inherited runners-scored: Familia 2-0. IBB: off B.Colon (Zobrist, Hosmer, L.Cain). HBP: by Volquez (K.Johnson). WP: Clippard.

Umpires: Home, Bill Welke; First, Mark Carlson; Second, Mike Winters; Third, Jim Wolf; Left, Alfonso Marquez; Right, Gary Cederstrom. Time: 5:09. Att: 40,320.

This story was originally published October 28, 2015 at 12:30 AM with the headline "Eric Hosmer lifts Royals to 14-inning 5-4 win over Mets in World Series opener."