Royals’ frenzied hitting attack sinks Mets ace Jacob deGrom

Nearly 20 minutes after this technical knockout, Mets starter Jacob deGrom stood up against his locker, a stocking cap covering his mop of dark hair. It was late Wednesday night, and deGrom had been left battered and cut by the Royals offensive attack, an ace swallowed up by a gathering storm, and he did not quite know how to explain it.

He had felt fine, he said. His stuff had been solid. His location was a little off, and he had missed with too many pitches, and perhaps that was a problem. But then deGrom offered the best summation he could conjure.

“I think we said it before,” he said. “They don’t swing and miss.”

On nights like this, as Kauffman Stadium pulsates and the cool breeze blows through this old stadium, the Royals’ offense can feel a little like a technically sound prize fighter, quietly dismantling an opponent. There is the consistent jab, the precise touch, the perfectly crafted right hook. Inside the Royals’ clubhouse, they call this display “frenzy hitting,” a never-ending line of hard contact and rattling bats and balls in play.

On Wednesday night, Game 2 of the World Series, the frenzy came to the doorstep of deGrom. It swallowed up his 96-mph fastball, and it neutralized his hard sinker, and it left it all in a smoldering heap in the bottom of the fifth, the decisive inning in the Royals’ 7-1 statement victory.

If this World Series was supposed to be a referendum on the Mets’ power arms versus the Royals’ hum-drum attack, the early verdict suggests a precision knockout for Kansas City. In two games, the Royals have stared down deGrom and right-hander Matt Harvey, the Mets’ two front-line horses. In two games, the Royals have struck out just four times against Harvey and deGrom while nicking the starters for seven earned runs in 11 innings.

“If you continue to pound the strike zone, they’re going to put it in play,” Mets manager Terry Collins would say, “and that’s what they did.”

By the end, the Royals nicked deGrom for four runs and six hits over five innings, with most of the damage coming in a four-run fifth. All season long, deGrom has shut down opponents with a 96-mph fastball and a 95-mph sinker, power on top of power, and the strikeouts piled up in the wake. In his second season, deGrom, 27, had burnished his No. 1 starter credentials by posting a 2.54 ERA and striking out 205 batters in 191 innings.

The dominance continued into his first postseason. In three starts, deGrom had notched three wins and the numbers backed up the results. He had thrown 20 innings, and he had racked up 27 strikeouts. This time, he couldn’t find a way to put the Royals away.

In the bottom of the fifth, deGrom opened the inning by walking Alex Gordon. Alex Rios would follow with a single, and the frenzy had arrived. When the smoke cleared, deGrom had allowed four more singles, and the Royals had turned a 1-0 deficit into a 4-1 lead.

“I felt fine,” deGrom said. “I don’t know what the difference was. I just wasn’t making pitches. I felt like my stuff was good. I just wasn’t locating very well.”

That’s the thing about this Royals offense. They can make a No. 1 starter turn to dust on the whims of contact and the flights of batted balls. When a power pitcher cannot rely on the strikeout, where can he turn?

“I told Jake: ‘Not everything has to be a strike,’ ” Collins said. “You’ve got to move it around. You’ve got to change speeds, give them something to look at.”

When his night was over, deGrom had thrown 94 pitches. He had procured just three swings-and-misses. For the Mets and deGrom, this was an ominous stat. According to research by ESPN Stats & Info, Wednesday’s performance marked just the 11th time in his career that deGrom coaxed fewer than 10 swings-and-misses in a start. The Mets are now 1-10 in those games.

As deGrom stood in front of his locker, speaking quietly in a forlorn clubhouse, he said he had prepared for the Royals’ contact-laden attack. He needed just 20 pitches to breeze through the first two innings. He did not allow a hit until the bottom of the fourth.

“I wasn’t really surprised by it, because you kind of knew that going in,” deGrom said. “Early on, (my) pitch count was staying pretty low, because I knew that they were going to be attacking, and they were getting out early.”

Then the fifth inning came, and like so many pitchers this October, deGrom could not sidestep the frenzy of jabs and body shots. He nearly bled out in the fifth.

“They just grinded him out,” Mets third baseman David Wright said. “They did a really nice job of fouling off some tough pitches.

“When you got a team that continues to fight and battles, every pitch like that — it can wear you down.”

Now the series heads to New York, the Royals leading 2-0, and with their season hanging in the balance, the Mets will return to the well of power. Right-hander Noah Syndergaard will take the ball in Game 3 on Friday, and left-hander Steven Matz will follow Saturday.

They will try to do what Harvey and deGrom could not: quiet the frenzy.

You want proof of how hard this is? Ask Jacob deGrom.

“They put the ball in play,” he said. “And they did a good job of doing that tonight.”

This story was originally published October 29, 2015 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Royals’ frenzied hitting attack sinks Mets ace Jacob deGrom."