Just like old times, Edinson Volquez sets tone for Royals’ victory over Mets

If Edinson Volquez had had his way, someone besides him would have made the opening day start for the Royals against the Mets on Sunday at Kauffman Stadium.

As he considered the prospect early in spring training, before he knew he’d get the gig, Volquez let loose one of those contagious laughs of his. Then he said he’d prefer not to have the task, because he enjoys the spectacle of the day and had done it before (in 2011 with the Reds).

As it happened, he felt the same way even after he pitched six shutout innings to pave the way to the Royals’ 4-3 victory.

“Still,” he said, grinning. “I like to enjoy the show and see all the fans and the (World Series flag) and sit on the bench and just watch.”

There was some playfulness in his saying that, obviously, and Volquez always wants the ball — as he poignantly demonstrated when days after his father’s death he started against the Mets in what would become the World Series-clinching Game 5.

“I had no choice,” he said. “I did the best I can.”

In fact, Volquez forged a fine compromise with himself.

Both intentionally and incidentally, he provided some amusement even as he uncorked a sterling performance: After six shutout innings and 106 pitches, Volquez left the field to a standing ovation and chants of “Ed-die, Ed-die, Ed-die!”

That put an exclamation point on a night that began with his inadvertently unfurling a Johnny Cueto-esque shimmy when he was introduced as he warmed up because “they got me with the camera; I didn’t even know” they were focusing on him.

Moreover, Volquez then took the mound in the first inning still wearing his warmup cap, the one with a crown over the KC logo, instead of the one intended for competition bearing the gold KC with white trim on the front.

No one, not the umpire and not pitching coach Dave Eiland, had noticed. But by the time he came back in after a 1-2-3 first, he said everyone in the dugout said, “Hey, wrong hat.”

He looked at it and said, “Oh, sorry” and changed.

But his bout with distraction didn’t deter him from pitching like an opening day starter should in what first baseman Eric Hosmer before the game had called “almost a continuation of the World Series.”

Even before it started, it had to be a surreal sequel for the Mets, who were drubbed in highlights of the Royals’ triumph on the Crown Vision videoboard during pregame ceremonies.

Afterward, Royals manager Ned Yost said it was “awkward” having to play the Mets in these circumstances. Without directly saying, the inference was he didn’t like the feeling of rubbing it in.

The déjà vu seemed in full effect when Yoenis Cespedes misplayed a ball in the first inning … a la Game 1 of the World Series.

The feeling we’d been here before, though, perhaps was most pronounced in the matchup between Volquez and Matt Harvey, the starters in the Royals Game 1 and Game 5 victories.

You wouldn’t necessarily say Volquez had outdueled Harvey in the Fall Classic, especially since Harvey pitched eight shutout innings in Game 5 before confounding manager Terry Collins into keeping him in the game and enabling a Royals rally.

But Volquez performed admirably in the series, particularly under bizarre circumstances that also included pitching in Game 1 hours after his father had died unbeknownst to him.

He allowed four earned runs in 12 innings and muzzled the Mets to a .195 average (8 for 41), to give the team with the best bullpen and most dynamic defense in baseball the foundation to win.

Against the Mets on Sunday, though, Volquez just was the better pitcher.

When Kelvin Herrera took his place for the seventh, the Royals had a 4-0 lead after he’d surrendered just two hits and three walks while striking out five.

This was a different sort of challenge than Volquez faced last fall, with none of the weight or drama of the postseason and at least some distance removed from his father’s unexpected death.

But it was a significant task, too, to help set an early tone for a season brimming with expectations and demonstrate a standard for the starting rotation and even to validate a decision that really was no decision at all.

After a sensational rookie year in 2014, Yordano Ventura was the opening day starter a year ago. And he may prove to be the Royals best starter as the season unfolds.

But Ventura was off-kilter from the outset last season, and a reasonable school of thought was that it was because he was so intent on justifying his new contract and “ace” designation that he hyper-extended himself emotionally.

He started to confuse bluster with competitiveness. Then he over-corrected.

And it became a mess that took months and being relegated to Class AAA Omaha — without ever leaving, as it happened — to smooth out before his resurgence down the stretch.

By all accounts, Ventura has matured greatly in the last year, but there was no reason to revisit that precarious path, either.

Especially with Volquez emerging as a model of consistency in the last few years after a career largely marked by wild swings.

So here was Volquez before the game on Sunday afternoon, clad in a Superman undershirt and removing a Louisville Slugger from its box apparently for the sole purpose of using it to break in a new glove for Herrera.

After all, he still liked his from last year.

“That’s a winner,” he said, smiling.

Then he went to work on a day he would rather have been watching … but instead helped make more worth savoring.

This story was originally published April 3, 2016 at 11:27 PM with the headline "Just like old times, Edinson Volquez sets tone for Royals’ victory over Mets."