Michael Conforto’s two blasts are historic, but not enough to give Mets victory

Mets left fielder Michael Conforto entered Saturday’s Game 4 with a .091 postseason batting average. He had been the easiest out in the lineup.

That changed in a major way Saturday.

Conforto pulled a home run into the right field upper deck in his first plate appearance off Royals’ starter Chris Young.

The first six Mets had gone down in order before Conforto crushed Young’s first pitch of the third inning to open the scoring.

Conforto wasn’t finished.

He led off the fifth inning and homered again, this time off left-handed reliever Danny Duffy.

But it wasn’t enough. The Royals prevailed 5-3 and have pushed the Mets to the brink of elimination in the World Series. New York trails three games to one.

The Mets will turn to starting pitcher Matt Harvey to keep its season alive.

“Matt has to give us one of those great outings he’s capable of giving us,” Mets manager Terry Collins said. “We’re in a tough situation, but we’re not dead yet.”

The Mets have three front-line starters — Harvey, Jacob deGrom and Noah Syndergaard — lined up to start the next three games, ones they must win to take the title.

“We’ve got our three guys that we’ve turned to,” Collins said. “Seems like each and every time we’ve had a big series, those are the three guys that we run out there.”

Conforto staying hot would help.

The left-handed Duffy hadn’t surrendered a home run to a left-handed batter since 2011. Jim Thome of the Indians took Duffy deep that season.

Conforto became the second Mets player to have a two-homer World Series game, joining Gary Carter, who hit two in Game 4 of the 1986 World Series.

“He’s going to be a very, very good player,” Collins said. “He’s dangerous, and he tonight he showed that.”

Conforto, a 22-year-old rookie, is the fourth youngest player with a World Series multi-home run game.

Duffy thought he had Conforto out on strikes. He worked an 0-2 count, missed on a pitch high. Duffy’s fourth pitch, an 85 mph curveball came in high but appeared to hit the top of the strike zone. Home plate umpire Jim Wolf called it a ball, and Conforto went deep on the next pitch.

Conforto had two hits in the postseason before Saturday, but one was a home run off the Dodgers’ Zack Greinke in the division series.

He tried to carry the Mets to a victory that would have tied the series and given them great momentum heading into Game 5. Now, the Mets will be fighting for their postseason lives on Sunday.

This story was originally published October 31, 2015 at 11:43 PM with the headline "Michael Conforto’s two blasts are historic, but not enough to give Mets victory."