Former Mets GM: New York would have won 2015 World Series if not for Alex Gordon’s home run
Did the outcome of the 2015 World Series swing on just one pitch?
Seems odd to think that could be the case given the Royals won 4 games to 1 over the New York Mets. However, former Mets general manager Sandy Alderson believes Royals left fielder Alex Gordon’s game-tying home run in the bottom of the ninth inning of Game 1 may have cost New York the title.
Gordon’s solo home run off Mets closer Jeurys Familia tied the game at 4 and the Royals won 5-4 in 14 innings. The Royals also won Game 2 and took two of three games at Citi Field in New York.
Alderson talked about the 2015 World Series and the Mets’ run that year while on the Metrospective podcast with The Athletic’s Tim Britton and Pete McCarthy.
“You know, I certainly enjoyed the run, it was fantastic up until, you know, the World Series,” Alderson said. “We just didn’t play well. This business about us being the underdog: baloney. If we’d won the first game, we would have won the World Series. We didn’t win the first game and for a couple of different reasons.”
The podcast hosts pressed Alderson for details on why he thought the Mets could have won the World Series by simply changing the outcome of Game 1. Alderson made a historical comparison.
Alderson, who is Oakland’s Senior Advisor to Baseball Operations, was the A’s general manager when they went to the World Series each year from 1988-90.
That includes Oakland’s famous loss to the Dodgers in 1988 when Kirk Gibson hit a walk-off home run in Game 1 of the World Series that year for Los Angeles.
“I think generally speaking, Game 1 is the most important game of the series,” Alderson said. “I just think that it doesn’t have to dictate the rest of the series, but if you look at in a short series like that, going up in the first game, especially on the road, makes a huge difference. Not just in the numbers and the probabilities, but just in the confidence.
“You know, I lost the very famous Game 1 in ‘88, and I can tell you we kind of schlepped it off as ‘OK, a fluke.’ But we never came back from that. I look at Game 1 in 2015, and we gave up an inside-the-park home run to the first hitter, which really shouldn’t have happened. And then we get to the ninth inning and give up a lead on a quick pitch, which we sort of counseled Familia against for a long time.”
The hosts said Familia had success with the quick pitch, but Alderson countered it was “modest success.”
“We have a guy with Oakland now that quick pitches from time to time, but when you quick pitch and always throw a fastball ... that’s something different,” Alderson said. “But anyway, I just think the first game is really a critical one. Again, because you’re on the road, the confidence factor that it creates. ...
“So anyway, the first game is really important and just the way things went, I really feel that if we’d won the first game we would’ve won it.”
“Anyway,” Alderson concluded, “didn’t happen.”
You can listen to the podcast here.
