The Kansas City Royals won Game 1 by orchestrating another comeback. They won Game 2 by slowly and methodically wearing out New York Mets starting pitcher Jacob deGrom with patience and constant contact at the plate while Johnny Cueto threw a complete-game gem.
It's the script the Royals have been writing all season long. It shouldn't be shocking they've performed it perfectly on the biggest stage.
The Mets have written their own tale to this point, however, and the main protagonists have been the team's brilliant starting pitchers. Matt Harvey and deGrom haven't been able to beat the Royals. But perhaps Noah Syndergaard can flip the script.
Syndergaard has been great this postseason, going 1-1 in three appearances with a 2.77 ERA, 1.07 WHIP and 20 strikeouts in 13 innings pitched. That followed an excellent regular season that saw him go 9-7 with a 3.24 ERA, 1.05 WHIP and 166 strikeouts in 150 innings.
The rookie is a large, intimidating power pitcher who doesn't seem terribly caught up in the moment.
"I’m really excited about Friday’s start," he told Kevin Kernan of the New York Post, before calmly adding, "It’s just another game."
Game 3 of the World Series, when your team is down 2-0 and you are a rookie, well...that's not just another game. But Syndergaard's demeanor is a big part of his success, as his manager Terry Collins told Kernan.
He has no fear, he believes he belongs here. And that speaks volumes. When you’ve got that kind of stuff and you’re not afraid to throw it and you’re not afraid to give up a hit because you think you can get the next guy out, you can get dangerous. Noah just got better and better and better as the season went along with the confidence he had that he could be successful here. It all comes with his desire to get better.
Syndergaard has struck out nine batters in each of his last four starts. That may prove to be far trickier against a Royals team that swung and missed just three times against deGrom in Game 2, according to Ben Reiter of SI.com.
That's right, folks—against one of the best pitchers in baseball, who threw 94 pitches in Game 2, the Royals failed to make contact when they swung at a pitch just three times. That's insane. That's the sort of approach that can neutralize a power arm.
And it wasn't an outlier performance from the Royals, as Jayson Stark of ESPN wrote:
The Mets' pitching staff, as a whole, had a swing-and-miss rate in the first two rounds of 31.7 percent. Against the Royals, it has plummeted to less than half of that—to 15.4 percent.
And there's nothing accidental about that. It's the philosophy of the house. Swing early. Shorten up. Be aggressive. Don't surrender.
Maybe Syndergaard can turn the tide. But even if he does stifle the Royals, the Mets still have the small matter of solving Yordano Ventura and his electric stuff.
Ventura is 0-1 in four starts this postseason with a 5.09 ERA, 1.58 WHIP and 21 strikeouts in 17.2 innings pitched. Those numbers don't look great, but Ventura has gone five innings in each of his last three starts without giving up more than three runs, so he's been a bridge to Kansas City's elite bullpen more times than not.
It's been an up-and-down season for Ventura, but there's no questioning how nasty he can be when he's on his game. And after Cueto went nine innings, the Royals really only need five innings from him again before turning things over to their amazing bullpen, which Cueto gave some much-needed rest.
And even if the Mets get their bats going, those pesky Royals always seem to come up with hits in crunch time.
Add it all up, and the Royals sure seem like a pending World Series champion. The Mets don't feel like a team that is going to go down without a fight either, however, and Game 3 is probably a prime chance to steal a win. Syndergaard has been great and Ventura can be awfully shaky, so the Mets are going to sneak away with a 4-2 win in Game 3.
They'll win this battle. Just don't expect them to win the war.
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