Royals Look Unbeatable Through Two Games of the World Series
The Kansas City Royals look unstoppable at this point in the World Series. On Wednesday night, the Royals defeated the New York Mets in Game 2 of the Fall Classic to take a 2-0 lead in the best of seven series.
Since the postseason started, the Houston Astros could not stop Kansas City, Toronto tried and was unsuccessful and then both Matt Harvey followed by Jacob deGrom were not able to quiet the Royals.
The bottom line seems to be Kansas City is unbeatable this postseason.
Kansas City is now only two wins from winning their first World Series title since 1985 when George Brett was a Royals third baseman.
The Game 2 7-1 win behind Johnny Cueto’s pitching and fine hitting against deGrom and his fastball, now has the Royals’ fans thinking sweep in New York, and what a time for it as the brooms will be out for Halloween anyway.
The backbone of the Mets, its power pitching rotation, came into this series with a 69 strikeout to 18 walks strikeout walk ratio. After two games of dealing with the Royals lineup of players who do not strike out, the ratio for strikeouts to walks for Harvey and deGrom is just 4 strikeouts to 5 walks.
Tuesday night, Harvey threw his fastball 30 times and the Royals swung and missed just two. In Game 2, deGrom threw a total of 54 fastballs. Kansas City hitters swung and missed none.
On Tuesday, with the count having two strikes, Harvey made 18 pitches and the Royals swung and only missed one. In Game 2, deGrom with two strikes threw 28 pitches. Kansas City hitters swung at all 28 and missed none of them.
The Mets are not making mistakes, it is just that the Royals are putting the ball in play regardless of what pitcher is on the mound.
During the postseason, Harvey has opponents swinging and missing on 37% of his pitches, against Kansas City that has dropped to 17.9%.
The miss percentage deGrom had against Los Angeles and Chicago was 36.5%, in his start Wednesday, he only had three swings with misses in his 94 pitches, which was the fewest in his pro career that is a 6% whiff percentage.
The Mets as a pitching staff has had a swing and miss percentage of 31.7% during the first two series, but against Kansas City that has plunged by over half to 15.4%.
Dale Sveum the Kansas City hitting coach said he teaches his players to shorten up, swing early, be aggressive and in the end, do not surrender. Sveum says every player is on board with that philosophy.
The series moves to New York and the Mets need to keep the Royals off the bases or they will lose two more straight and the brooms will be out in New York.
