Mets vs. Royals Recap: Royals complete another late comeback, defeat Mets in World Series

The Mets lost the World Series to the Kansas City Royals last night. That’s not a sentence anyone expected could be written coming into this year, and the Mets’ season a very enjoyable one overall. But it’s tough to have that perspective in full immediately, as the Mets had late leads in three of the four losses that ultimately doomed them.

In Game 5, Matt Harvey was magnificent through eight innings. He racked up strikeouts and shut out the Royals, a team that seemed impossible to shut out through the first four games. The Mets provided some run support, too, with a Curtis Granderson home run to begin the bottom of the first inning and a sacrifice fly from Lucas Dua in the sixth. It certainly wasn’t a ton of support, but it felt like it might be enough given Harvey’s dominance.

But Harvey, who had throw over 100 pitches through eight innings but didn’t look any worse for it, came out to pitch the ninth inning to a massive ovation from the Citi Field crowd and faltered. He walked Lorenzo Cain, and after Cain stole second, gave up a double to Eric Hosmer. That ended his night—still a great one by any reasonable measure—as Terry Collins turned to Jeurys Familia.

Familia induced three straight ground outs, but Hosmer moved to third on the first. On the second, he broke for home as soon as David Wright threw the ball to first base. Lucas Duda made a very bad throw that sailed past Travis d’Arnaud, and Hosmer scored easily.

The game went to extras, and neither team did much of anything until the twelfth, when the Royals scratched out a run against Addison Reed on a single, stolen base, ground out, and another single. Daniel Murphy then committed his second error on a routine play in as many nights, and Reed served up a run-scoring double to Alcides Escobar. With Wade Davis obviously coming in for the Royals, that really felt like the end. Bartolo Colon took over for Reed, and he gave up a two-run double to Cain.

Wade Davis was Wade Davis in the bottom of the twelfth. It was a great year, but today, it hurts.

SB Nation GameThreads

* Amazin' Avenue GameThread
* Royals Review GameThread

Win Probability Added

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Big winners: Matt Harvey, +17.1% WPA, Jon Niese, +11.4% WPA
Big losers: Addison Reed, -46.6% WPA, Travis d’Arnaud, -14.1% WPA, Juan Lagares, -10.4% WPA
Teh aw3s0mest play: Curtis Granderson hits a leadoff home run in the first, +11.6% WPA
Teh sux0rest play: Eric Hosmer doubles to plate the Royals’ first run in the ninth, -20.0% WPA
Total pitcher WPA: -14.1% WPA
Total batter WPA: -35.9% WPA
GWRBI!: Christian Colon