Here are the grim facts: The Mets were tied or in the lead 77% of the time in the 2015 World Series. They were tied or ahead for 41 of the 53 innings.
And while you would not be wrong in claiming our dormant offense had much to do with our demise, you can now with pinpoint precision boil this series down to… Three pitches.
Two World Series games we led in the 9th, another in the 8th, and all three were flushed down the toilet in bitter defeats that will haunt this team and its fans for…well, who knows. All because of three lousy pitches.
Pitch No. 1 – It was the hanger from Jeurys Familia to Alex Gordon in Game 1. It was the one bad pitch the closer made that fateful night, and Gordon cashed in and crushed it. And the Mets’ hopes of winning the opener got crushed right along with it.
And yet, after losing that heart-breaker, and getting steamrolled in Game 2 the next night, the Mets came back to win impressively in Game 3, and were poised to tie up the series in Game 4, until…
Pitch No. 2 – The Murphy-Buckner play. Again, even with the back-to-back walks by Tyler Clippard, that little roller to Murphy with runners on first and second and one out in the 8th inning, should have resulted in an out and no run scored, leaving two on with two out. Our closer would have needed just one out to end the inning. Instead, when the ball trickled straight through Daniel Murphy‘s wickets, with Bill Buckner likely smiling somewhere, we all knew the game was lost, and so, in effect, was the series.
And yet, the Dark Knight pitched his heart and guts out for eight innings in a desperate Game 5, and even came out for the 9th with a two run lead. He walked the leadoff hitter and then allowed a run scoring double, at which point our closer entered. And for all the discussion and arguments about who should have been pitching and when, that would not have mattered in the end if it was not for…
Pitch No. 3 – With Eric Hosmer on third base and one out, Familia gets an infield grounder. Wright fields it and throws to 1B for the second out as Hosmer breaks for home. He is a dead duck, dead to rights, dead as a door nail, and the game will surely end and the series will head back to Kansas City with Jacob deGrom ready for Game 6.
But then, Lucas Duda pulls one of the great gaffes in Mets history, throwing the ball to the backstop as the tying run scored. (Somehow, that gag job has largely been overlooked in all the hubbub about the pitchers).
And then…we knew for sure it was over. We were just waiting for the time of death.
As Bart Giamatti, famously said, baseball is designed to break your heart. Sure, the Mets’ offense was disappointing and the bullpen struggled in this Fall Classic, but in the end, three months of glorious baseball memories were drawn to a sour conclusion because of… three lousy pitches.
Talk about breaking your heart…
