With the first two games of the 2015 World Series in the books, here are some interesting facts from those contests:
Game 1
- Alcides Escobar hit first inside-the-park home run in the World Series in 86 years. It was on a first pitch to lead off the first inning. So, how many others have smacked a lead-off first-pitch inside-the-park home run, including the regular season? There’s only one other such event in recorded history, since 1938; Tim Raines did it against the Padres’ Chris Welsh on May 7th, 1981.
- The game lasted 14 innings, tying the longest record for a World Series game, along with game 2 of the 1916 series and game 3 of the 2005 series. First of which featured another first inning inside-the-park 4-bagger, though not leading off, hit by Hi Myers off of Babe Ruth, who tossed all 14 innings for a complete game win.
- The Royals’ pitching struck out a combined fifteen Mets hitters. This is tied for the second-most single game mark in World Series history, behind only when Bob Gibson famously punched out seventeen Tigers in game one of the 1968 series.
| Rk | Date | Series | Gm# | Tm | Opp | Rslt | IP | H | R | ER | BB | SO |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1968-10-02 | WS | 1 | STL | DET | W 4-0 | 9.0 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 17 |
| 2 | 2015-10-27 | WS | 1 | KCR | NYM | W 5-4 | 14.0 | 11 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 15 |
| 3 | 1985-10-24 | WS | 5 | STL | KCR | L 1-6 | 9.0 | 11 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 15 |
| 4 | 1973-10-14 | WS | 2 | NYM | OAK | W 10-7 | 12.0 | 13 | 7 | 7 | 7 | 15 |
| 5 | 1963-10-02 | WS | 1 | LAD | NYY | W 5-2 | 9.0 | 6 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 15 |
- Matt Harvey struck out an uncharacteristic two in six innings, tied for the fewest single-game mark in his career (June 10th, 2015) .
- Wilmer Flores became the first player to reach on an error while bringing in the go-ahead run in the 8th inning or later of a World Series game since… when Mookie Wilson made Vin Scully yell “Behind the bag!” I kid you not.
- Alex Gordon’s game-tying home run was the first to put team on top or tie a game in the 9th inning or later in the World Series since David Freese’s walk-off blast in 2011 game 6, exactly four years preceding this game.
Game 2
- Johnny Cueto set many records with his outstanding two-hit complete game victory. To mention a few…
- The Dominican right-hander became the first pitcher in twenty years to toss a two-hitter (or better) in the World Series, since Greg Maddux in 1995 game 1.
- He also joined Roger Clemens in 2000 as the only pitchers to threw more than one eight-plus IP, two or fewer hits outings in a single postseason.
- Like his colleague Harvey in game 1, Jacob deGrom struck out just two Royals, and that was the fewest single-game record in his big league career, along with 3 other outings.
- Daniel Murphy has cooled off a bit. Not only has he gone homerless in first 2 games of the World Series, but he’s also struck out twice in each of them. Murphy has had one other multi-K streak in his entire career, spanning over three games from July 2nd to 5th, 2014.
Murphy got bit by the SI cover jinx, apparently. (Unlikely; he still drew 2 walks against Cueto, which was impressive given how well he was throwing).
With regional covers does that even apply anymore? I am sure some Royal was on a Regional cover too.
Weird… I live in the Midwest. Unsure why I’d get a NYM cover instead of KCR…
So I have heard the fact about the length of Game 1 being tied for the longest ever a couple times now and I have to protest. The ROAD team won in 2005 Game 3, whereas the HOME team won here. This gave was 2 outs shorter than that one.
Welcome aboard, Kazuto.
In addition to Tim Raines’ first inning, first pitch, leadoff IPHR, there are 27 other first inning leadoff IPHR’s in P-I’s event database for which the count is not known. Six of those 27 were hit by Royals, 5 of them (by Freddie Patek, Jim Wohlford, Frank White and two by Willie Wilson) in Kauffman Stadium in a 9 year period (1975-83). Wilson also had one at Yankee Stadium.
Doug, Royals stadium/Kauffman Stadium had a penchant for inside the parkers in the 70s/80s, in part because of the artificial turf. But the other factor was one you could see in Game 1 on a Zobrist double that Granderson played perfectly. The corners at Kauffman are rounded in such a fashion that a ball hit into the corner does not bounce back out at all, instead it runs along the fence back toward right center (or left center) field. An outfielder who chases a ball into the corner is going to find himself chasing it along the warning track while the batter circles the bases. Granderson (who obviously knows Kauffman from his years with the Tigers and Yankees) properly ran to the wall first and waited for the ball to roll right to him.
Escobar’s walk-off run in game 1 is only the third in the WS by a player reaching base on an error. Other two were by Ken Griffey in game 2 in 1976, and the series-winning run by Craig Counsell in game 7 in 1997.