Kansas City is up 2-0 in the best-of-seven World Series with the action shifting to New York for three games this weekend.
Johnny Cueto was at his very best in Game 2 on Wednesday night at Kauffman Stadium, yielding just two hits over nine innings of one-run ball as the Royals trounced the visiting Mets 7-1 in front of a loud, celebratory crowd. Kansas City won 5-4 in a wet 14-inning Game 1 marathon on Tuesday night.
Cueto ran into some trouble in the top of the fourth inning Wednesday, but the Mets were only able to squeeze out one run in that frame and they were held silent the rest of the way. The impending free agent right-hander generated chants of “CUE-TO, CUE-TO” toward the end of his outing -- the very opposite of the jeers he heard in Toronto during the ALCS, when he gave up eight runs and didn’t make it out of the third.
This was much more like the Cueto we saw in Game 5 of the ALDS against the Astros, an eight-inning performance that pushed the Royals back into the Championship Series.
Mets starter Jacob deGrom looked sharp out of the gate on Wednesday, but the Royals did their Royals thing in the bottom of the fifth, tallying four runs on three RBI singles. They tacked on another three runs in the eighth with a torrent of extra-base hits against the New York bullpen.
Alcides Escobar, Eric Hosmer, and Mike Moustakas were the big offensive stars for KC, combining to go 6-for-12 with five runs batted in. It was Escobar’s RBI single in the fifth that tied the game and Hosmer’s RBI single later in the fifth that gave the Royals the lead for good.
New York will turn to rookie Noah Syndergaard on Friday night at Citi Field to try to get back in this thing. Kansas City will counter with young but experienced right-hander Yordano Ventura.