2015 World Series
The 2015 World Series was the championship series of Major League Baseball's 2015 season. The 111th edition of the World Series, it was a best-of-seven playoff between the National League champion New York Mets and the American League champion Kansas City Royals. The series was played between October 27 and November 1, with the Royals winning the series 4games to 1, clinching the team's second World Series and first since the 1985 series. It was the first time since 2010 that the Series extended into November.
The Royals had home field advantage for the series because of the AL's 6–3 victory in the Major League Baseball All-Star Game. It was the 13th World Series in which home field advantage was awarded to the league that won the All-Star Game, a practice that was discontinued after the 2016 season. The series was played in a 2-3-2 format: the Royals hosted Games 1and 2, and would have hosted Games 6and 7 had they been needed. The Mets hosted Games 3, 4, and5.
The Royals became the first team since the Oakland Athletics in the 1989 World Series to win the World Series after losing in the previous year; and in addition, they became the first expansion team to win the World Series since the Florida Marlins won it all in 2003. It was also the first World Series played between two expansion teams. Salvador Pérez was named the World Series Most Valuable Player.
Background
This was the first World Series in which both teams were expansion teams, which are teams that were formed after the 1960 season; the Mets began play in 1962 and the Royals in 1969. Additionally, they have been the most successful expansion teams in the major leagues: the Mets and Royals were the first expansion teams in their respective leagues to win not only a league championship pennant but the World Series as well. With five and four pennants respectively, the Mets and Royals have the most league championships among the expansion franchises. Each team was also seeking to end a championship drought; the Royals' previous championship was in 1985, with the Mets' last title coming one year later in 1986.New York Mets
The Mets made their fifth appearance in the World Series after sweeping the Cubs 4–0 in the 2015 National League Championship Series. They had split their four previous appearances, winning the 1969 World Series against the Baltimore Orioles and the 1986 World Series against the Boston Red Sox, while losing the 1973 World Series against the Oakland Athletics and the 2000 World Series against the New York Yankees, their cross-town rivals.The Mets qualified for the postseason by winning the National League East, their sixth division title. The third-seeded Mets faced the #2 seed Los Angeles Dodgers in the 2015 NL Division Series, winning in five games. In the 2015 NLCS, Daniel Murphy led the team by hitting home runs in each game of the four-game sweep of the fifth-seeded Chicago Cubs. By winning the NLCS, the Mets became the first expansion franchise to play in the World Series five times. In addition, the Mets have made World Series appearances in all but one of their six decades of existence, not appearing in any that were played during the 1990s. This was the first World Series appearance for Mets' manager Terry Collins, who had never reached the postseason as a manager prior to 2015.
Kansas City Royals
The Royals made their second consecutive appearance in the World Series, both under Ned Yost, and fourth overall. They won the 1985 World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals, and lost their two other appearances, the 1980 World Series against the Philadelphia Phillies and the 2014 World Series against the San Francisco Giants. The Royals qualified for the postseason by winning the American League Central, their seventh division title and their first since winning the AL West in 1985. The top-seeded Royals faced the #5 seed Houston Astros in the 2015 American League Division Series, winning in five games. They followed that up in the 2015 American League Championship Series, beating the second-seeded Toronto Blue Jays in six games.By winning the ALCS, the Royals became the first team to play in consecutive World Series since the Texas Rangers played in the 2010 World Series and 2011 World Series.
Series preview
The series began on October 27. The American League won the 2015 All-Star Game, therefore the Royals had home field advantage for the series.The Mets and the Royals hadn't played each other since 2013. Though the Mets boasted four starting pitchers who could throw over —Matt Harvey, Noah Syndergaard, Jacob deGrom, and Steven Matz—the Royals had the best team batting average against pitches over that speed during the 2015 season. And while the Mets' starting pitchers had the best strikeout-to-walk ratio in MLB, the Royals' roster of strong contact hitters led baseball in contact rate. The Royals also had a superior defensive team, finishing second in the majors in Defensive Runs Saved, while the Mets finished 21st. The Royals bullpen, anchored by Wade Davis and Kelvin Herrera, also provided a strength. While the Mets hitters performed better against left-handed pitchers than right-handed pitchers, the Royals four starting pitchers, Johnny Cueto, Edinson Vólquez, Yordano Ventura, and Chris Young, and primary relievers, Davis, Herrera, Ryan Madson, and Luke Hochevar, are right-handed.
Summary
Matchups
Game 1
The ceremonial first pitch was thrown out by George Brett while Andy Grammer sang the national anthem. Matt Harvey started Game1 for the Mets, while Edinson Vólquez started for the Royals. Vólquez's father had died earlier in the day. He was not aware of his father's death until after he left the game.On the first pitch thrown by Harvey, Alcides Escobar hit an inside-the-park home run, the first in a World Series game since Mule Haas in Game 4 of the 1929 World Series, and the first hit by a leadoff batter since Patsy Dougherty did it in Game 2 of the 1903 World Series. In the fourth inning, Murphy recorded the Mets' first hit, and later scored their first run on a hit by Travis d'Arnaud. Curtis Granderson hit a home run in the fifth inning to give the Mets a 2–1 lead. The Mets took a 3–1 lead in the top of the sixth when Michael Conforto drove in Yoenis Céspedes with a sacrifice fly. Mike Moustakas then saved a run with a diving stop and throw out to first to end the top of the sixth. Eric Hosmer reduced the lead to 3–2 with a sacrifice fly, and set a new Royals' postseason run batted in record in the process. A single by Moustakas tied the game at three, but in the top of the eighth, Wilmer Flores reached on an fielding error by Hosmer, allowing Juan Lagares to score the go-ahead run and give the Mets a 4–3 lead. In the bottom of the ninth with the Mets two outs away from taking Game 1, Alex Gordon tied the game for the Royals with a home run to deep center field, as Jeurys Familia blew his first save in six postseason opportunities and his first since July 30. With the home run, Gordon became the first player since Scott Brosius in the 2001 World Series, and just the fifth player in history, to tie a World Series game on a home run in the ninth inning.
In the bottom of the 11th inning, Granderson robbed the speedy Jarrod Dyson of a multi-base hit with a running, leaping catch that prevented what probably would have been a lead-off triple. The Mets went on to get out of the inning. In the bottom of the 14th, Escobar reached first on a throwing error by David Wright, and Bartolo Colón gave up a base hit to Ben Zobrist, allowing Escobar to reach third. Hosmer hit a sacrifice fly to Granderson in right field to drive in the winning run. This was the first time in World Series history that the same player scored both the first run of the game on the first pitch, and the last run of the game on the final pitch. The game ended at 12:18a.m. CDT, lasting five hours and nine minutes. The game tied the record for the longest game by innings in World Series history, shared with Game2 in the 1916 World Series and Game3 in the 2005 World Series. However, the record has since been surpassed by Games3 of the 2018 and 2025 World Series, each of which was 18 innings long. The loss made Colón the oldest player ever to lose a World Series game. With the loss, the Mets fell to 0–5 in Game 1 of the World Series, having lost the first game in all 5 of their appearances, including the two years they won the series.
Game 2
In Game 2, Jacob deGrom started for the Mets, and Johnny Cueto started for the Royals. The ceremonial first pitch was thrown out by Medal of Honor recipients Don Ballard, Charles Hagemeister, and Roger Donlon while country singer and Missouri native Sara Evans sang the national anthem. Cueto walked Curtis Granderson to lead off the fourth and Daniel Murphy one out later. Yoenis Céspedes's hit into a forceout at second before Lucas Duda's RBI single put the Mets up 1–0. Duda produced the Mets' only other hit in the game in the second and Cueto retired them in order through the ninth.In the fifth inning, deGrom allowed a leadoff walk to Alex Gordon and subsequent single to Alex Rios before Alcides Escobar's RBI single tied the game. Ben Zobrist's groundout moved the runners up and after Lorenzo Cain lined out to center, Eric Hosmer's two-run single put the Royals up 3–1. Kendrys Morales's single moved Hosmer to third and Mike Moustakas's single made it 4-1 Royals.
The Royals blew the game open in the eighth off of Jon Niese, who allowed a leadoff single to Moustakas, subsequent single to Salvador Pérez, and RBI double to Gordon. Addison Reed relieved Niese and allowed a sacrifice fly to Paulo Orlando and RBI triple to Escobar to make it 7-1 Kansas City.
Cueto walked Murphy with two outs in the ninth before getting Cespedes to fly out to right to finish the complete game, becoming the first AL pitcher to accomplish this feat in the World Series since Jack Morris in Game7 of the 1991 World Series, as the Royals defeated the Mets and took a two games to zero lead in the series. Cueto became the first AL pitcher since Jim Lonborg in the 1967 World Series to throw a World Series complete game while allowing two hits or fewer.