World Series Miscellany: Daniel Murphy and Yoenis Cespedes Play Goat

I tried not to take sick pleasure in it. I really did. There’s no upside in it, and, as I’ve said before, I really have great affection for a large number of Mets fans, who are generally among the better fans in baseball (Better Fans in Baseball?).

But I couldn’t help myself.

When that dribbler scooted under Daniel Murphy’s glove in the 8th inning of last night’s Game Four of the World Series, allowing the Royals to tie the game, I smiled. Big:

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And when the Royals thereafter took the lead on a base hit just out of reach of Murphy, who laid for a moment on the ground, I smiled again in spite of myself:

At least Murphy finished that inning with a nice double play, but it’s not going to erase the error from peoples’ minds, or the image of him laying there, as the Royals took the lead, undoubtedly thinking about how close he’d come to getting that ball, and how the error that preceded it was his fault.

And Murphy wasn’t the only goat in the game, as Yoenis Cespedes kicked a ball in the outfield that turned an out or a single into a Salvador Perez double, which wound up netting the Royals their first run.

Then, with the Mets trailing by two and Murphy and Cespedes having singled to put two on base in the 9th, the latter inexplicably broke off of first base on a soft liner to third base that turned into an easy game-ending double play:

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Where were these guys in the NLCS?

Alas.

Now the Mets are on the brink of elimination, and the Royals don’t seem like the kind of team to lose three in a row to blow it – but, hey, you never know. Tonight, Edinson Volquez will make his second start in the series, the first coming only hours after his father passed away in the Dominican Republic. Matt Harvey gets the ball for the Mets and will try to save their season.

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Brett Taylor is the Lead Cubs Writer at Bleacher Nation, and you can find him on Twitter at @BleacherNation and on LinkedIn here. Brett is also the founder of Bleacher Nation, which opened up shop in 2008 as an independent blog about the Chicago Cubs. Later growing to incorporate coverage of other Chicago sports, Bleacher Nation is now one of the largest regional sports blogs on the web.

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