How World Series is Different Without Kansas City Royals

Home Runs

This is the biggest difference between the recent Kansas City Royals World Series and this year’s edition. It’s not like the Royals and Mets didn’t hit home runs during the 2015 series. This year has just seen a ton more.

Kansas City and New York combined for eight homers in five games, but only two of those came from the Royals — both occurred in Game 1. Alcides Escobar hit one to lead off the game, but that was a fluke inside-the-park home run. The only Kansas City Royals player to hit a baseball over the outfield fence in the entire World Series was Alex Gordon in the ninth inning of the opener.

For the Mets’ part, only three players hit home runs. Curtis Granderson went deep three times, Michael Conforto twice and David Wright once. That’s five players hitting home runs. It’s the same number of players who went deep when the Giants and Royals went seven games in 2014. Each of those five (Gregor Blanco, Hunter Pence, Omar Infante, Mike Moustakas and Salvador Perez) homered exactly one time.

This World Series has seen seven or more players homer in two separate games. Eight players went deep in Game 2, and seven homered in Game 5. The first game of the series finished 3-1 in favor of the Dodgers with three of the four runs coming on solo homers. Seven players already have multiple home runs.