New York Mets: How bad defense sunk the 2015 World Series hopes

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NEW YORK, NY – NOVEMBER 01: Daniel Murphy #28 of the New York Mets makes an error on grounded ball hit by Paulo Orlando #16 of the Kansas City Royals in the twelfth inning during Game Five of the 2015 World Series at Citi Field on November 1, 2015 in the Flushing neighborhood of the Queens borough of New York City. (Photo by Mike Stobe/Getty Images) /

The Mets turned back into a pumpkin at midnight

The big play that sticks out in everyone’s mind that was not even ruled an error was the throw that Lucas Duda made in the top of the ninth of Game Five. Would a good throw have gotten Hosmer at the plate? Probably but that is not how it happened.

Was that the cause of them losing? No by the time Game Five started the Kansas City Royals were already up three games to one with all the momentum in their favor.

The defensive issues go deeper than that.

It all started in Game One of the series when Alcides Escobar hit a fly ball to left-center field and there was a miscommunication between Yoenis Cespedes and Michael Conforto and Cespedes ended up trying to backhand the flyball and it led to an inside-the-park home run.

This set the tone for the series. When Escobar crossed the plate the momentum fully shifted towards the Royals and the life was sucked out of the Mets.

An argument could be made that that play was the point in which the Mets lost the World Series.

Despite that opening error the Mets managed to salvage the game and go into the ninth inning with a one-run lead. Then Familia gave up a solo home run to Alex Gordon to dead center to tie the game. Well, that game went fourteen innings and sure enough, the game ended exactly how it started, with an error.

Alcides Escobar once again came to bat and this time he hit a routine ground ball to David Wright and due to all the injuries Wright had he was required to throw the ball almost submarine-like. The throw was wide of the bag and it caused Duda to be pulled off the first and allow Escobar to reach base and ultimately led to a Royals Game One win.

Those two errors were significant, but Daniel Murphy felt he could one-up them. Murphy had two major errors in the 2015 World Series, and they were the nails in the Mets coffin.

The first one was in Game Four in the top of the eighth with one out. The Mets were winning 3-2 and all they needed was a ground ball to try and get out of the inning. Well, they got what they needed and then Murphy, murphed. Hosmer hit a ground ball to Daniel Murphy at second base and the ball went right under his glove, Ben Zobrist came around to score and the Mets never recovered in that game.

If Murphy had fielded that cleanly and threw to first to get one out the Mets may have had an opportunity to get out of the inning with the lead.