Royals say family requested that Volquez not be told father died before game

KANSAS CITY, Mo. —  Death comes in threes, they say.

Death cares not whether you are poor or rich, anonymous or famous, commoner or royal.

The mother of Kansas City Royals third baseman Mike Moustakas died two months ago. The father of Royals pitcher Chris Young died last month. The father of Royals pitcher Edinson Volquez died Tuesday at 63 in the Dominican Republic just hours before Game 1 of the World Series.

And then Volquez pitched. He did not win or lose, at least not in the box score. His loss will be forever.

Volquez was huddled with his family in the clubhouse after he left the game — an evening of sadness, and beyond that an instant classic. Royals manager Ned Yost said after the game that Volquez was not told of the death before the game, at his wife’s request. Fox did not say anything about it on the broadcast while he pitched for fear that Volquez, who regularly visits the clubhouse while pitching, would hear about it on TVs showing the game.

He worked six innings, tying his high this postseason, with the Kauffman Stadium crowd serenading him with “ED-DIE” chants. He appeared subdued in the early innings, at least in the context of the October backdrop.

In the fifth inning, after giving up a go-ahead home run to Curtis Granderson, he left the field and slammed his right hand against his right leg in apparent frustration. In the sixth inning, after Moustakas saved a run with a diving stop, Volquez pounded his glove, pointed to Moustakas, then waited for him so the two could tap gloves coming off the field.

And that was all for Volquez. Six innings, three runs, a quality start in the ordinary sense, on a day that was anything but ordinary.

The game lasted 14 innings, tied for the longest in the 112-year history of the World Series. It ended at 12:19 a.m., on a walk-off sacrifice fly by Eric Hosmer, giving the Royals a 5-4 victory over the New York Mets and tagging Bartolo Colon with the loss in his third inning of relief, in the first World Series appearance of his 19-year career.

There was an inside-the-park home run, from Alcides Escobar, on the first pitch the home team saw. There might have been another, for a walk-off, had Granderson not coaxed a ball into the very top of his outstretched glove in the 11th inning. There was a ground ball that bounced off third base, for a single, and a third strike that boomeranged off the backstop and right back to the catcher, who threw the batter out at first base.

There were the Mets taking the lead in the eighth inning, as Hosmer — the American League Gold Glove first baseman the last two years — misplayed a sharp ground ball for an error.

There was Alex Gordon tying the score with one out in the bottom of the ninth, on a home run to center field. For Mets closer Jeurys Familia, the run was the first he had given up this postseason, the blown save his first since July 30, the home run the first he had given up on the road since July 19.

The last time a player hit a tying or go-ahead homer in the ninth inning of Game 1: Kirk Gibson, in 1988.

The television feed was interrupted in the fourth inning by what Fox called “a rare electronics failure” of the primary and backup generators, not only causing the broadcast to disappear from the air but causing a delay of the game, until feeds for replays could be restored to both clubhouses. That delay resulted in such scenes as Mets manager Terry Collins chatting up Moustakas on the field, and Mets starter Matt Harvey alternating between throwing warmup pitches, standing by himself near the mound, and chatting up a nearby umpire.

Daniel Murphy’s streak of postseason games with a home run was ended at six, but he got the Mets’ first hit, a leadoff single in the fourth inning. He later scored, marking the first of three consecutive innings in which the Mets scored a run off Volquez.

The Mets never trailed during their sweep of the Chicago Cubs in the National League Championship Series. Then came the World Series, and the Mets trailed after one pitch.

That pitch left the Mets open to second-guessing from all across America.

First, Escobar swings at everything. Putting a first-pitch fastball right down the middle is willful ignorance of the scouting report, or incredibly poor execution.

Second, with the designated-hitter rule in effect, the Mets had a chance to play their best defensive outfield. Instead they opted for infielder Kelly Johnson as the DH, forcing Yoenis Cespedes to play center field instead of left.

This happened: Harvey threw a first-pitch fastball to Escobar, 95 mph over the heart of the plate. Escobar roped it deep into the outfield, with Cespedes converging from center and Michael Conforto from left. Conforto appeared to pull up and let Cespedes catch the ball, but the ball clanked off Cespedes.

As the ball rolled around the outfield, Escobar sprinted around the bases and scored standing up, with the first inside-the-park home run in a World Series since Mule Haas of the Philadelphia Athletics did it in 1929. Escobar then sat on the Royals bench to catch his breath, and cameras caught him laughing, apparently at the absurdity of it all.

[email protected]

A previous version of this report, citing Associated Press sources, said Volquez was aware of his father’s death before his start. This contradicts Royals manager Ned Yost’s postgame news conference and a report by The New York Times.