November 1, 2015 [LINK / comment]
I expected this to be a fairly even World Series, with the Kansas City Royals' relentless hitting and base-running offsetting the New York Mets' stellar pitching and slugging. Game 4 was another classic back-and-forth affair, full of dramatic twists of fate and cruel ironies. It looked like the Mets were about to even the series 2-2, with a 3-2 lead going into the eighth inning. Then all of a sudden, Daniel Murphy misplayed a ground ball hit by Eric Hosmer, and the Royals seized the opportunity to stage a three-run rally that ended up deciding the game. Final score: Royals 5, Mets 3. So now the Mets are on the brink of elimination.
In tonight's game, which started about an hour ago, Curtis Granderson put the Mets on the board with a leadoff home run in the bottom of the first inning. (I was actually uploading the revised diagrams at the time, and missed seeing it live!) I kind of hope that the series returns to K.C., but I'll be rooting for the Royals in any case.
For the record, I am not happy at all about baseball extending into the month of November. MLB officials need to consider ways to compress the regular season, either with fewer games (perhaps going back to 154 games, like it was before 1961) or else having scheduled double-headers throughout the season.
After seeing aerial shots of Citi Field on TV, I noticed some discrepancies in my diagrams in the area around the bullpens in right-center field. So, I went back and consulted some photos that Mike Zurawski had brought to my attention a few months ago, and made some small revisions to the Citi Field diagrams. One detail that I had failed to account for is that the former "385" distance marker in deep left center field was removed prior to the 2015 season, and a new "370" marker has been put in the power alley in left-center field. As with yesterday's "tweak" of my Kauffman Stadium diagrams, it is not worth considering a diagram update per se.