Game 1 between New York Mets and the Kansas City Royals for the Major League Baseball (MLB) World Series starts at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday (air time on FOX, 8 p.m. ET game time) at the Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City, Missouri.
The New York Mets vs Kansas City Royals World Series is touted as between the experienced Royals vs the upstart Mets; contact hitting vs power pinching, a spacious stadium vs. power bats and, Edinson Volquez vs. Matt Harvey.
The Mets is expected to be powered by Harvey, whose innings limit has been cast aside in pursuit of a ring, the Mets boast a devastating rotation and are coming off a four-game sweep of the Cubs in the National League Championship Series.
Another Mets player that the Royals are closely watching is Daniel Murphy. Indeed Royals owner David Glass sees Murphy as their number one threat to capture this year's World Series title.
With his record homeruns and hitting .421 in the playoffs, the Royals are aware of Murphy's capabilities. "Apparently they have the reincarnation of Babe Ruth over there," Glass said.
"Yeah, we've watched hours and hours of video on all those guys," Royals manager Ned Yost said. "He's a tremendous player, he always has been. He's an MVP-caliber-type guy when he's healthy. He looks completely healthy now. He's a veteran guy and he's a very, very nice player."
The Royals have been wanting to redeem themselves. Kansas last won the World Series in 1985 and came close to tying Game 7 last year, while the Mets won the World title in 1986. Both teams are hoping that their pitching powers can deliver the championship this time.
"I think going into the clubhouse, going through our workouts," said Harvey, "I think this group is very confident, very dedicated and very focused on our task at hand."
The Royals, who advanced with a 4-3 win over the Blue Jays in Game 6 of the American League Championship Series, sport a balanced, battle-tested club looking to finish what it started last season.
"It was a driving force for all those guys coming into Spring Training," said Royals left fielder Alex Gordon, "knowing we want to get back in that situation and get that one extra out, that one extra run."
90 Percent Rain Forecast for Game 1 of World Series
Meanwhile, weathermen have forecasted a 90 percent chance of rain on Tuesday night's Game 1 of the New York Mets vs Kansas City Royals World Series and the MLB hopes the game will proceed on time without too much interruption, reported News Day.
"My understanding of the forecast is that we have a challenge early in the day," MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said. "We're hopeful that by game time that we'll be able to play. That's our current view.''
Manfred stated that the MLB is trying to avoid a situation in which "we start at 8:07 and get rained out at 8:12 and burn two starting pitchers . . . I think that I would be reluctant to begin a game or even more reluctant to begin the warm-up process if I didn't think we could play a substantial portion of that game."
Should Game 1 is rained out, the game will be played on Wednesday night and Game 2 will be adjusted on Thursday night. Games 3-5 are scheduled for Friday-Sunday at Citi Field.
TV Channel: All games will be televised on FOX
Online: You can watch a live stream of every game on Fox Sports GO
