Someone who runs Major League Baseball thought it was a smart idea to put the two teams in the World Series from last season, the Kansas City Royals and the New York Mets, on opening day together. But there was some poor taste in that choice.
Opening day inside your own ballpark also means a video that runs down the highlights of winning the World Series. When it comes in front of the team that lost it six months ago, there’s a bad taste of classlessness and not too much thinking being done on this one. The Mets became the first team in MLB history to relive a World Series defeat through a steady stream of big-screen highlights before the victor raised the championship banner on Opening Day — in their face, per ESPN.
This wouldn’t have happened in the past, but interleague play is deeply rooted now in the schedule or Major League Baseball, even in April and not like before, later on in the season for just one month or so. The schedule for the 2016 season was released before the World Series, but changes could have been made to make the Mets feel a little bit less uncomfortable, although the Royals did realize the ridiculousness of the situation, and showed a video of the Mets’ highlights from the previous postseason too.
Royals manager Ned Yost thought it was out of place: It was just strange, the pregame ceremony. I think I would have enjoyed it more if we played another team. For them to relive that, it’s a little bit awkward. The Kansas City Star compared it to sending your ex pictures of your honeymoon.
In the game itself the Royals kept things as they were in October, winning in five games back then, and winning 4-3 in this one. The pitchers who started game 5 were on the mound again, with Edinson Volquez and Matt Harvey on both sides. Volquez pitched a strong game, picking up the win allowing just two hits in six innings while Joakim Soria almost blew it for them. Eric Hosmer was 3-for-4 with one RBI, with Lorenzo Cain scoring two runs. Harvey didn’t last six innings, giving up 8 hits and four runs during his time on the mound.