Just another night of postseason baseball. A position player -- Cliff Pennington, in case you're keeping score -- pitches for the first time in the postseason, not including Babe Ruth. Kyle Schwarber homered again. Daniel Murphy homered again, speaking of Babe Ruth. The Kansas City Royals beat the Toronto Blue Jays 14-2 and the New York Mets beat the Chicago Cubs 5-2, and now both teams are one win away from a World Series. It would be the first World Series ever between two expansion teams, which is kind of weird and kind of wild and kind of neat. But we're not there yet. Don't give up, Blue Jays and Cubs fans.

1. Cubs be Cubs. I mean, I don't even want to go here. It feels cruel, but it's hard to avoid ... the Cubs do find unusual ways to lose in the postseason. This game was tied 2-2 entering the top of the sixth, and it appeared the game would ultimately be decided by a cage match between Daniel Murphy and Kyle Schwarber. Then the crazy happened. Maybe that's to be expected when we played the latest game on the calendar in Wrigley Field history and the game-time temperature was 72 degrees. In a matter of three half-innings, all this happened:

• Yoenis Cespedes singled against Trevor Cahill -- remember, a pitcher who had been dumped by the Diamondbacks in April and later let go by the Braves and Dodgers before the Cubs found him on the scrap heap -- and Lucas Duda sacrificed him to second, much to the uproar of the anti-bunt crowd.

• Cespedes stole third. Kind of a Cespedes specialty: In his major league career, he's 19-for-23 stealing third and just 18-for-32 stealing second. Heads-up baserunning play.

• After Travis d'Arnaud grounded out sharply to Kris Bryant, Michael Conforto was batting with two outs. Joe Maddon had three choices: Have Cahill pitch to Conforto; bring in lefty (Travis Wood) to pitch to Conforto, knowing the Mets probably counter with a right-handed batter (Juan Lagares or Michael Cuddyer); pitch around Conforto or walk him and pitch to Wilmer Flores for the righty-righty matchup. Cahill pitched to Conforto. I get that you don't want to open up a big inning, but there were two outs and while Conforto was hitting .091 in the postseason, I like the Cahill-Flores battle more for the Cubs. Anyway, Cahill gets two swinging strikes on Conforto. A knuckle-curve in the dirt. Another knuckle-curve in the dirt. Cespedes dancing halfway down the third-base line in his best Jackie Robinson impersonation. Another curveball ... swing and a miss ... and the ball gets away from Miguel Montero. Cespedes scores, no throw to first. Cubs be Cubs.

• After that, Flores hit a soft line drive to right field that Jorge Soler -- who had homered earlier -- played horribly. The ball bounced past Soler, and Conforto scored easily ... except the ball got stuck in the ivy. Conforto had to return to third base, and Terry Collins let Jacob deGrom hit instead of sending up a pinch hitter. DeGrom flew out, and for a moment it appeared this could be the Cubs' saving grace: The ivy saved a run! This is where things turn!

• Nope. In the top of the seventh, David Wright doubled with one out. Then came the Cubs stuff. Murphy singled when Bryant hesitated just enough on his throw. Cespedes lined a ball to Schwarber -- he had also homered earlier, his fifth of the postseason -- who took a couple of steps back, and the ball clanked off his glove. It was scored a hit for some reason. Murphy raced around to third, then scored on a groundout.

And that's how the Mets beat the Cubs.

Cubs should probably trade Schwarber to the White Sox for Avisail Garcia so he can DH and they can get a real outfielder.

— Collin Whitchurch (@cowhitchurch) October 21, 2015

2. The little things. Baseball analysis is often a big-picture view of the sport: What's this player worth? How does this player fit into the budget? This team has a good rotation or a good bullpen or a scary lineup. Baseball people love to talk about the little things. With good reason. Maybe they're hard to quantify, but how many of these postseason games turn on one misplay -- or in this game, a wild pitch, an infield single and a misplay in left field? The Cubs lost because of those little things. The Mets won with some of the little things -- Cespedes' steal, Murphy racing around to third on Schwarber's play and then getting a good jump from third to beat Anthony Rizzo's throw home.

3. Daniel Murphy. When will the Mets commission the statue? Absolutely incredible. We'll repeat this factoid: Murphy had homered in back-to-back games once in his career. Now he has homered in five consecutive postseason games, joining Carlos Beltran as the only players to do so in the postseason. He is running bases like Rickey Henderson. He's Superman.

"In case you're just joining us, Daniel Murphy hit another home run, because a game was played"

— Anthony De Rosa (@AntDeRosa) October 21, 2015

4. Alcides Escobar leads off with a bunt single. At the beginning of the postseason, I was critical of Ned Yost's decision to move Escobar back to the leadoff position. Escobar had batted there all season until early September, when Yost finally moved him and his sub-.300 OBP down to ninth in the order. Then he moved Escobar back to the leadoff spot with five games remaining in the regular season. The Royals won all five games. So when I suggested that this decision could hurt the Royals, I heard it from the fans: The Royals win with Escobar hitting leadoff. I even heard Yost say this.

OK, the numbers. The Royals went 82-49 when Escobar started and hit leadoff. Which means the Royals went 13-18 when he didn't. So the fans and Yost were right, and they're also thinking back to 2014, when Escobar was moved into the leadoff position late in the season and the Royals went on their postseason run with Escobar hitting leadoff each playoff game. Anyway, you can probably guess where I'm going with this: Escobar had a .296 OPB batting leadoff; the Royals were .295 as a team. Escobar created 3.26 runs per 27 outs; the Royals created 3.24 as a team.

The Royals don't win because Escobar hits leadoff; it's just something that happened. Last postseason he had a.303 OBP and scored eight runs in 15 games. Nothing special about that. In his postseason career, he has drawn one walk in 106 plate appearances.

That's a long intro to saying Escobar has had some big hits this postseason and his bunt single against R.A. Dickey on the second pitch of the game got the four-run inning started. Ben Zobrist -- how good of a ballplayer is this guy? -- then hit a two-run homer, and the Royals were off.

Is Yost a mad genius? Look, I would still slide Escobar down to eighth or ninth and simply move everyone up a slot -- Zobrist hitting leadoff, Lorenzo Cain second, Eric Hosmer third and so on. I think that's a better lineup and would make it more likely that Kendrys Morales or Mike Moustakas gets an extra plate appearance instead of Escobar.

But I've learned my lesson: In Ned we trust.

I've said it before (once, in all of history, and it was yesterday, but I've said it) and I'll say it again: the Royals are *relentless.*

— Ken Tremendous (@KenTremendous) October 20, 2015

5. Ned Yost's quick hook. Speaking of our man Ned, I've raised questions about his slow hooks with Edinson Volquez and Yordano Ventura in the first two games of the series. Again, things worked out. But I'll give him credit for not hesitating to remove Chris Young, even with a 5-2 lead in the fifth and Young one out away from a potential "win." But when Ben Revere singled with two outs in the fifth and Josh Donaldson up, Yost went to the bullpen for Luke Hochevar, who would throw 12 pitches in getting four outs against the meat of the Toronto lineup.

After that, the Royals blew it open with four more runs in the seventh.

Young had the highest percentage of fly balls allowed of any pitcher in the majors with 100 innings. And maybe of all pitchers; I only checked guys who were primarily starters. The Blue Jays, not surprisingly, had the highest percentage of home runs hit on their fly balls of any team in the majors. So on paper this wasn't a good matchup for Young, especially in the Rogers Centre, where the ball flies and the Blue Jays steal signs (I kid, I kid -- they only do that when Johnny Cueto pitches). Yost even got the bullpen going in the third inning, when the Jays scored twice and had Edwin Encarnacion up with two outs and a runner on, the score 5-2. Young got him on a fly ball to left.

Here's the thing about Yost: He doesn't really like to make decisions. He likes a structured lineup, he likes his defined bullpen roles, he doesn't pinch hit or use relievers for one or two batters. According to this look at managers by Ben Lindbergh of Grantland in what he called the “Managerial Meddling Index,” Yost ranked last among all skippers in his deviation from the norm. Basically, it suggests that Yost isn't an active manager. He kind of rolls the ball out and tell his guys to go play. It works.

So with Young, he clearly had a plan ahead of time: Two times through the order. He let him face Revere and that was it.

Chris Young: "Wins for a pitcher, it's a somewhat ridiculous stat. It has been for a long time."

— Andy McCullough (@McCulloughStar) October 21, 2015