NEW YORK -- The Kansas City Royals were six outs away from being even in the World Series when a combination of grit, patience and luck turned the Fall Classic back in their favor.
Trailing by a run entering the eighth inning, the Royals scored three times off relievers Tyler Clippard and Jeurys Familia and beat the New York Mets 5-3 to take a 3-1 lead in the Series.
With one out, Ben Zobrist and Lorenzo Cain reached on back-to-back walks against Clippard. Daniel Murphy booted an Eric Hosmer ground ball to allow Kansas City to score the tying run, and Mike Moustakas and Salvador Perez followed with RBI singles off Familia to put the Royals up 5-3. Wade Davis closed it out with a two-inning save, and the Royals moved to within one win of a world championship.
It was business as usual for Kansas City: According to the Elias Sports Bureau, the Royals have won five games this postseason in which they trailed by multiple runs, tying the MLB record set by the 1996 Yankees.
Thumbs up: With a leadoff single in the first inning, Alcides Escobar extended his hitting streak in the 2015 postseason to 14 games. That ties the single-season record shared by Marquis Grissom (1995) and Manny Ramirez (2004). Escobar's 22 hits this October also tie the record for a shortstop in a single postseason. Derek Jeter collected 22 on three occasions -- in 1996, 2003 and 2009.
Zobrist, Kansas City's No. 2 hitter, banged out his eighth double of the postseason Saturday, tying the single-season record shared by Albert Pujols and David Freese. He also drew a pivotal walk to kick-start the Royals' decisive three-run uprising in the eighth.
Thumbs down: Alex Rios had an embarrassing brain cramp in the third inning, forgetting how many outs there were on a Curtis Granderson sacrifice fly to right field with Wilmer Flores on third base. Rios, who hesitated before throwing home, nearly got a reprieve when the Royals challenged whether Flores left the bag too soon. But the replay review failed to show conclusively that Flores had left early, and Flores scored New York's second run of the inning to give the Mets a 2-0 lead.
What's next: The Royals will try to wrap up the Series on Sunday night behind Edinson Volquez, who is returning from his father's funeral in the Dominican Republic. They have some margin for error knowing that even if they drop Game 5, they only have to take one of two games at Kauffman Stadium, where they posted a 53-28 record during the regular season.