Are The Royals Really This Much Better Than The Mets?

Today is an off day for the Kansas City Royals and New York Mets, but not for us. As the teams traveled to New York City to resume the World Series on Friday with the Royals leading by two games to none, ESPN.com editor and writer Christina Kahrl joined FiveThirtyEight’s biggest baseball obsessives from her Kansas City hotel to look ahead to Game 3. As usual, the transcript below has been lightly edited.

Carl Bialik, lead news writer: Welcome, baseball fans! Historically, five out of six teams down two games to none in a best-of-seven series go on to lose. Can the Mets be the one out of six? Is there anything you see that makes that look likely?

Neil Paine, senior sportswriter: Well, according to ESPN Stats & Info, the last time the Mets were outscored by exactly seven runs in the first two games of a World Series was in 1986, and we know what happened then. (But seriously, they are in deep trouble.)

Christina Kahrl, ESPN.com editor and writer: Hrm. 1986: John McNamara, Red Sox manager and a model manager if tactical passivity is your thing. 2015: Ned Yost, Royals manager and a model manager if tactical passivity is your thing. I’m sensing a trend.

Nate Silver, editor in chief: Well, the Mets are playing at home. They probably have the best of the starting pitching matchups in Games 3 and 4, especially with Chris Young coming into Game 4 with some extra mileage on his arm.

Harry Enten, senior political writer: Let me offer this piece of hope for the Mets (because, as Neil notes, they are in trouble): The Royals are hitting at about their average through the small sample size of two games (.721 OPS vs .734 in the regular season), while the Mets are hitting quite below their average (.432 vs. .712 in the regular season).

Neil: Yeah, perhaps one ray of sunshine is that the Mets were ​this close​ to getting a split in KC, if Jeurys Familia doesn’t make that one mistake. And that was with Mets bats underperforming.

Harry: And then, surely Yost is bound to cost the Royals. Right?! Right?!

Christina: Actually, the thing you can say for Yost is that, a little like Tony La Russa in 2011 or Bruce Bochy in any World Series, he’s been working with what he’s got this postseason. Chris Young probably won’t have to face the Mets a third time through the order, he’ll be out and the Mets will be dealing with Kris Medlen or Danny Duffy in the middle innings.

Harry: Christina, you mentioned that Yost wouldn’t stick with Chris Young. The Mets bullpen is so weak that they had to bring in Jon Niese again in Game 2. And while it worked for one inning, it killed them in that second inning.

Carl: The starting-pitching matchups look good for the Mets on paper, and it does seem like the Mets bats are due to regress upward (progress?). So to what extent do we say the first two games were fluky, and to what extent do we reconsider our assessment of the two teams? Is