Kuzul

The Kansas City Royals may have found the blueprint to counter the New York Mets’ strong pitching: Hit the ball anywhere and hope for the best.

Through two games of the 2015 World Series, the Royals have done just that. After a thrilling Game 1 that went late into the Kansas City night, the Royals’ bats came alive in Game 2 as the American League champs took a 2-0 lead with a 7-1 win on Wednesday.

As the Fall Classic shifts to Citi Field for Game 3, Kansas City looks to take another step in winning its first World Series since 1985. Here’s all the info you need for the pivotal matchup Friday night in New York.

Game 3 Info

When: Friday, Oct. 30

Where: Citi Field

Time: 8:07 p.m. ET

TV: Fox

Live Stream: Fox Sports Go

Probable Starters: Yordano Ventura (KC) vs. Noah Syndergaard (NYM)

Preview

If you’re a fan of young, stellar pitchers going at it in an all-important playoff game, then this is the game for you.

The Royals will turn to 24-year-old Yordano Ventura, two days after Johnny Cueto pitched the first complete game by an American League pitcher in the World Series since 1991. No pressure, right?

Opposite Ventura will be Noah Syndergaard, the 23-year-old hard-throwing right-hander who is 1-1 this postseason. The last time Thor took the mound, he went 5.2 innings and allowed only one earned run in the Mets’ 4-1 victory in Game 2 of the National League Championship Series. That was back on Oct. 18, so this is the first time in 11 days that Syndergaard will pitch.

Ventura was the Royals’ starter in the Game 6 clincher of the American League Championship Series against the Toronto Blue Jays exactly one week ago. He went 5.1 innings and struck out five while only allowing one run but was awarded a no-decision.

Neither of these two young hurlers has shown any signs that he’s scared of the bright lights of postseason baseball. Although Ventura is 0-1 this postseason and has been involved in three straight no-decisions, he’s struck out 19 batters in the last three games. 

But there is good news for the Mets. Ventura allowed seven runs in those three games. He bounced back against Toronto in Game 6 by only allowing one run, but this might be a good time for New York to get its offense back on track.

The Mets only mustered two hits in Game 2 against Cueto. Both of those came off the bat of Lucas Duda, and while he continues to be a hot bat for the Mets (he’s hit .500 in his last four games), New York needs more production at the plate.

MLB.com’s Michael Baron goes a little more in-depth as to how much of a struggle it’s been offensively for the Mets:

In fairness to the Mets, a lot of their struggles can be attributed to dealing with the buzz saws of Clayton Kershaw and Zack Greinke. Yet, they still went 2-2 in games they pitched and defeated both Jake Arrieta and Jon Lester in the National League Championship Series as well.

But the Mets offense has been missing since the sixth inning of Game 1 of the World Series against Kansas City – they have just seven hits and scored no earned runs in their last 17 at-bats against Royals pitching.

It’s even been a glaring struggle for Daniel Murphy, who had what seemed to be the postseason of his life through the first two rounds. He has hit 2-for-9 in the World Series and went 0-for-2 with two walks in Game 2. If Murphy can’t start any rallies for the Mets like he did in the NLCS, then it’ll be next to impossible for New York to garner any other run support for Syndergaard.

Meanwhile, the Royals are getting contributions from nearly everyone in the lineup. One look at the box score from Game 2 will tell you that. Seven of the nine batters for Kansas City recorded a hit on Wednesday. Eric Hosmer and Alcides Escobar both recorded two hits and two RBI.

That’s the difference in this series at the moment.

Like Baron noted, the Mets have recorded a total of seven hits in the last 17 innings. The Royals have gotten 21 hits and have outscored New York 12-1 since the sixth inning of Game 1. ESPN.com’s Jayson Stark shows just how clutch the Royals have been when they’ve gotten runners in scoring position:

Thirteen games into their postseason, they’re hitting .222 with nobody on base. But guess what they’re hitting with runners on base? How about .330. With runners in scoring position? How about .340. With runners in scoring position and two outs? How about .311.

You can call that luck. You can call that random. You can call that happenstance if you want. But you know what the Royals call it? Winning. And they wonder how long they’ll have to keep winning this way for the world to catch on. This is what they do.

The Royals haven’t faced the caliber of pitching that the Mets have. But even when the Royals faced the San Francisco Giants in the World Series last year, they found ways to score and make contact off the Giants’ strong rotation (with the exception of Game 7 and Madison Bumgarner). The Royals don’t beat teams with power and have shown that once again in this World Series.

Syndergaard is the Mets’ last chance to quiet the Royals’ bats. While Ventura has given up some runs, he doesn’t get rattled. He won twice in the World Series last year, including a seven-inning masterpiece in Game 6 in Kansas City.

While Ventura is the guy the Mets would want to see in this must-win situation, it won’t matter on Friday. Ventura pitches another gem, and the Royals inch closer to ending their 30-year championship drought.

Prediction: Kansas City 6, New York 3

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

The World Series may be in full swing, but it’s never too early to look ahead to the offseason. Over the next few slides, we’ll identify a handful of teams that need significant makeovers to contend in 2016. 

The teams highlighted in this slideshow aren’t cellar-dwellers with slim chances at a playoff push next season. We chose teams that entered the 2015 season with high expectations only to falter and miss the postseason after disappointing campaigns. 

Now, all of those teams face crucial decisions this winter if they want to erase the painful memories of 2015.

The Baltimore Orioles must find a way to replace several key players leaving for free agency. The Chicago White Sox can’t win without an upgraded offense, and the Detroit Tigers need to bolster their starting rotation. The Cincinnati Reds have already started the rebuilding process, and the San Diego Padres probably should. 

Let us know what you think in the comments section below. Which teams do you think have the most work to do to get back into contention next season? What are some moves you’d like to see your team make this winter? 

The offseason is right around the corner. Consider this a primer identifying the teams that need to hit it out of the park this winter.

Begin Slideshow

The New York Mets were within two outs of winning Game 1 of the World Series on the road. Instead, an Alex Gordon ninth-inning home run highlighted a Kansas City Royals comeback victory, and they followed it with a blowout triumph in Game 2.

So while all the American League champions technically did was hold serve at home, it still feels like the Mets return to New York with their backs against the wall. They desperately need a win in Game 3 to avoid the dreaded 0-3 deficit and start rebuilding the positive vibes they had coming out of the National League Championship Series.

Let’s check all of the important viewing information for Friday’s contest. That’s followed by a preview and prediction for Game 3 of the Fall Classic.

Game 3 Details

Where: Citi Field in Queens, New York

When: Friday, Oct. 30, at 8:07 p.m. ET

Watch: Fox

Live Stream: Fox Sports Go

Tickets: ScoreBig.com

Preview

The Mets gave up just eight runs in their four-game sweep of the Chicago Cubs in the last round. They have allowed 12 runs over the first two games against the Royals. And when you neutralize New York’s usual advantage on the mound, the NL champs are far more beatable.

Noah Syndergaard will become the latest member of the team’s outstanding young rotation to make an effort to slow down the red-hot Royals. He posted a 3.24 ERA with 166 strikeouts in 150 innings during the regular season and has carried that success into the playoffs (2.77 ERA in three games).

He’s slated to face off with Yordano Ventura. One of Kansas City’s breakout stars last season, the 24-year-old right-hander has struggled so far this postseason. He sports a 5.09 ERA and 1.58 WHIP in four starts, though his team ultimately won three of those games.

That said, Syndergaard can’t be concerned about what Ventura will do. His hands are full with trying to navigate a Royals lineup that provides a unique challenge by going against the conventional wisdom on how to build a team.

In an era where front offices are increasingly willing to accept high strikeout totals in the never-ending search for power, the Royals are still leaning on an old-school approach. They put the ball in play, which forces defenses to make plays and pitchers to work out of jams.

Kansas City ranked 24th in homers during the regular season, but it was also the only team to strike out less than 1,000 times (973). The Atlanta Braves were the next lowest at 1,107.

Jayson Stark of ESPN.com passed along comments from Royals hitting coach Dale Sveum about the group of batters he works with.

“When we get to crunch time, we can’t strike out, because we’re not going to walk very much,” Sveum said. “It’s a mindset, and to everybody’s credit, everybody buys into it—just to battle and see if we can hit outfield grass with men in scoring position.”

The approach is having a clear impact on the series, as ESPN Stats and Info highlighted:

Along with more typical performances from their pitchers, the Mets also need the offense to wake up if they are going to turn this series around. The quartet of Daniel Murphy, David Wright, Curtis Granderson and Yoenis Cespedes is 6-for-38 (.158) so far.

At the start of the series, it felt like there would be a lot of close, hard-fought games. That hasn’t changed despite the Royals’ convincing win in Game 2. It would still be a surprise if Kansas City just runs away with the title given how well the Mets played to get this far.

So expect a narrow New York victory Friday night to add some more drama to the equation heading into Game 4 and beyond.

Prediction: Mets 3, Royals 2

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

The Kansas City Royals have taken a commanding 2-0 lead in the World Series, but the New York Mets will get a chance to turn things around with three games in a row at home.

After sweeping the Chicago Cubs in the National League Championship Series, the Mets have seen their bats go cold and their young pitchers struggle through the first two games. Based on the way the Royals have played so far, this could lead to a sweep if things don’t change in a hurry.

Still, the Mets were 49-32 at Citi Field this season and should get a momentum boost from their return and the home fans. You can be certain that after getting this far they won’t just give up now.

That could lead to an exciting Game 3 of the World Series.

World Series Game 3

When: Friday, Oct. 30

Time: 8:07 p.m. ET

Where: Citi Field, Queens, New York

TV: Fox

Live Stream: Fox Sports Go

Probable Pitchers: Yordano Ventura (Royals) vs. Noah Syndergaard (Mets)

Preview

The Mets’ biggest strength during the season and in the playoffs has been the depth of their rotation. While other teams might have an ace they can count on followed by mediocre starters, this team can send out a top pitcher every night.

Tampa Bay Rays pitcher Chris Archer, who has worked as an analyst during the playoffs, discussed the Mets starters favorably:

After Matt Harvey and Jacob deGrom failed to get the job done, it’s now Noah Syndergaard‘s turn. The rookie has looked good all season with a 3.24 ERA, which has improved to 2.77 in three postseason appearances (two starts). Considering he also has a 7-2 record with a 2.46 ERA at home this season, there is reason for the Mets to be excited about another shutdown performance.

The problem is that Syndergaard‘s strength—a fastball that reaches 100 mph with regularity—doesn’t seem to faze the Royals.

Kansas City has an incredibly deep lineup that features contact hitters at every spot of the batting order. No matter what you throw at them, the Royals find a way to get the bat on the ball and wait for good things to happen.

Alec Dopp of Gammons Daily provided a look at what the Royals have done against the other Mets starters in this series:

Both managers had similar thoughts after Game 2:

It might sound simple, but putting the ball in play is enough to start rallies and win games. With the Mets infielders lacking range defensively, the balls are going to find more holes than usual.

Syndergaard doesn’t have as good of secondary stuff as Harvey and deGrom, which doesn’t bode well for his chances of success in Game 3.

On the other side, Yordano Ventura has pitched just well enough to help his team win in each of his last three starts. He hasn’t completed six innings yet in the postseason, but he also hasn’t given up more than three runs in any appearance. With a well-rested bullpen that can be dominant at times, this should be enough.

The Mets offense hasn’t really shown up as expected after the long layoff from the NLCS. The red-hot Daniel Murphy is just 2-for-9 with no extra-base hits in two games, while the team as a whole is batting just .165, thanks mostly to the great work of Johnny Cueto.

If this lineup can’t get to Ventura early, the trio of Kelvin Herrera, Ryan Madson and Wade Davis will do the rest and prevent any chance of comeback.

The New York fans will be excited for their first World Series home game since 2000, but the excitement will wear off quickly as the Royals take Game 3.

Prediction: Royals 4, Mets 2

Follow Rob Goldberg on Twitter for more year-round sports analysis. 

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

NEW YORK — One by one, these hitters who make up the relentless Kansas City Royals lineup are reducing this game to its smallest common denominator.

“You can’t get hits unless you put the ball in play,” third baseman Mike Moustakas said following the Royals’ 7-1 Game 2 rout of the New York Mets late Wednesday night, which gave Kansas City a 2-0 lead as this World Series heads back to Queens.

No truer words were ever spoken.

The Royals are winning in a completely different way than the dominant New York Yankees of 1998 to 2000 and the Boston Red Sox of 2004. Those beastly champions worked hard at driving the rival starting pitcher out of the game by grinding out at-bats and running up pitch counts.

Their goal was to exhaust the poor starter by midgame and then expose the soft spots in their opponent’s bullpen.

Kansas City’s approach behind Moustakas, Alcides Escobar, Eric Hosmer and Co. could not be more different.

And in case the Mets thought the Royals were kidding by, say, Escobar’s penchant for swinging at first pitch fastballs, well, whoops. When he ripped Matt Harvey’s first-pitch fastball for an inside-the-park home run to start Game 1, the only questions were how and why Harvey delivered exactly what everyone in the baseball world knew Escobar was looking for.

“I’m going to continue to be aggressive,” Escobar said after delivering a triple in Game 2.

With the Royals having built a lineup with no weak links, every inning starts out as a potential rally. They are like kids at a birthday party taking whack after whack at a pinata. Maybe it is the next whack that will make the candy fall out.

“We definitely like to swing early in the count,” Hosmer said. “I think we have good game plans going in.”

He noted that the American League Central Division has several hard throwers, such as Cleveland‘s Corey Kluber, Detroit‘s Justin Verlander and the Chicago White Sox‘s Chris Sale, which helps the Royals stay tuned up. He praised hitting coach Dale Sveum’s aggressive philosophy, which encourages the Royals to stay coiled and ready.

“All of that makes for a good fastball-hitting team,” Hosmer said.

But while it is one thing to be aggressive, it is quite another to pull that off while remaining a not good but great contact-hitting team from top to bottom.

The Royals struck out less than any other team in the majors this season, just 973 times. The Royals, in fact, were the only team to finish with fewer than 1,000 strikeouts.

This is what Jacob deGrom, the hottest pitcher going this October, ran into in Game 2.

In obtaining only three swings-and-misses, deGrom had his lowest total of the season. He reached several two-strike counts but finished with just two strikeouts.

Whatever he threw, and deGrom has four above-average pitches in his quiver, he could not put the Royals away.

“As a hitter, if you can spoil a pitcher’s pitch and fight it off and do that until they make a mistake, then you [can] try to do damage on it,” Hosmer said. “It can definitely get frustrating as a pitcher, especially if you’re hitting spots and guys aren’t budging and they’re not swinging at a curveball down that goes in the dirt or fighting your curveball up that’s in a money spot.

“I think the approach of a good hitter is to foul off pitchers’ pitches until they make a mistake.”

As the beleaguered Mets are seeing, Kansas City has a lineup stocked with good hitters.   

The American League average of 7.53 strikeouts per game in 2015 narrowly missed the record of 7.54 set in 2013. In fact, the AL average for strikeouts per game reached 7.33 in 2012 and has remained at least that high in each of the next three years (7.51 in 2014).

Those four seasons are the only times since the advent of the AL in 1901 that team strikeouts per game were at 7.0 or higher.

The Royals in 2015 checked in at 6.00.

“Playing in this big ballpark (Kauffman Stadium) we’ve had to do some things, had to change our swings a little bit,” Moustakas said. “Not trying to go up top all the time [at high pitches, attempting to hit them a long ways], just trying to get base hits and make solid contact.

“Our motto in this clubhouse has always been keep the line moving, and we do a pretty good job of that by getting the next guy up.”

Center fielder Lorenzo Cain said: “We’re not afraid to hit with two strikes. A lot of guys cut their swings down to put the ball in play, and see what happens.

“We’d rather put it in play because a lot of [our] guys can run, and you never know…”

Still stung by their Game 7 loss to San Francisco in last year’s World Series and chapped that the highly respected Baseball Prospectus projected them to go 72-90 this season, the Royals set out from their first workout this spring to do some damage. Not just intent on proving they were no one-hit wonder, the Royals envisioned all spring and summer returning to exactly where they are now.

They are a no-nonsense team that is all about results. Ben Zobrist learned that as soon as he stepped into the clubhouse after the Royals acquired him from Oakland in July.

The Royals and Athletics waged an ugly, three-day brawl in Kansas City in April, and though Zobrist did not instigate it and was not in the middle of it, things could have been really awkward when he landed in Kansas City.

Instead, they weren’t.

“Not really,” Zobrist said. “I talked to [Kansas City closer] Wade Davis about it a little bit because Wade is a former teammate in Tampa Bay, and he said as ugly as some of that was early in the season, it kind of brought the team together. It kind of made them become more of a team.

“For me, nobody ever made me feel uncomfortable about that situation. We just kind of laughed about it and that was it.”

Laughed, and then went out to hit, of course.

What else?

Keep the line moving, they say. And they are.

On the ropes against Houston in the division series, a Royals team that trailed in each of the five games roared back to win.

Against Toronto in the championship series, same approach.

“We’ve won the same way every time,” said veteran Jonny Gomes, who is not on the playoff roster after being acquired from Atlanta in August. “That being said, it’s not a fluke.”

Scott Miller covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.

Follow Scott on Twitter and talk baseball.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

This thing isn’t over yet.

That’s what uneasy Mets fans are telling themselves as the World Series shifts to Queens for Game 3 on Friday (8:07 p.m. ET on Fox), with the Kansas City Royals holding a commanding 2-0 lead.

But it also has the benefit of being true. Yes, the odds are stacked against the Mets. Of the 50 teams that have fallen behind 2-0 in Fall Classic history, only 10 have come back to hoist the trophy.

One of those teams, however, was the 1986 Mets, who dropped a pair at home to the Boston Red Sox before storming back to win in seven games, with an assist from Bill Buckner and an errant infield bounce.

Can this year’s Amazins follow suit? Or will the Royals—who stumbled at the finish line last year—wear the crown?

We’ll know soon enough. In the meantime, let’s examine six other pressing questions whose answers could well decide the outcome—and anoint MLB‘s newest champion.

Begin Slideshow

When the Miami Marlins decided to go ahead with their hiring of Don Mattingly as their next manager, they gained instant credibility. Of course, that is a thing they badly needed.

But now it’s up to them to make sure their new skipper stays credible, and that will require an effort beyond just filing away his signed contract and hoping for the best.

One thing we know for sure is that this is no longer Dan Jennings’ problem. Mere hours after word came out on Thursday morning that Mattingly signed a four-year deal to manage the Marlins—Molly Knight of Vice Sports had it first—the other shoe dropped.

As reported by Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald, the Marlins gave Jennings the boot from their general manager position:

The Marlins did indeed make it official, with club president David Samson offering the following in a statement on Thursday evening (h/t the Sun Sentinel):

We want to thank Dan for his dedication and loyal service to the Marlins organization over the last 13 years. This is the continuation of the restructuring of our baseball operations department and we look forward to moving in a unified direction to reach our goal of becoming a championship-caliber ballclub that our fans richly deserve.

It’s admittedly unusual to see a team hire a manager and then fire its general manager, as typically the idea is to put a GM in place and then let him choose his own manager. But the Marlins clearly planned for this, as president of baseball operations Michael Hill is taking over a GM chair that Jennings was never actually destined to fill going forward.

As Bob Nightengale of USA Today reported, Jennings didn’t even take part in the interview process for Mattingly, who is coming to the Marlins from the Los Angeles Dodgers. In fact, he hadn’t had any dealings with anyone in the Marlins front office since the end of the regular season.

Knowing that, we can deduce that Mattingly knew what the deal was and accepted the job anyway. 

For the rest of us, though, the dismissal of Jennings is just the latest bit of shady business from baseball’s shadiest team.

It raises the question of why the Marlins waited to fire Jennings if he was a goner all along, and that’s a question with only one logical answer: Rather than risk any bad press that would come from Jennings’ firing, the Marlins wanted to secure some good press by hiring a name-brand manager first.

If there was a right way for the Marlins to get going on their offseason, clearly it was to do something about the volatility that’s been hanging over the franchise in recent years.

Here’s the thing about that volatility, though: It’s still there, and the only way the Marlins will get rid of it for good is if they turn Mattingly‘s hiring into more than just a PR move.

To be sure, there are tangible reasons why the Marlins and Mattingly make sense for each other.

The Marlins are getting an experienced manager who racked up a .551 winning percentage and three division titles in five years in Los Angeles. Mattingly, meanwhile, is presumably getting some good money out of his four-year deal, and it doesn’t hurt that he’s moving to a less stressful environment.

What’s not so tangible, however, is what else could have drawn Mattingly to the Marlins.

He’s not joining a particularly good team, after all. The Marlins haven’t made the playoffs since winning the World Series in 2003, and their 71-91 record in 2015 made it six-straight losing seasons.

Though they boast a solid young core of players in Giancarlo Stanton, Jose Fernandez, Dee Gordon, Christian Yelich, Marcell Ozuna and J.T. Realmuto, there’s an awful lot of mediocrity elsewhere on the roster.

If the Marlins are going to make Mattingly‘s arrival worth it, they thus have quite a bit of work to do. To that end, how much they can do and how much they’re willing to do are good questions.

Trades for high-profile players may be out of the question, because once you get beneath the young talent the Marlins already have at the major league level, you get into a farm system that MLB.com claims contains only one top-100 prospect. There’s not much ammo for blockbuster deals.

So the Marlins may have to spend some money. That’s where you really hope Mattingly knows what he’s getting into, as the Marlins are the polar opposite of the organization he just left.

In the time the Marlins have been owned by Jeffrey Loria, SI.com’s Jay Jaffe summed it up well by writing that they “simply haven’t maintained any commitment to spending money.” The Marlins’ payroll has consistently been at the bottom of the league since Loria took over in 2002, and he hasn’t been above carrying out a few fire sales to make sure it stays that way.

The most notorious ones took place after the team won the World Series in 2003 and after the Marlins failed miserably with a $100 million payroll—the first and, to date, only nine-figure payroll in club history—in 2012.

The latter infamously involved shedding all three big-name free agents acquired the previous winter: Heath Bell, Jose Reyes and Mark Buehrle.

What’s more, the fire sale that went down after 2012 may not be done hurting the Marlins.

It badly damaged their credibility with fans at the time, no question about it. What’s even more relevant now, with the Marlins hopefully looking to build a strong roster for Mattingly, is that it hurt their credibility with free agents. That fire sale warned any and all big-timers to stay away from Miami, lest they very suddenly find out their new home doesn’t want them anymore.

If the Marlins plan to pursue any big-timers this winter, they better plan on having to break through some thick walls of skepticism. 

If there’s any reason for optimism, it’s the notion that Mattingly‘s mere presence will help the front office in its pursuit of free-agent talent. And if we also assume Loria is willing to play against type by dishing out some serious cash, maybe Mattingly will have a legit team on his hands after all.

But even then, he wouldn’t necessarily be out of the woods. Because if Loria is known for anything besides his cheapness, it’s his impatience and habit of sticking his nose where it doesn’t belong.

That Mattingly is Miami’s eighth manager since 2010 is testament enough to Loria’s impatience. As for his meddling, it was felt by former manager Mike Redmond on at least one occasion and, according to Nightengale, contributed to a falling-out between Loria and Jennings:

Mind you, it is true that Mattingly doesn’t have a reputation for being the game’s best tactical manager. But even he is certainly much more qualified to call the shots on the field than Loria is. Going forward, the one guy who will need to understand that is Loria himself.

Again, for now, the Marlins deserve credit for bringing aboard one of the more accomplished managers in the game. If nothing else, Mattingly gives the Marlins a much-needed shot of credibility.

What the Marlins can’t do, however, is stand idly by and hope that Mattingly proves to be a magician who turns them back into winners all on his own. For that to happen, Mattingly will need the Marlins to help by investing in the talent he needs and then staying out of his way.

Basically, he’ll need the Marlins to stop being the Marlins.

Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted/linked.

If you want to talk baseball, hit me up on Twitter.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

Noah Syndergaard wasn’t even alive the last time that the New York Mets climbed out of a 2-0 hole in the World Series way back in 1986.

In Game 3 of the 2015 Fall Classic, the 23-year-old right-hander will be responsible for jump-starting a similar comeback as he takes the mound opposite of Yordano Ventura at Citi Field.

The matchup between Syndergaard and the Kansas City Royals righty promises to be downright electric. During the postseason, Syndergaard’s four-seam fastball has averaged 98.5 mph, which makes it the fastest pitch thrown by any big league starter, per MLB.com’s Statcast. Meanwhile, Ventura’s two-seamer clocks in at second on that list with an average speed of 96.9 mph.

As Syndergaard aims to pitch the Mets back into the series and Ventura attempts to hand the Royals a commanding 3-0 advantage, here are the biggest keys for both sides.

Begin Slideshow

On the same day the Miami Marlins reportedly agreed to terms with Don Mattingly to become the franchise’s next leader in the clubhouse, per Vice Sports’ Molly Knight, the front office decided to shake things up. 

According to the Miami Herald‘s Barry Jackson, the Marlins “dismissed” general manager Dan Jennings with the belief that the move is “in [the] best interests of [the] organization.” MLB.com’s Joe Frisaro confirmed the report. Not long after, the Marlins announced Jennings’ dismissal via Twitter.

Fox Sports’ Ken Rosenthal added Jennings was fired with three years and $5.6 million left on his contract.

According to CBS Sports’ Jon Heyman, Marlins president of baseball operations Michael Hill will replace Jennings as the team’s general manager. Vice president of baseball operations Mike Berger will also be “more involved,” per Heyman.     

Miami hired Jennings as the team’s general manager in 2013, but his job description changed drastically during the 2015 season, when the Marlins fired former manager Mike Redmond and moved their general manager into the dugout. 

After Jennings took over as Miami’s manager in May, the Marlins posted a 55-69 record and a third-place finish in the National League East. However, the Marlins did display improvement down the stretch as they posted a 16-10 record in September while winning 18 of their final 30 games overall. 

But as USA Today‘s Bob Nightengale reported, the divorce between Jennings and the Marlins was a long time coming: 

If there’s good news for Jennings, it’s that he likely won’t be out of work long, per Nightengale: 

The Marlins entered 2015 with high expectations, but a sixth straight losing season left the franchise with more questions than answers. 

While Mattingly attempts to improve the on-field product, Hill and Berger will try to appease owner Jeffrey Loria while shaping the team’s new identity as it seeks to snap a 12-year postseason drought. 

The task won’t be easy, but a raw talent base boasting Giancarlo Stanton, Dee Gordon, Martin Prado and Christian Yelich should give the front office a solid foundation to work with. 

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

NEW YORK — You don’t bother asking Omar Minaya if the New York Mets are still his team, because you know they always have been. You don’t need to ask if he feels good about the World Series coming back to Queens this weekend, because you know he does.

“No doubt about it,” Minaya said this week. “For the neighborhood, it’s great.”

He grew up here, Minaya did, just a few blocks from what was then Shea Stadium and is now the parking lot for Citi Field. Need a restaurant recommendation in Elmhurst or Jackson Heights, Corona or Flushing, Minaya’s your man.

And, oh yes, he’s also the guy who brought Matt Harvey, Jacob deGrom, Steven Matz, Daniel Murphy, Lucas Duda, Wilmer Flores and Jeurys Familia to the Mets.

You may have heard that by now, because the Mets’ success has fired up a sometimes silly and sometimes petty discussion about who should get the credit. It’s silly enough that some are still trying to maintain that Minaya left Sandy Alderson a “mess” when the Mets changed general managers five years ago, and it’s petty enough that others seem to want to discount the work Alderson has had to do in the five years since.

It’s funny enough that when Minaya’s son, Justin, a promising high school basketball player, said he would visit St. John’s, writer Howard Megdal tweeted:

The truth is pretty simple. Minaya and his staff left the Mets in much better shape than plenty of us thought or said at the time, and Alderson and his staff have done a fine job taking those players and more and turning them into a team that could win a championship.

Minaya says he’s gotten over the slights, and over the firing.

“I’m beyond that,” he said. “I know everyone in the front office there, and they’re nice people. My relationship with the organization from top to bottom is great.”

Besides, he’s been in baseball long enough to know this is how it works. Most general managers succeed at least in part with players they inherited from their fired predecessors. J.P. Ricciardi traded for Jose Bautista. Allard Baird drafted Alex Gordon and Zack Greinke, whom the Kansas City Royals used to get Lorenzo Cain and Alcides Escobar (and, in a way, Wade Davis).

The difference with the Mets is the volume of players who come from Minaya’s time as general manager. You can even give him credit for signing R.A. Dickey off the scrap heap, because Alderson was able to turn Dickey into Noah Syndergaard and Travis d’Arnaud.

But none of that means Minaya would have built the Mets into what they are now if he had been allowed to stay. We’ll never know what a Minaya Mets team would have looked like in 2015.

We do know that his relationship with these players has remained strong, even as he went to work for the San Diego Padres, even as he moved on to his current job helping Tony Clark with the Major League Baseball Players Association. He’ll be at Citi Field in that capacity this weekend, and he’s supposed to be neutral.

No one will blame him if he’s not.

“A lot of these kids, I’ve known since they were 16,” Minaya said. “Familia, Flores, [Juan] Lagares, Ruben Tejada.”

He’s known the Mets since he was 16, and really for quite a few years before that. His family moved to Elmhurst from the Dominican Republic when he was young. He went to Newtown High School, where he’s joined in the school’s Hall of Fame by Estee Lauder, Don Rickles and Carroll O’Connor.

He lives in New Jersey now, but he’s still a kid from Queens. He’s still a Met. This really is his team, and it would be even if he hadn’t signed any of the players.

He signed a whole bunch of them, though, and it should take nothing away from Sandy Alderson to say Omar Minaya played a big part in getting the Mets to this World Series.

No doubt about it.

Danny Knobler covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.

Follow Danny on Twitter and talk baseball. 

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com