World Series game blog: Mets rally behind Murphy, now they need to rally in series

Second baseman Daniel Murphy was a big reason why the New York Mets got to the World Series. So when he was also a big reason why the Mets lost critical Game 4 last night, it was good to see his teammates didn't forget that.

Murphy's error on an easy grounder allowed Kansas City to tie the game 3-3 in the eighth inning last night. They went on to score twice more to rally for a 5-3 win and 3-1 lead in the World Series. The Royals are now one win away.

"Jeurys (Familia) did his job," Murphy said. "I didn't do my job. ... I just misplayed it," Murphy told reporters last night.

Danny Knobler wrote this in Bleacher Report:

On all those nights when he hit all those home runs against the Los Angeles Dodgers and Chicago Cubs, Murphy turned every postgame question into a chance to deflect praise to his teammates. On this one night when it all went so wrong, he kept all the blame for himself.

His teammates tried to help, with Mets captain David Wright repeating over and over that this was a team loss, not a Daniel Murphy loss.

"There's a dozen different things we could have done to win this game," Wright said. "[Murphy's misplay] was not the reason we lost this game. That's definitely not the reason we lost."

Wright was right. Tyler Clippard walked back-to-back batters with one out when the Mets were five outs from a victory. That was pretty critical to their loss as well. Familia could have escaped that inning with the game tied. The Mets could have scored more than three runs.

But the comeback Royals came back again and now it's the Mets that must come back with three straight wins to take the Series.

Just five of 43 teams have come back from being down 3-1 in WS history: the 1985 Royals, the 1979 Pirates, the 1968 Tigers, the 1958 Yankees and the 1925 Pirates. Meanwhile K.C. has won six games this postseason in which they trailed by multiple runs, tying the record set by the 1996 Yankees.

On the mound tonight, Kansas City right-hander Edinson Volquez (13-9, 3.55 ERA) pitches against Mets right-hander Matt Harvey (13-8, 2.71 ERA). Both gave up three runs in six innings in Game 1, won by the Royals 5-4 in 14 innings.

Volquez is 1-2 with a 4.37 ERA in four postseason starts while Harvey is 2-0 with a 3.38 ERA. Harvey is rather good at Citi Field, going 7-1 with a 1.49 ERA over 13 home starts since June 16.

Kansas City continues to get clutch hits as it did in the eighth last night. The Royals went 4-for-10 with runners in scoring postion Saturday night. They are batting .347 with RISP this postseason. If you take away Pittsburgh's 1-for-2 in one game, the next best team this year in the playoffs is the Dodgers with a .261 average with RISP.