Kansas City Royals full of confidence heading to New York

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Shortstop Alcides Escobar hopes he has played his final game in Kauffman Stadium this year.

After the Royals defeated the Mets 7-1 Wednesday night to take a two-games-to-none lead in the World Series, Escobar would prefer to wrap up the series in New York instead of returning to Kansas City.

"(We) go there for three games, but everybody in this room don't want to play three games, only two," Escobar said. "For me, I don't want it coming back here. I want to finish it there."

The odds lean heavily in the Royals' favor to win the World Series. This is the 54th time a team seized a 2-0 lead in the World Series, and 42 went on to win the Fall Classic. That is 79.2 percent.

However, two of the exceptions to that rule were the 1985 Royals, who rallied to beat the St. Louis Cardinals, and the 1986 Mets, who bounced back to top the Boston Red Sox.

A club jumping out to a 2-0 lead won the last nine occurrences and 15 of the past 16. The only exception in that span was the 1996 Atlanta Braves, who won the first two games in New York but dropped the next four games to the Yankees.

"Our confidence level hasn't changed since the first day of spring training to today," Royals manager Ned Yost said. "Our confidence has been high all year long. We expected to be here. We expected to compete for a world championship against a tough team."

If the Mets should win two of three at Citi Field, they would face Johnny Cueto in Game 6 at Kauffman Stadium. Cueto limited them to one run and two hits in a complete game Wednesday.

"Hopefully, he doesn't have to pitch for us again this postseason, but if he does, we expect him to go out there and do something similar," Royals pitching coach Dave Eiland said.