Johnny Cueto produced a dominant pitching display as the Kansas City Royals beat the New York Mets 7-1 to take a 2-0 lead in the World Series.
Cueto went the distance, giving up just two hits in nine innings, although he trailed 1-0 for part of the game after Lucas Duda plated Daniel Murphy to put the Mets in front.
But the game's complexion changed in the bottom of the fifth inning when the Royals exploded for four runs and knocked Mets starter Jacob deGrom out of the game.
All of the damage came on Royals singles, with Alcides Escobar knocking in Alex Gordon, and then scoring himself along with Alex Rios when Game One hero Eric Hosmer connected on a hit to centre field.
Mike Moustakas added a fourth run before the end of the inning and, with Cueto in cruise control, victory was all but confirmed in the bottom of the eighth when three more runs were tacked on to their lead.
Gordon's double plated Moustakas, Paulo Orlando added another run on a sacrifice fly and Escobar tripled to make the score 7-1.
Despite having thrown more than 100 pitches, Cueto stayed in the game to finish things off and managed to do so with little fuss to ensure the Royals would head to New York for Game Three on Friday with their home advantage intact.
"As soon as I got to the bullpen I was feeling good, feeling aggressive," Cueto said. "I saw my pitches were down in the zone. My main concern was just to keep us in the game. This was a game we had to have."
