The thing is, it was an easy play.

I have a proposition, an unprovable idea, a hypothesis of sorts, if you will indulge me.

Murphy charges the ball, flips to first, runners move up.

Next KC batter gets a hit, drives in two, Royals win 4-3:

"The ball was bouncing slowly across the infield grass, and all of Citi Field was thinking about what might happen next. This was an out — not an easy play, but certainly an out — which meant the Mets would be just four outs away from evening this World Series.

Then second baseman Daniel Murphy charged at the roller and tilted his glove toward the infield, just a few inches from scraping the dirt. Just enough space for a baseball to find its way through.

Just enough room to make 44,815 hearts sink.

Because this was not an out. This was an error, one of the most devastating in Mets history. Instead of coming to the ballpark on Sunday with a chance to move one victory away from a victory parade in lower Manhattan, the Mets need a win just to stay alive.

...

Again: It wasn't an easy play, but it was one Murphy had to make. When the ball slid under his glove, Zobrist sprinted around from second to score, and the game was tied."

Turning two would have been exceedingly difficult. I'm not sure if any 2b/ss combo could have turned two.

But why was this not an easy play?

Here, watch it again.

It was fundamentally unsound. Which the Mets are.

Murphy said later (something to the effect of) he should have used two hands and gotten in front of it. Which is true. Which he should have been practicing fielding for the past nine years.