Kansas City Prove Themselves
When people think of MLB superstitions in the playoffs, they often think of the Cubs’ 106-year long World Series drought, the Braves’ (and now the Nationals’) one-and-done playoff exits after a stellar regular season or the San Francisco Giants winning it all in even-numbered years. But what people often forget is that for 28 long years, the Royals haven’t even had the chance to have a superstition. Up until this year, the Kansas City Royals had 7 winning seasons in the past 27 years, haven’t made the playoffs in any of them and have essentially fallen off the face of baseball. And yet, four expansion teams, a steroid era and a seemingly immortal commish later, the Royals are back in the hunt for another World Series. And from the looks of it, this could be their year.The start to their postseason was the most exciting game yet: a wild card matchup with the Oakland Athletics. The A’s had dominated their division until a second-half collapse, and Billy Beane’s team was searching to justify big trades and prospect swaps for the first World Series win in the “Moneyball” era. After Moss kicked the game off with a two-run dinger for the A’s, the Royals’ pitching was shaken for five more runs early in the game while only posting three in retaliation.
Josh Donaldson, the Oakland third base, sacrificed the body for the play: diving for the bouncing ball as it streaked up the foul line…and missed by inches.
Suddenly, two RBI singles and a missed ball in the dirt notched it back up to 7-6, while the Royals’ defense turned double plays and Cain had two sliding snagged fly balls. Then, in the bottom of the 9th, Aoki nailed a sac fly to deep right to tie the game at 7 each. The Royals were kicking it into overdrive. Unfortunately, they also left a combined three men stranded in the 10th and 11th innings. But no matter. Salvador Perez smashed a bouncing line drive with a man on first and second in the bottom of the 9th. Josh Donaldson, the Oakland third base, sacrificed the body for the play: diving for the bouncing ball as it streaked up the foul line…and missed by inches. Kansas City made it to primetime for the first time in decades.And yet, that was just the beginning. The Los Angeles Angels (of Anaheim, under Trout) was the clear favorite for the World Series. The “best team in baseball”, championed by Mike Trout, Josh Hamilton and Albert Pujols, posted the most runs, most wins and one of the deepest bullpens in regular season baseball. The keyword here is “regular season.” Once they showed up at Kaufman Stadium for Game three, they were already down 2-0 in the series and looked like a AAA team out there at best, the D-Backs at worst. The defense was sloppy, the pitching gave up big hits and the bats just weren’t heating up (besides Mike Trout, of course). Well, Game 3 was no salvation. Hammered into the dust 8-3, the Royals showed everyone that they had the potential to put up some big outings when they needed to.So what now? Two small-market teams match up for the ALCS this Friday night in Camden Yards. That’s right: the Royals are joined by their fellow “small” team, the Baltimore Orioles. The winner of the series joins the winner of the Cardinals/Giants series in the World Series (fun fact: either the Cards or Giants have represented the NL in every World Series since 2009). Who knows what holds for the Royals’ future? All I can say is, with the start that they’ve had, it’d be a shame for Kansas City to have to go home empty-handed. One way or the other though, championship or not, this could be the start for something big in Kansas City and the rise of the small-market team.