Royals and Cardinals.

1985, they met for all the marbles. Now they are meeting for pride as the Royals are out of the running and Cardinals will be joining them.

As for us Royals fans, the positive news begins with the starting pitching as Carlos Hernandez beat the first place Chicago White Sox two games in a row. Hernandez has the stuff to be a major league pitcher but up to now not yet taken that step. From Batoul Hammoud writing in the King of Kauffman, “And as long as Hernandez continues to develop his ability to rely on everything in his pitch arsenal, he is a good candidate to become a lethal starter in the rotation for years to come with Kansas City.”

Another pitcher has been Daniel Lynch, who in three starts, has won 2 of those starts and ERA under 2. His first trip to the majors was a disaster but after a short Omaha stint, he came back a different pitcher.

Our Royals starting pitching since the All Star Break have seen numbers of quality of starts. Olivares has hit three homers since his trip back from Omaha and we will have two months to see if he can be a major league outfielder. Nicky Lopez is hitting like he did in Omaha where he was a .300 hitter. He is hitting .280 and flashing a great defensive game. Salvy is already hit 27 homers, tied for most in his career and now has three season of 27 homers, one of two Royals to do this. Steve Balboni was the other. He is now 18 homers behind Mike Sweeney for number two on the home run lists. Perez homers is the most of the Royals from this decade and of those players who won the Championship in 2015 and had four straight winning season.

Who would have thought that George Brett had 201 stolen bases to go with his 317 HR, 3000 plus hits and .305 average? No one in this generation of Royals have matched that.