When I grew up, I was a Washington Redskins fan in football and followed the Washington Senators in baseball. While still following the Washington football team or Commanders which they are know now, in baseball, the Senators moved twice, the first to Minneapolis and the second to Dallas. Since 1973 and until the Nationals moved from Montreal in 2005. By then I have lived in the Midwest since the mid-1970’s and lived in the Kansas City area for nearly a decade from the mid 80’s to the mid 90’s. We adopted the Kansas City Royals as a family.
For a brief moment in 2014 and 2015, Royals had their Camelot in which they competed for World Series titles. In 2014, they came within 90 feet of sending the 7th game into extra innings as Alex Gordon settle for a triple instead of going for an inside the park home run and then finally winning it all in 2015. Within three years, they return back to the incompetency that marked much of the 21st century and 2023 is taking incompetency to a new level.
For many Kansas Citians, they are waiting for the Kansas City Chiefs and first preseason. Football fans are now living in the Golden age of Chiefs football with two Super Bowls and three Super Bowls appearance over the last five years, surpassing the late 1960’s and early 1970’s during the Len Dawson era. Yet I am still intrigued by the Royals for I don’t know if we are witnessing the Royals of 2011 and 2012 where the core of the team that won 2015 were learning to win or just a continuation of our mediocrity.
We have won six games, swept two series, beating the Central division leader Minnesota Twins and the New York Mets. Brady Singer had a great start against the Mets giving no runs and he gutted out a start against Twins giving up only two runs. In his last seven games, he is 3-1 with a 3.00 ERA and looks like the Singer of 2022. Bobby Witt has been pounding the ball with 13 RBIs over the six game homestand as he hit over .500 on the homestand including a walk off grand slam and has hit .333 for the last 30 games and Maikel Garcia is hitting .300 as the lead off batter. Garcia and Witt are becoming a potent one-two punch and Freddy Fermin has had a strong season catching behind Salvador Perez. Fermin development has allowed Perez to DH and even play a little first base.
For the rest of the year, it will be interesting to see how Michael Massey, Kyle Isbel, and M.J Melendez developed since they have shown potential but Massey and Melendez are still under .220 but Isbel is up to .232 after hitting over .300 for the last 15 games and Drew Waters has hit .260 over the last 30 games.
On the pitching front, there is another story as many of the 2018 draft class has failed to make an impact beyond Singer as Lynch and Bubic are both injured and Kowar has simply flopped. With Scott Barlow being traded, Carlos Hernadez has 1.65 era over the last 15 games and now will have to show if he was temperament for being a closer. Coles Ragans may be a potential starter as he pitched six shouts out innings and that is after allowing one earned run in five innings against Tampa Bay. Only one run over the past 11 innings.
Royals are 40 games under .500 after 110 games and yeah, they reflect their record but for the rest of the year, we will see which youngsters can help and certainly they picked up additional support at the trade deadline including Devin Mann who was hitting .308 for the Dodgers triple AAA this year.
In 2011, the core of Gordan, Hosmer, Moustakis, and Perez were learning to be major leaguer and due to some good trades, Escabar and Cain joined the core that led to brief moment of Camelot for Royals fans and will 2023 be remember the year when the core learn to become major leaguers on the way to yet another Camelot?
The Donelson Files 