Royals

When I was a young boy, I was raised a Washington Senator baseball fan, and Senators were consistently one of the worse baseball teams with their last World Series appearance in 1933 and last World Series victory in 1924 but they disappointed me not once but twice by the ultimate betrayal, they left town.   The first version of the Twins went to Minneapolis and since then won two world series.   The second version of the Senators went to Texas and now the Texas Ranger, but they at least didn’t win a world series as they are zero for two in World Series appearances. (The present Washington National won the first world series in the city history since 1924 and came to Washington from Montreal, but I have long left town when they came to town.)

The Kansas City Royals is my adopted baseball team and followed them since I moved to KC in 1985 after they won their championship and stayed a fan.   This year the Royals team has become fun since the All-Star break as many of the young Royals players have shown potential.   Over the last 30 games, M.J. Melendez has hit .295 with 5 homers, Witt, Jr. is batting .354 with 9 homers, and Michael Massey. 248 with 6 homers, Fred Fermin .325 with 5 homers plus solid catching, Garcia .292 as the lead off man and solid defense and finally Kyle Isbel has hit .273 over his last 30 game.

Despite his recent bad outing versus Cubs, Brady Singer has pitched well in the second half as he has been 3-1 over his last seven games with 3.51 ERA.   What has worked for the Royals is that on the offensive side, we have found athletes who fit the stadium they play in.  Royals is one of the bigger stadiums with one of the larger outfields and they have outfielders in Isbel and Drew Waters who can cover the ground in the spacious Royal stadium.  (Note to new owner John Sherman who is desperate to leave one of the best stadiums in the Major league for a new stadium, make sure you build your stadium to the players you have.)

We live in a new era of baseball here in Kansas City in which we have a potential super star in Bobby Witt, Jr. who combine defensive skills, speed, and power in one package as he now has 36 stolen bases to go with 24 homers along with many young players who are showing potential to be starters.  We may be witnessing the 2011 and 2012 Royals, young teams with a core learning to win before Dayton Moore had his brief moment in Camelot as he made moves to bring in the right players to add to the mix and led Royals to straight World Series appearances before it went back to hell post 2015 World Series.  We will find out as I wrote recently, will Royals have a return to the Camelot of 2014-15?

I often listen to Royals on Radio and enjoy the trio of Jake Eisenberg, Steve Stewart and the Hall of famer Denny Matthew who has been with the Royals from the beginning of the franchise to the present.   Television features Ryan Lefebvre and Rex Hudler but I must admit, love the radio team which combines the youngster Jake Eisenberg who has pleasant voice and his knowledge of the game is that of a long time veteran and there is Denny Matthews, who now only does Royals games at home but still his distinctive voice rings out through the radio as he often produces his version of baseball wisdom like walking the lead off man in late innings often comes back to haunt you. (This year, that is certainly true as many of Royals pitchers will walk lead off man and often ends badly.)  Steve Stewart is that middle guy who is the man between the youngster and the old pro with his 16 plus year as a Royal announcer.

Rex Hudler is what you would expect from a local baseball broadcast, a colorful character who relies on his vast 40 years of experience but who leaves no doubt he is a Royal booster.   The real fun I have is reading the various Royals pundits and if anything, there are some very brilliant pundits including Kevin O’ Brien and David Lesky plus Anne Rogers of MLB.  Then there is the Royals Farm report in which you get the latest on Royals prospects and when your team is in last place and one of the worst, you start paying attention to the minor leagues just to see what the future may hold.  

O’Brien and Lesky often go deep into the data and give you analysis rarely seen on various national broadcasts and networks like Fox sports and ESPN.  Compared to other sports that I follow like NBA, NFL, and college sports, these two are among the best in dissecting the Royals and prepared to tell the truth about the Royals and their organizations.   In the recent games in which Royals defeated the Cubs 4-3, Lesky humorously noted he would be more comfortable after the Royals took the lead if they could score 11 more runs.  He added this gem past weekend about Bobby Witt, Jr., “Bobby Witt Jr. is on pace for 31 doubles, 9 triples, 31 homers and 44 steals. Nobody has EVER done that. He currently has 24 doubles, 7 triples, 24 homers and 34 steals. There have only been 14 seasons EVER with all four of those stats and he has 38 games to go.”

Kevin O’Brien made this observation about Bobby Witt, Jr. “I know that they had more history than Bobby but another thing that’s remarkable about his year is that he was absolutely buried on the bench in the WBC behind Trea Turner and Tim Anderson (and look how those two years’ have gone).” 

Yes, I wrote this after the Cubs defeated the Royals 6-4 but at one time it was 6-1 and the Royals kept crawling back into the game and even the Cub announcers were worried with Melendez single to open the top of the ninth and Witt who was already 3 for 4 coming to bat. But alas, the mighty Witt struck out.