Royals players celebrate on the Kauffman Stadium infield after Kansas City’s 2–1 win over Baltimore to clinch the American League pennant (AP Images)
Back on Top
During June Hot Streak, Royals Claim First Place
On August 29, 2003, the Royals were in first place in the division, one game ahead of the Chicago White Sox. Billy Butler was beginning his junior year at Wolfson High School in Jacksonville, Florida. Alex Gordon was a freshman at the University of Nebraska. Mike Moustakas was about to start his freshman year, too…at Chatsworth High School in California. Eric Hosmer was in the eighth grade. That’s the last time the Royals were in first place that late in the season.
That is…until the club took over first place in the AL Central with an 11–4 win at Detroit on June 17, 2014.
“It’s fleeting,” Royals manager Ned Yost cautioned. “It can leave tomorrow. You’ve got to stay on top of your game.”
The Royals certainly were on top of their game at the time. The win, which gave the Royals a half-game lead over Detroit, marked the club’s ninth in a row and 10th of their previous 11. When the winning streak began with an 8–4 victory against the New York Yankees, the Royals were tied with the Minnesota Twins for last in the division, five games behind Detroit.
Things were going so well for the Royals when they leapfrogged the Tigers that they had little trouble with reigning Cy Young champ Max Scherzer. Kansas City tagged Scherzer for a career-high 10 runs in four-plus innings. Gordon and Moustakas each hit a two-run homer during a seven-hit, seven-run second inning.
After Butler led off the inning with a double, Gordon launched a 414-foot home run to right field, which gave Kansas City a 2–0 advantage. Then, following a walk to Salvador Perez, Moustakas also homered to right. The Tigers didn’t record an out until Hosmer, the ninth batter of the inning, grounded back to Scherzer. The Royals scored their seventh run of the inning on that play, as Nori Aoki, who had singled earlier, crossed the plate.
“Anytime you can do that to a starting pitcher in the second inning, you know they’re going to be frustrated a little bit,” Gordon said.
The Royals won 17 of 27 games in June, including a streak of 10 straight, which allowed them to climb back to the top of the American League Central with a win over the Tigers on June 17. (AP Images)
Yordano Ventura gave up eight hits and three runs in seven innings of work. He evened his record at 5–5 with the win. Although he gave up two runs in the second, Ventura’s only trouble inning was the fifth with Kansas City leading 10–2. Detroit loaded the bases with one out and then, after Ian Kinsler flew out, Ventura walked Miguel Cabrera, which made it a 10–3 game. Ahead in the count 0–2 to Victor Martinez, Ventura flew a fastball to the backstop. With Ventura’s velocity and the Royals’ good fortune, the ball hit something hard on the backstop and jetted back toward catcher Perez. By that time the runner at third, Eugenio Suarez, was stuck between home and third. He tried to scamper back to third, but Perez threw a strike to Moustakas and got Suarez for the final out.
“The ball went past Salvy, and I saw it shoot back to him so I shot over to third just in case he throws it,” Moustakas said. “And he threw it—a great play and we were able to get [Suarez] out.”
Kansas City won its next game against Detroit, on June 18, and moved one-and-a half games ahead of the Tigers. In that 2–1 win—the 10th straight—the Royals scored their first run when Gordon grounded a ball up the middle in the first inning, and it took a funny bounce off second base, allowing Hosmer to score.
That’s the way the bounces seemed to go for the Royals during much of the 2014 season. That’s the way things seem to go for teams during a championship season.
Although they were in first place in late August 2003, the Royals ended up finishing third in the division with a record of 83–79. It was the last time they finished above .500 until 2013’s 86–76 mark. Of course, with their 38–32 record in mid-June, the 2014 season was still 11 days from the midway point.
“What’s the date?” Yost said. “It’s nice, but we’ve got a lot of games to play. We don’t get all geeked up. We’re on a nice run right now. We’ll just keep it going. It’s better than the alternative; trust me.”
Alex Gordon
4 | OF
Former Prized Prospect at Third Base Strikes Gold in the Outfield
The play stood out to Alex Gordon. Late in the 2012 season—September 26 to be exact—the Royals were in Detroit. Miguel Cabrera, perhaps the best hitter of this generation, was in the hunt for baseball’s elusive Triple Crown.
Leading off the fifth inning of a 4–4 game, Cabrera launched a moon shot to left against Jeremy Guthrie. Gordon raced back to the wall and stood there, as if watching it leave. Suddenly, as the ball returned to Earth, Gordon jumped up and robbed Cabrera of the home run.
“I’m always a big fan of robbing home runs and I think I did it twice this year,” Gordon said after that season. “Miguel Cabrera’s was pretty cool.”
He didn’t rob anyone of home runs during the 2014 American League playoffs, but Gordon played outstanding defense in left, complete with at least one play that will go down in Royals postseason lore. Royals fans certainly appreciated it—even if it’s become expected of Gordon during the past few seasons.
That play in Detroit at the end of the 2012 season was one of many that helped him win a Rawlings Gold Glove Award for the second consecutive season. Besides being the 20th Gold Glove Award in Royals history, Gordon’s 2012 hardware gave him the distinction of being the first Royals player since Frank White in 1986–1987 to win the award in back-to-back seasons. Gordon repeated in 2013, becoming just the third Royals player—along with White and Amos Otis—to win the Gold Glove at least three times.
Perhaps as intriguing as winning it three times was the fact that Gordon won his first one in 2011. Gordon, early in his career as a third baseman, seemed destined for a career of mediocrity, at best, filled with time on the disabled list and a career full of fans second guessing the sanity of the Royals for selecting him with the second overall pick in the 2005 MLB Amateur Draft and tabbing him as “the next George Brett.” Sure, he grew up in Nebraska as a big Royals fan and was an outstanding player at the University of Nebraska, but none of that meant a hill of beans early in his career.
Kansas City moved Alex Gordon to the outfield in 2010, a change that jumpstarted the former third baseman’s career. (AP Images)
After tearing things up at Double A Wichita in 2006 while playing for Frank White, Gordon came to the big leagues in 2007. He immediately looked like a high-strikeout player with a little pop in his bat who could commit close to 20 errors each season at third. That’s assuming he’d be on the field. He was “officially” on the disabled list in three straight seasons.
Everything changed during 2010 when the Royals decided to move Gordon to the outfield. He wasn’t setting the world on fire, and their No. 1 draft pick of 2007, Mike Moustakas, was burning through Double A pitching and appeared to be the third baseman of the future. So, Gordon, who was batting .194 at the time, was sent to Triple A Omaha in May, a month after returning from the DL, to start working with Rusty Kuntz, the Royals’ current first-base coach who was a roving instructor at the time.
As expected for someone who had never played outfield, it took some time to learn the position. A lot of time. But his athleticism and natural instincts, along with Kuntz’s tireless work, helped Gordon become a big league outfielder.
That move to the outfield has been fortuitous for both Gordon and the Royals. Besides the three Gold Gloves, Gordon has changed his physical preparation. As his younger brother Derek, who pitches for the Kansas City T-Bones, an independent professional team in Kansas City, says: “Nobody’s going to out-work Alex—no way.” Gordon’s daily preparation, which starts at the stadium each day long before most of his teammates arrive, has become somewhat legendary.
Alex Gordon earned a Gatorade bath, administered by catcher Salvador Perez, after he hit a two-run walk-off home run to beat the Minnesota Twins on August 26. (AP Images)
That dedication has paid off. Gordon hasn’t been on the disabled list since 2010, playing in at least 151 games in each of the last four seasons. As importantly, his offensive production has improved, and he’s been selected as an American League All-Star each of the last two seasons.
“He’s one of the best all-around players in the league,” pitcher James Shields said during the ALCS. “He can do it all. He plays Gold Glove defense, he can hit for power, he can steal a base. He does everything well. It’s really been a treat to be able to play with him.”
With the emergence of Moustakas, Eric Hosmer, and Salvador Perez and the addition of players such as Shields, Lorenzo Cain, and Alcides Escobar, Gordon—a member of the old guard—has become a team leader. After all, he and Billy Butler are the two longest-tenured players on the club.
“I don’t think it’s me,” he said of his poise after Game 1 of the ALCS, when he was the main cog in the Royals’ win over Baltimore. “It’s our team. We have a great chemistry in the clubhouse. We’re all pulling for each other. And it’s really a lot of fun right now.”
Gordon was instrumental in the Royals’ 12–6 win over the Twins on August 17—their highest-scoring output of the month. He scored three runs. (AP Images)
Welcome Back, Zack
Cain, Escobar Help Defeat Ace They Were Traded For
After going on a 10-game winning streak that gave the Royals a one-and-a-half game cushion in the AL Central in mid-June, Kansas City lost its next four and fell two-and-half games behind Detroit. In order to stop the bleeding, the Royals would have to beat their former ace, Zack Greinke and the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Lost in the talk of the trade that brought James Shields and Wade Davis to Kansas City, is a trade that general manager Dayton Moore made almost exactly two years earlier. Perhaps it’s because it occurred at a time when fans still expected the Royals to trade top players, and the trade with Tampa sent a top prospect. Regardless, the deal Moore made with the Milwaukee Brewers on December 19, 2010, could go down as one of the best in Royals history.
The Royals sent Greinke, the AL Cy Young winner in 2009, along with Yuniesky Betancourt, to the Brewers in exchange for outfielder Lorenzo Cain, shortstop Alcides Escobar, and pitchers Jeremy Jeffress and Jake Odorizzi. (Besides the great players Cain and Escobar have become for the Royals, Odorizzi was a component in the trade with the Rays that brought Shields and Davis to Kansas City.)
Greinke, who had faced the Royals twice before while pitching for Milwaukee and the Los Angeles Angels, got off to a hot start in 2014, winning his first five decisions, losing one, and then winning his next two. By the end of June, when the ultra-talented Dodgers visited Kauffman Stadium for the first meeting between the two clubs since 2005, Greinke was 9–3 with a 2.57 ERA.
Former Royals ace Zack Greinke was no match for his previous team on June 23. Greinke allowed a season-high five runs and 11 hits in five and two-third innings to the Royals in Kansas City’s 5–3 win over Greinke’s Dodgers. (AP Images)
That didn’t seem to matter to the Royals, who had a shuffled lineup and went on to win 5–3 on June 23. Manager Ned Yost kept Cain in the leadoff spot for the second straight game but moved Omar Infante from second to the sixth sport, moved Eric Hosmer to the No. 2 hole, followed by Billy Butler, Alex Gordon, Salvador Perez, Infante, Mike Moustakas, Escobar, and Jarrod Dyson.
The revised lineup must’ve worked, as Kansas City tagged Greinke for a season-high five runs and 11 hits in five and two-third innings. Perez led off the Royals half of the second with a 415-foot home run to left, giving Kansas City a 1–0 lead. Later in the inning, with two outs, Escobar singled, moved to second on a wild pitch, and then scored on a base hit by Dyson.
The Royals extended their lead in the fifth when Dyson, who went 3-for-3 with two RBIs, led off with a single and was driven in by Cain. Kansas City got two insurance runs the next inning when Escobar tripled with two outs, scoring Perez, who’d led off the inning with a double. Up next, Dyson singled and knocked in Escobar and knocked out Greinke.
“The fastball was good but really bad off-speed. That was the problem today,” Greinke said after the game. “They didn’t have to respect it. It was like I did them a favor when I threw off-speed.”
That was all the Royals needed behind a strong pitching performance by Jeremy Guthrie, who won two games during the 10-game winning streak and hadn’t lost since the game before that streak. Guthrie gave up two runs and seven hits over seven and two-third innings. He improved to 5–6. Greg Holland gave up a home run in the ninth to Adrian Gonzalez but picked up his 22nd save of the season.
The Royals’ return on the Greinke trade turned out well this night. Cain, who led off, had two hits and one RBI. Escobar, who was batting eighth, had two hits and scored twice.
“The guys that got traded for me are playing good, and I think even the Odorizzi guy is pitching good, too,” said Greinke. “It looks like they got some good players.”
Kelvin Herrera, Wade Davis & Greg Holland
40, 17, 56 | P
Three-Headed Monster: Trio of K.C. Relievers Shut Down Opponents
Royals general manager Dayton Moore and manager Ned Yost have known that they’re not going to build a championship-caliber team by trying to find a bunch of sluggers. Especially in a ballpark like Kauffman Stadium. It’s going to take speed, solid defense, and, of course, pitching.
During the 2012 and ’13 seasons, the Royals’ Pitcher of the Year ended up being the team’s closer, Greg Holland. And with good reason. In Holland, the Royals enjoyed, frankly, a luxury item they didn’t really need: a dominant closer. Oh, sure, they were in the wild-card chase in 2013, but they didn’t really need Holland’s dominance. For the most part, he wasn’t closing meaningful games. He was about as overpowering as possible, though, saving a club-record 47 games with a 1.21 ERA in 68 appearances in 2013. Although Jonathan Broxton was the main closer early in ’12 and saved 23 of the club’s 72 wins that year, Holland emerged as the future. He saved 16 games and won seven, which was third highest win total on the team that season.
With Moore’s long-held belief that pitching is a huge commodity in baseball and the fact that the Royals would have to manufacture some wins, Yost began to realize during the 2014 spring training what type of arms he had in his bullpen in front of Holland—namely Kelvin Herrera and Luke Hochevar.
With his flat-billed hat cocked to one side, it’s easy to recognize Herrera, who signed with the Royals as an undrafted free agent after a tryout in the Dominican Republic in December 2006. If you don’t recognize his signature cap, just look for the pitcher who tips the radar gun past 100 with his fastball and has a 90-mile-per-hour change-up with movement. Heading into 2014, Herrera had appeared in 79 games for the Royals since 2011.
Royals relievers Kelvin Herrera, Wade Davis, and Greg Holland each finished the 2014 regular season with ERAs of less than 2.00—1.41, 1.00, and 1.44 respectively. Davis (opposite) surpassed his career mark of 3.91 by nearly three runs. (AP Images)
Hochevar doesn’t have the electric stuff of Herrera, but after five less-than-stellar years in the rotation, Hochevar, the club’s first-round pick (first overall) in 2006, found his niche in the bullpen in 2013 as the set-up guy. His ERA went from 5.73 as a starter in 2011 to 1.92 as a reliever in ’12, and his strikeout-to-walk ratio between the two seasons went from 144–61 to 82–17, a marked difference. Early in spring training of 2014, though, Hochevar felt something wrong in his elbow. An MRI determined the Royals’ and Hochevar’s worst fear: Tommy John surgery. Just when things were looking up, his season was done before it started.
As a last resort, the Royals moved Wade Davis into Hochevar’s spot. Davis seemed to be the “throwaway,” if you will, in the blockbuster trade in December 2012 that brought James Shields to Kansas City and sent, among other young players, Wil Myers to Tampa Bay. After struggling through performance issues on the field and the death of his stepbrother, 2013 wasn’t a spectacular year for Davis. His 8–11 record and 5.32 ERA will attest to that.
But much like Hochevar a year earlier, Davis found his niche. Since moving to the bullpen full-time in 2014, Davis, who’s reserved and seemingly all business when he’s on the mound, has been nearly unhittable throughout the regular season and American League playoffs.
Early in the season, Yost, who’s received plenty of criticism for moves he’s made or not made during his time in Kansas City, realized he had a dependable three-headed monster with three dominant one-inning pitchers and he re-invented how to manage the bullpen late in the game. Herrera became the seventh-inning pitcher, Davis came in the eighth, and then Holland closed it. If the Royals hit the seventh inning of a game with a lead, they were in good shape.
Who are we kidding? They were nearly unbeatable.
When leading after six innings this year, the Royals were 68–4. If they had a lead an inning later, they were 75–1.
“Baseball is not a game of perfection,” Hall of Fame broadcaster Denny Matthews says, “but those three have been as close to perfect as you can get.”
Relief pitcher Greg Holland carries the flag after the Royals beat the Athletics 9–8 in the American League wild card game. (AP Images)
The three relievers combined to give up just three home runs during the regular season. Herrera, who finished the 2014 regular season with a 4–3 record and 1.41 ERA in 70 games, had a scoreless streak that spanned 30 appearances. Davis didn’t allow a run for 20 consecutive appearances and didn’t allow an extra-base hit for 43 straight appearances. Then there’s Holland, a two-time All Star, who saved 46 games with a 1.44 ERA in 2014. During the last two months of the season—after the trade deadline—the three pitchers combined for a 0.86 ERA in 73 innings.
Then there was the postseason. Herrera pitched in seven of the eight Royals’ American League playoff games and allowed six hits and one earned run for a 1.08 ERA. Davis appeared in all eight AL games and went 2–0. Holland saved six games, including all four in the ALCS, in eight appearances with a miniscule 1.13 ERA.
He rounds out a spectacular bullpen.
“Our offense has a lot of confidence in everybody we’ve got down there,” Yost said. “If we can take a lead and get it to the bullpen, odds are we’re going to be celebrating a victory at the end of the day.”
By the way, for the superstitious types or anyone looking for a sign during the 2014 postseason that this could be the Royals’ year, check this out. Royals pitcher Bret Saberhagen, who was the MVP of the 1985 World Series, spent time at the hospital during that World Series as his wife at the time gave birth to their first son, Drew. A few years ago, Drew, who was a college baseball player, transferred from Pepperdine to Western Carolina. One of his teammates was Greg Holland. Taking that a step further: between the wild-card game and the start of the ALDS in Anaheim, Holland went home to North Carolina for the birth of his son. (Cue Rod Serling and The Twilight Zone theme.)
Dayton Moore & Ned Yost
World Series Marks Career Pinnacle for Royals Leaders
What a difference a year makes. Or seven or eight.
Royals general manager Dayton Moore, a baseball man from the days before he could even think about becoming a man, desired to cultivate the Royals into winners more than you can imagine. That’s been the case since he became the club’s sixth general manager on June 8, 2006. Developing a winner, though, takes time—especially with how depleted the Royals farm system was when Moore took over.
And it certainly took time. In Moore’s seventh full season, 2013, the Royals finished 86–76. It was the club’s first winning season since 2003 and the most number of victories since winning 92 in 1989. Even though the Royals were in the chase for a wild-card berth until the last week of the season, they fell short and finished third in the AL Central, seven games behind Detroit.
Key players on the 2013 roster were homegrown, including Billy Butler and Alex Gordon—both of whom were selected by GM Allard Baird—Greg Holland (10th round, 2007), Eric Hosmer (first round, 2008), Mike Moustakas (first round, 2007), and Salvador Perez (non-drafted free agent signing, 2006).
After the winning record and wild-card push in 2013, many fans remained unhappy and sought more progress. Still, he felt there was reason to look ahead optimistically to 2014.
“I believe that all our players that are signed long-term or under team control are going to get better,” he said during his 2013 postseason press conference. “Is it just going to happen? No. They are going to have to continue to work hard, apply instructions, and make adjustments. They are going to have to continue to commit to becoming great players.”
Kansas City general manager Dayton Moore needed time to rebuild the team after he took the helm in June 2006, but patience has paid off for Royals fans, who enjoyed the team’s first winning season in a decade in 2013 and its first playoff appearance since 1985 in 2014. (AP Images)
Winning never comes easy. But decades of losing can do funny things to a fan base, whether that fan base is old enough to remember the “glory days” of the 1970s and ’80s or young enough to be part of today’s society of instant gratification. So, after enduring losing season after losing season and bad trade after bad acquisition under previous general managers, seven seasons of waiting for “the process” to work was an eternity.
Sending Zack Greinke to Milwaukee for (mainly) a light-hitting shortstop named Alcides Escobar and an outfielder named Lorenzo Cain, who had played a whopping 43 games in the big leagues in six professional seasons? And then you’re going to trade the future greatest Royal ever, Wil Myers, along with two stud minor-league pitchers for a short-term starter in James Shields and a barely-average starter named Wade Davis?
Are you serious?
Those moves, though, turned out to be quite deft and have more than vindicated Moore.
Critics also questioned Moore for backing Ned Yost, whom he’d hired in May 2010 to lead this club. Yost was Moore’s guy, who he knew well from their days in the Atlanta Braves organization. Moore was scouting or in the front office from 1994–2006 while Yost coached in various capacities from 1991–2002.
Throughout 2013 and ’14, in particular, Royals fans came up with all sorts of words to describe Yost, and most of them aren’t very pleasant.
He’s unapologetic. He comes off as condescending. And he’s made moves that fans and former players alike think are boneheaded, which has fostered the term “Yosted” to describe anything and everything negative in life.
Royals fans took a while to warm to manager Ned Yost, whom Moore hired in 2010. But Nost’s decision-making through the 2014 postseason, now referred to as the “Yostseason,” took the Royals to their first World Series in nearly 30 years. (AP Images)
It was a controversial decision Yost made in the sixth inning of the wild-card game that almost kept the Royals from advancing in the 2014 playoffs. After starter Shields gave up a bloop single and then issued a walk with two on and nobody out and Kansas City holding a 3–2 lead with Brandon Moss—who homered earlier—coming to the plate, Yost pulled Shields, who’d thrown 88 pitches, and brought in starter Yordano Ventura. Moss launched Ventura’s third pitch 432 feet to dead center. It seemed as though social media might combust at once with thousands of fans and other detractors saying how the Royals had been “Yosted.” Funny, though. The Royals overcame any questionable judgment decisions in that first postseason game and went on to make 2014 the “Yostseason.”
That Yostseason should’ve caused the doubters to eat crow, but the negative perceptions mean little to the Royals manager.
“I don’t need vindication,” Yost said after the Royals swept the Orioles in the ALCS. “I’m comfortable with who I am. And everything that I look at, I don’t look at much. But I’m the dumbest guy on the face of the earth. But I know that’s not true…I am smart enough to hire really, really good coaches and use them. But I’m real comfortable in my own skin. I don’t feel like I need vindication. I’m not looking for it, don’t care for it.
“My whole goal—none of this was ever about me. To win a championship was all about this city, our fans and these players. I’ve been there six times before, I know how special it is. And I wanted my players to experience it. I wanted the city of Kansas City to experience it and our fans.”
And, thanks to Dayton Moore, who built a deep farm system and assembled a club with pitching and speed that could win at spacious Kauffman Stadium, Yost was able to take that group of players, push the right buttons, use each player to his strength, foster a cohesive locker room, and lead them to the World Series for the first time in their careers and only the third time in Royals franchise history, en route to becoming the first manager ever to win his first eight postseason games as a skipper.
“These kids, from the minute you saw them you knew they were going to be special,” Yost said after winning the AL championship. “Then they won championships in A ball together and they won championships in Double A together and they won championships in Triple A together. And then their goal was to get up here and win a championship, and today they accomplished that.”
Fateful Fan
Devoted South Korean Fan Provides Good Luck During Incredible Journey
Adding to the craziness of the 2014 season and the idea of things happening for a reason, a man named SungWoo Lee traveled more than 6,500 miles (one way) to see the Royals in person for the first time.
There’s no way anyone could’ve anticipated what would transpire during the 10-day voyage.
SungWoo Lee’s love of the Royals began 20 years ago. He was trying to improve his English by watching Major League Baseball games and he saw a broadcast of a Royals game from Kauffman Stadium. After Royals batter Jeff King launched a home run, the South Korean immediately fell in love with the “beautiful K” and wanted to learn all he could about the Royals. He would get up at 3:00 in the morning to watch the Royals play a day game or he would wait until well after dinner to see a night game. He quickly became the Royals’ biggest fan in Korea—heck, possibly the Royals’ biggest fan outside of Kansas City.
After conversing with fellow Royals fans through Twitter (@KoreanFan_KC) for three years, the 38-year-old SungWoo finally made plans to visit Kansas City in August. As his Royals friends in Kansas City caught wind, the entire city—fans, politicians, the media, former Royals, and the Royals organization—stepped up and allowed SungWoo to fulfill a fantasy experience for any Royals fan.
SungWoo Lee shows off his “super fan” Royals cap before Game 1 of the World Series. SungWoo traveled 6,500 miles from South Korea in August to see the Royals in person for the first time. He returned to Kansas City in October for the World Series. (AP Images)
As part of SungWoo’s trip, he…
• Took a tour of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum with the director of the museum, Bob Kendrick
• Ate lunch at Arthur Bryant’s
• Was interviewed by local media
• Was featured in articles on Deadspin and USA TODAY
• Got an email from Mike Sweeney
• Received a tour of Kauffman Stadium from Jennifer Splittorff, the daughter of the late Royals Hall of Fame pitcher Paul Splittorff
• Visited the Double A team, the Northwest Arkansas Naturals, and shook hands with each player in the clubhouse
• Received a personalized Royals jersey from the team
• Received a personalized Chiefs jersey from the Chiefs
• Was featured on SportsCenter
• Received an autographed Frank White jersey from White
• Received a pin from George Brett
• Threw out a first pitch at Kauffman Stadium
• Danced around with the W that Kauffman Stadium puts up after each victory
And something strange happened along the way. The Royals became the hottest team in baseball. Since being down by eight games in the AL Central on July 21 with a 48–50 record, the Royals went 9–3 in the games leading up to SungWoo’s visit. When he arrived, though, on August 5, the Royals clobbered the Arizona Diamondbacks in Arizona 12–2. That was their second win in what became an eight-game winning streak. The Royals finished SungWoo’s trip with an 8–1 record, and they were in first place in the division.
SungWoo returned to Kauffman Stadium to see Game 1 of the World Series. It seemed like a good luck charm and even destiny. After all, during his last excursion to Kauffman to watch his team, the Royals swept the San Francisco Giants.
SungWoo Lee shows off a World Series towel before Game 1 of the World Series at Kauffman Stadium. The World Series marked the South Korean fan’s second trip to Kansas City in 2014. During his first visit in August, the Royals posted an 8–1 record and ascended to first place in the AL Central. (AP Images)
“That’s What Speed Do”
Small Ball Ways Pace Royals’ Offense
For a team that didn’t have a lot of power, the 2014 Royals used a formula that worked for the Royals of the 1970s and ’80s: great team speed, which applies to covering a ton of real estate in the outfield and, of course, causing havoc on the bases.
Their game at Kauffman Stadium on September 15 was a signature moment for that speed. After dropping three of four to Boston—five of their last seven overall—and seeing a half-game lead in the AL Central flip to a two-game deficit to Detroit, the Royals needed a revitalizing win. They got just that in unusual fashion against the Chicago White Sox.
After trailing Chicago 3–0 in the seventh, the Royals scored two and trailed 3–2, heading into the bottom of the ninth. With one out in the inning, Mike Moustakas, who’d been struggling at the plate, doubled. Jarrod Dyson, who coined the phrase “that’s what speed do” a couple years ago, pinch ran for Moustakas. Moments later, after stealing third, Dyson scored on a wild pitch by Jake Petricka to tie the game.
Outfielder Jarrod Dyson slides into third base after hitting a triple against Minnesota on August 15. Dyson led the 2014 Royals with 36 stolen bases. (AP Images)
Nori Aoki, Kansas City’s hottest hitter at the time, doubled with two outs. Terrance Gore, a September call-up with blazing speed, ran for Aoki. The next batter, Lorenzo Cain, chopped an infield grounder. In a scene you’d expect from the movie Major League, Cain was safe at first as Gore sped home from second with the winning run.
“I was definitely going to be safe,” Cain said. “I just put it in play and ran.”
That could be the offensive mantra for the Royals in 2014: put the ball in play and run. They definitely weren’t a long-ball threat as a team, finishing last in the majors with 95 home runs in 2014. It’s only the 10th time in franchise history—dating back to 1969—and second time since 1982 that the club has hit fewer than 100 homers.
For this club to win, it would have to rely on good pitching and speed. As a side note, a couple days before that walk-off (or run-off) win against Chicago, manager Ned Yost tweaked the Royals lineup. He made the top of the order speed-heavy with Alcides Escobar leading off, Aoki batting second, and Cain third.
“[Escobar’s] been really creating some scoring opportunities for us, getting on base. [He] and Nori both have done a great job kind of transforming the top of that order,” Yost said. “Now if we can get a couple guys hot in the middle of the order, we’re going to be okay.”
Lorenzo Cain scores on a Billy Butler single during the first inning of Game 2 of the World Series.
And why not? The Royals finished the season with 153 stolen bases, which was most in the majors and happened to be the same number as last year. Since their first trip to the World Series in 1980, the Royals have eclipsed 150 stolen bases only five times: 1983 (182), 1989 (154), 1996 (195), and then the last two seasons. From 1975 through ’80, though, with the likes of Amos Otis, Fred Patek, Frank White, and Willie Wilson, the Royals never had fewer than 150. And in three of those six years, Kansas City hitters swiped more than 200 bags. Guess what else from those six seasons? They won the Western Division four times: 1976, ’77, ’78, and ’80.
Of course, that’s not necessarily a formula for annually reaching the World Series, but it worked for the Royals during the regular season in 2014, and it carried over to the postseason. The Royals showed during the postseason that having speed on bases can cause havoc for defenses. And, speaking of defense, they showed during the postseason that Cain, Dyson, Alex Gordon, and Aoki have enough speed to cover the vast outfield at Kauffman Stadium or any other stadium for that matter.
“When you range as far as we range in the outfield,” Yost said, “especially when these games are as tight as they are, you just feel like you’re never going to get a break because our defensive guys are absolutely everywhere, and it is a bit deflating.”
Cain slides safely under the tag of Giants second baseman Joe Panik in Game 2. A key cog in the Royals’ speed game, Cain stole 28 bases during the regular season. (AP Images)
Billy Butler
16 | DH
“Country Breakfast” Is a Natural at the Plate
A player doesn’t forget his first major league game. Billy Butler definitely won’t. It was May 1, 2007, against the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. Bartolo Colon, one of the American League’s best pitchers at the time, was on the mound.
With a veteran’s confidence, and not that of a recently-turned 21-year-old kid, Butler stepped calmly inside the batter’s box for his first plate appearance. He got a hit.
“I was absolutely nervous, as you should be at that point in your career,” said Butler, who went 2-for-4 that day. “I’m still nervous when I go up there. It’s one of those things that hopefully never goes away. That’s the edge, the fire inside, wanting to do well and help the team.”
It was one debut that many fans couldn’t wait for.
See, Billy Butler, who has one of the purest swings you’ll ever see, was born to be a hitter. Shoot, colleges started contacting him when he was about 12 or 13. Butler, who was given the nickname “Country Breakfast” by some fans in 2011, eventually signed a letter of intent with one of those schools that contacted him early, the University of Florida. Of course the Royals interrupted those plans when the club selected him with the 14th overall pick in the 2004 draft.
It looked immediately as if the Royals got what they needed. Butler was the Rookie of the Year in the Pioneer League in 2004 and then the California League Rookie of the Year in ’05. In 2006 he won the Texas League batting title with a .331 average. All of that was before he could legally drink.
Billy Butler, who has a career batting average of .295, is valued for his contributions at the plate. But his value was diverse in 2014; he stole a key base in the AL playoffs and saw his slugging percentage as a first baseman increase to .815. (AP Images)
“The thing I like about Billy is that he has always been a hitter, so he knows what he’s doing,” said Frank White, who managed Butler at Double A Wichita, Kansas in 2008. “Then you listen to his comments when he comes back to the dugout and you know he follows the sequence of pitches and what the pitchers are trying to do.”
When Butler first made it to Wichita, during his second season of professional baseball, he was a typical young player trying so hard to continue advancing in the system. His youth and, frankly, immaturity would show up if he didn’t like a call by an umpire or if he simply had a bad at-bat.
“Oh, Billy and I had a lot of conversations,” White said with a laugh. “We’d talk about his body language, for instance, when umpires would call a strike and how long it would take him to get back in the box between pitches. I tried to give him some ideas of what umpires in the big leagues think about rookies and the way players should ask questions about pitches instead of being so obvious about his displeasure for the pitch.”
Then, White paused and thought for a minute about Butler before gushing.
“Really, he’s just an awesome kid.”
And, he’s been a pretty good player.
In 2009 Butler became only the fifth player in major league history to record at least 50 doubles and 20 home runs in a season before turning 24 years old. He joined Hank Greenberg (1934), Alex Rodriguez (1996), Albert Pujols (2003), and Miguel Cabrera (2006), when he had 51 doubles and 21 homers—at the age of 23.
Billy Butler is the Royals’ longest-tenured player. He has been with the club for his entire career, dating back to 2007.
Then, in 2012, Butler was selected as the Silver Slugger Award winner at designated hitter in the American League. He was the seventh Royals player to win the award, joining George Brett (three times), Willie Wilson (twice), plus Hal McRae, White, Gary Gaetti, and Dean Palmer.
Through various acquisitions and signings, not to mention the emergence in 2011 of Eric Hosmer at first base, Butler has become, almost exclusively, the club’s designated hitter. During 2011–13 he played in the field for a total of 38 games—all at first. In 2013 he appeared in all of the club’s 162 games for the first time in his career.
Butler, who’s the longest tenured Royals player, had a down season overall in 2014, batting a career-low .271 with nine home runs and 66 RBIs (the lowest number of homers and RBIs since his first and second year in the league, respectively). But he showed that he has value defensively. He was a key to keeping the Royals in a playoff hunt during August, when Hosmer missed a month with a hand injury. Butler played a solid first base (two errors in 37 total games at first in ’14) and saw his on-base plus slugging percentage increase from .646 as a designated hitter to .815 as a first baseman.
Although he’s slow afoot—enough so that Toronto Blue Jays right fielder Jose Bautista threw him out at first in May of this season on what should’ve been a solid base hit—Butler had one of Kansas City’s 13 stolen bases during the AL playoffs. His theft caused a Kansas City area church to change its sign to read: “Thou shalt not steal, unless you are Billy Butler.” Photos of the sign went viral.
It was just a small part of the Royals taking a magical ride through the American League playoffs and winning the pennant for the first time since 1985.
“The whole season’s been a roller-coaster; we’ve had a lot of ups and downs but mainly ups lately,” Butler said after the AL pennant-clinching game. “We’re all brothers in this and we all care about each other. We’re 25 playing as one.”
Butler celebrated his first AL pennant when Kansas City defeated the Baltimore Orioles in the ALCS. (AP Images)
Raul Ibanez
18 | OF
In Second Stint with K.C., Veteran’s Speech Sparks Team
Raul Ibanez had been a productive player for the Royals, batting .286 with 418 hits, 57 home runs, and 252 RBIs during four seasons. But that was 11 years and five teams ago—if you count two stints with Seattle. When the Los Angeles Angels released him on June 21, 2014, he was batting .157 with three homers and 21 RBIs in 57 games, a drastic drop from his 29-homer season last year with Seattle.
Nine days after it appeared Ibanez’s 19-year career was finished, why would the Royals sign him?
“We’ve always been a big admirer of Raul, how he played and how he is as a person,” said general manager Dayton Moore, who was more than two seasons away from becoming the Royals general manager when Ibanez left and signed with Seattle after the 2003 season. “We felt by signing him…it makes our team as good as it can be today.”
Having hit a ninth-inning game-tying and then a game-winning home run in the 12th inning for the Yankees in Game 3 of the 2012 ALDS, Ibanez had postseason pedigree, making him a more appealing commodity than his meager stats suggested. “I knew that there would be opportunities, and there were multiple opportunities,” Ibanez said. “I wanted to get an opportunity to win and be a part of something special. The Royals opportunity was by far the most intriguing one, considering the fact that they gave me the opportunity to play every day. They were the first team that believed in me and gave me a shot.”
In his second stint with the Royals, Raul Ibanez warms up prior to a game against the Arizona Diamondbacks on August 6. (AP Images)
On the field, the 42-year-old wasn’t a great contributor in his second tour with the Royals. After signing on June 30, Ibanez played in 33 games and hit .188 with two home runs and five RBIs. But about three weeks after he signed, he demonstrated why the Royals acquired him.
After taking first place in June, the Royals hit a couple short losing streaks while the Detroit Tigers remained hot. After 98 games Kansas City had lost four in a row and was 48–50, eight games back in the division on July 21. The Royals had been 45–40 on July 4. So after seeing the team slide into a 3–10 funk, Ibanez called a players-only meeting the next afternoon in Chicago.
“I gave them my honest observations and told them about the potential and talent they had,” Ibanez said. “I told them that looking in from the outside, every team hated to play them. Everyone saw the talent they had. This was their opportunity.”
For the ’14 Royals, the speech must’ve been a turning point. They seized that opportunity. After the speech the Royals defeated the White Sox 7–1. That started a five-game winning streak. Whether it had anything to do with the speech or not, throughout the rest of the regular season the Royals went 41–23.
Veteran Raul Ibanez speaks during the American League Championship Series. (AP Images)
“It’s no coincidence. It all started with Raul,” Royals left fielder Alex Gordon told USA TODAY. “We were kind of in the dumps. We had just been swept coming out of the All-Star break. Things weren’t looking good. We came out of that meeting feeling so much different about yourselves.”
After the season he had, including not being on the Royals postseason roster after the wild-card, Ibanez is likely to retire and return to his home in the Seattle area with his wife and their family.
“I’m totally fine. I’ve been blessed,” Ibanez told the New York Post during the ALCS. “Just being here, being a part of something greater than yourself, is always what it’s really about, anyway. It’s always about winning. And to get an opportunity to be connected to this team and to Kansas City for the rest of your life, the city will be connected to this team forever. So just to be part of that is phenomenal.”
Below: Opposite: About one month after his fiery speech sparked the Royals, Ibanez faces the Texas Rangers on August 24. (AP Images)
Mike Moustakas
8 | 3B
After Demotion to Minors, “Moose” Shines on the Big Stage
All can be forgotten in October...or at least forgiven. That’s certainly been the case for Royals third baseman Mike Moustakas, who in 2014 went from a light-hitting punk that spent part of this season in the minors to one of the main reasons the Royals advanced to the World Series for the first time in 29 years.
Starting with the American League playoffs, Moustakas started looking like the player the Royals thought he’d become when they selected him second overall in the 2007 MLB Amateur Draft out of Chatsworth High School in southern California. Taking him behind pitcher David Price seemed like a good gamble. After all, the club wanted an infielder with some pop in his bat. Moustakas, who set the California high school state record with 54 career home runs, hit 24 homers as a high school senior to go with his .577 batting average, and selection as the National Player of the Year by several publications.
Until the 2014 AL playoffs, however, fans hadn’t seen that side of Moustakas. He resembled first-round busts of previous years. Saying that “Moose” got off to a slow start in 2014 would be like saying Billy Butler is a slow runner or Greg Holland is an okay closer. Moustakas couldn’t have gotten off to a worse start to the season if he tried. The start was so slow that by the time he did pick things up a bit, he couldn’t dig out enough to look respectable.
After defeating the San Francisco Giants in Game 3, Mike Moustakas celebrates with Eric Hosmer. The former prized prospects were selected in the first round in successive drafts. (AP Images)
Moustakas didn’t exactly help his image off the field during the early part of the season, either. On May 14, “Moose” went 2-for-3 against Colorado in a Kansas City win. The two hits bumped his batting average up to .161, which is still about 40 points below the Mendoza Line, a term, ironically, credited to George Brett during an interview in 1980. Moustakas didn’t have any witty comments for reporters. Instead, when asked about his game, he kept responding with comments such as: “[Jason] Vargas threw the ball fantastic,” and “Vargie had a great game.”
Coincidentally, eight days later, the Royals sent Moustakas and his .152 batting average to Triple A Omaha. At the time it looked as if the club’s first-round pick in 2007 (second overall) might be gone for awhile.
“It’s the best thing for everybody right now,” said general manager Dayton Moore. “You make decisions on what’s best for the team and what’s best for the player as well. We felt that keeping Moose up as long as we did gave us the best opportunity to win games at the time. But he understands that it’s probably the best for him and the team right now. He’s going to go to Omaha and play with that passion and that great heart that he has and get back here and help us, hopefully sooner than later.”
Manager Ned Yost, whose players love him because of the confidence he shows in his guys, gave Moustakas a vote of confidence that proved prophetic during the postseason.
“He’s a guy that’s going to help us win a championship,” Yost said in May, when the Royals announced Moustakas’ demotion.
The trip to Omaha paid off for both the Storm Chasers and Moustakas. In eight games at Omaha, Moustakas batted .355 with 11 hits. It had taken him nearly a month to get his 11th big league hit this season.
A Royals fan embraces Mike Moustakas’ nickname of “Moose.” (AP Images)
He worked on some mechanics during that stretch, but it didn’t seem to make a huge difference once he was back in Kansas City. Moustakas didn’t get his batting average to .200 until July 25, but it dipped back down immediately. It didn’t surpass .200 “for good” until August 19, the 125th game of the season. He finished with a career-low .212 with 97 hits and 74 strikeouts. He was a mess in the field, too, sporting a career-low .947 fielding percentage at third base.
For some unknown reason, “Moose” broke loose during the American League playoffs, batting .241 with four home runs. He hit 15 home runs during the regular season but only two since July 25 and none in September. (His four homers in the postseason tied him with Willie Aikens for second most postseason home runs in Royals history.) One of Moose’s four happened to be the game-winner in the 11th inning at Anaheim.
His defense picked up during the postseason, too. Besides overall solid defensive play, Moustakas robbed Baltimore’s Adam Jones of another swing in Game 3 of the ALCS when he went diving into the dugout suite on a play that will forever live in postseason lore. At the time of the play in the sixth inning, the score was tied 1–1, and the Kauffman Stadium crowd had been lulled into the quiet pace of the game. After Moustakas’ catch, the stadium became electric again with chants of “Let’s go Royals!” mixed in with “Moooooose!”
Whether Moustakas just happened to shine in October or it was his coming-out party, doesn’t matter. For now, all else is forgotten.
Mike Moustakas hits a solo home run off Bud Norris during Game 2 of the American League Championship Series. (AP Images)
James Shields
33 | P
Young Royals Squad Relies on “Big Game James”
The news in December 2012 shocked every baseball insider and fan. The Royals acquired James Shields, an All-Star front-end starting pitcher; Wade Davis, a solid pitcher; and reserve infielder Elliot Johnson (the “player to be named later”) from Tampa Bay in a monstrous deal that sent Wil Myers, Jake Odorizzi, Mike Montgomery, and Patrick Leonard to the Rays.
Most “experts” felt general manager Dayton Moore had been bamboozled. Or simply lost his mind. How else could it be explained that he traded Myers, the Baseball America 2012 Player of the Year, for Shields, who’s signed through only 2014?
“To be clear: I’m with what seems to be the industry consensus, that the Royals are reaching too far and too early and giving up too much,” Sam Mellinger, columnist for the Kansas City Star.
Former Star columnist and Sports Illustrated writer Joe Posnanaski was a little bolder in his assessment of the trade: “I despise the Royals’ trade of late Sunday night. Despise. Deplore. Deride. Disapprove.”
One of the few who lauded the deal was Fox Sports writer Ken Rosenthal, who wrote: “This is a chance that the Royals had to take, not just for Moore to save his job, but also for the franchise to restore its good name…now, they should at least compete in the AL Central, even with the mighty Tigers.”
And that’s exactly what the Royals did with Shields. He was a big reason in 2013 the Royals were in the hunt for their first postseason berth since 1985 and their first winning record since 2003. (They were eliminated from the wild-card during the final week of the regular season and finished third in the AL Central with an 86–76 record, their best since 1989.) “Big Game James” Shields went 13–9 with a 3.15 ERA in 34 starts. Additionally, he struck out 196 while walking only 68. In September Shields had a 4–1 record with a 3.18 ERA and 44 strikeouts in six starts. His strikeout total was the most for the Royals in September since Bret Saberhagen fanned 48 in 1989.
James Shields, who went 14–8 with a 3.21 ERA during the 2014 season, throws during a July 12th contest against the Detroit Tigers. (AP Images)
Shields had nearly identical numbers in 2014, as he went 14–8 with a 3.21 ERA in 34 starts. He was in or near the top 10 in most categories for starting pitchers in the American League.
“He knows how to handle his emotions and channel it to his benefit, but he also knows how to transfer it to his teammates,” Royals manager Ned Yost said. “He knows what’s at stake and he’s getting after it. He’s into it.”
Shields was into it so much that he made three starts during the American League playoffs, including the wild-card game against Oakland and the first game of the ALCS against Baltimore.
In those three games, Shields was roughed up, but he went 16 total innings and came away with a 1–0 record. (Had the Orioles defeated Kansas City in Game 4, Shields was slated to start Game 5 in Kansas City.) With plenty of rest, Shields was the Royals’ Game 1 starter in the World Series. Again, he was roughed up, but by starting him, it proved the confidence Yost has in his ace.
“He’s very competitive and he’s a guy that when his stuff is right he’s dominant,” Yost said. “But you have to know James Shields. You have to know that he’s a tremendous competitor. He has the ability to make adjustments. Right now he just hasn’t been as sharp as he has been.”
As important as what Shields can do on the mound is what he’s done in the clubhouse. He quickly became a veteran leader for the young pitchers and he brought a fun but winning attitude. After every win this season, including during the postseason, the players had a mini-celebration, complete with a fog machine, strobe lights, and the introduction of a Player of the Game. Shields was behind that.
“If we used to win in a game, we’d come in the clubhouse, and you really couldn’t tell,” pitching mate Danny Duffy told mlb.com during the ALCS. “Now we’ve got music jumping. Every win has meaning. Everything, really, has meaning. Even losses, they hurt more. Everything we do matters. Every pitch. Every at-bat. It’s big.
“One of the most genius moves anyone’s ever made in baseball was to get him…It changed our clubhouse. It changed our organization. It’s night and day from what it was when I first got here.”
James Shields showed his mettle during the ALCS—he pitched with a kidney stone during Game 1 and was in “excruciating pain.” (AP Images)
A Long Time Coming
Victory Against White Sox Clinches First Playoff Berth Since ’85
Twenty-nine years is a lifetime for some. But there they were, the newest crop of Royals—half of whom weren’t alive in October 1985—on September 26, the final Friday of the regular season, still trailing the Tigers by one game but with a chance to clinch at least one of the two wild-card spots.
With two outs in the bottom of the ninth and the Royals leading the White Sox 3–1 and hundreds of Royals fans in the U.S. Cellular Field stands chanting “Let’s go Royals,” closer Greg Holland got Michael Taylor to pop up in foul territory. Catcher Salvador Perez threw his mask aside and camped under the ball. As soon as he secured it, the years of waiting, anticipation, and even embarrassment were coming to a close.
The Royals were going to the postseason.
It sparked a celebration in the clubhouse and on the field with the fans that would’ve given the ’85 World Series celebration a run for its money.
“I live within my own heart,” an emotional Royals manager Ned Yost said. “I know what these guys can do. I don’t need somebody to tell me what they can do or what they can’t do. I’ve been telling you guys for two or three years that this is a club that has the opportunity to go the playoffs and win a world championship. I believed it.”
With a large contingency of Royals fans from Kansas City, Chicago, and all points in between at the game, the offense took a load off pitcher Jeremy Guthrie’s shoulders in the first inning. After Alcides Escobar led off the first with a single, Nori Aoki tripled to right, giving Kansas City a 1–0 lead. Lorenzo Cain then knocked in Aoki with a base hit to center. Cain stole second base before coming in to score on a single by Billy Butler.
Eric Hosmer celebrates with catcher Salvador Perez following the Royals’ 3–1 win over the Chicago White Sox on September 26. The win clinched a postseason berth for the Royals. (AP Images)
That was more than Guthrie needed. He gave up only four hits and held the White Sox scoreless during seven innings of work. Yost then turned to two-thirds of the club’s three-headed bullpen monster. Wade Davis surrendered Chicago’s only run of the contest, but Greg Holland retired the Sox in order in the ninth as he picked up his 46th save of the season.
“If we could get a couple of runs for Guthrie early and give him some breathing room,” Yost said. “I had a feeling he was going to be really sharp today and he was.”
After the team celebrated in the clubhouse for a while, they came back out onto the field and started high-fiving and celebrating with their fans.
With two games left and trailing Detroit by only one, the Royals had a prime opportunity to force a one-game playoff with the Tigers to determine the division champ.
Something, though, that would become more rewarding happened. Both teams lost on Saturday and both won on Sunday. So the Royals, instead of playing the Baltimore Orioles in the ALDS, would be playing host to the Oakland A’s in the wild-card game. Although that sounds like a more difficult road, that contest sparked one of the greatest, most magical stretches in Kansas City baseball history.
Clad in playoff t-shirts, Royals fans at Kauffman Stadium celebrate during the playoffs. (AP Images)