Wednesday, March 23, 2016

Top Moments (#40 - #36) of the 2014-2015 Kansas City Royals.


This set of five Moments includes the season-saving final hit in a player’s 11-year major league career, a pair of tie-breaking singles in key situations, a potential out at the plate kicked away which led to the only two runs the Royals would score in a playoff win, and a Mets player’s brain-lock TOOTBLAN that led to the final out in a World Series game. And we still have 35 Moments to go.


Moment #: 40
Date: September 30, 2014
Game: 2014 Wild Card Game, vs. Oakland Athletics
Score: Oakland 7, Kansas City 6, Bottom of the 9th
Situation: No outs, bases empty
Count: 1-2
Matchup: Josh Willingham vs. Sean Doolittle
Result: Single
WPA: 13%

Summary: With the Royals three outs away from elimination, Josh Willingham pinch-hits against Sean Doolittle and delivers the final base hit of his career.

Link to video: Here.


If Ben Zobrist was the best trade deadline acquisition in Royals history, and Johnny Cueto was the second-best trade acquisition in Royals history, then who was the best trade deadline acquisition prior to 2015? It might have been Jason Frasor in 2014, who stabilized the middle relief corps down the stretch and then allowed one run in 5.1 innings in the playoffs. Or it might have been Josh Willingham, who only hit .233/.349/.384 in 86 plate appearances as a Royal, and had just one hit in the postseason. But oh, what a hit it was.

Willingham led off the bottom of the 9th in the Wild Card Game, the Royals down a run with three outs left in their season, against Sean Doolittle, who had a respectable 2.73 ERA during the regular season, but whose ERA vastly understated his dominance – he had a 1.71 FIP, thanks to a strikeout-to-walk ratio of 89 to 7. (Among closers with 15+ saves in a season, Doolittle’s strikeout-to-walk ratio ranks fifth all time, behind two seasons from Dennis Eckersley, one from Mariano Rivera, and Koji Uehara’s insane 2013 season.) Batters had hit .169/.197/.262 off Doolittle during the season. Willingham, meanwhile, hadn’t had a base hit since September 10th.

It didn’t look like a good matchup for anyone to face Doolittle, and it didn’t look any better when Willingham swung through Doolittle’s first pitch, or when he fell behind 1-and-2. But then, just as Ron Darling was claiming on the broadcast that the “Royals got Willingham to do one thing – hit the ball out of the ballpark”, Willingham swung at Doolittle’s fourth pitch, a 94 mph fastball that got a little too much of the outside part of the plate, and blooped it (Team Contact!) down the right field line. The A’s, who certainly respected Willingham’s ability to hit the ball out of the ballpark, had their outfield slightly shaded to the pull side, and rightfielder Josh Reddick had no chance to catch Willingham’s blooper. One inning after the Royals stranded the tying and go-ahead runs in scoring position with one out, they had another rally going. And they had one more pinch-running weapon in their holster.

Willingham would bat three more times in the playoffs, all three times as a pinch-hitter. He batted for Terrance Gore, who had pinch-run for Billy Butler in the 9th inning, in Game 2 of the ALDS – right after Eric Hosmer had just given the Royals a 3-1 lead in the 11th inning – and popped out. He pinch-hit for Butler as a courtesy at-bat in the 9th inning of Game 1 of the World Series, with the Royals losing 7-1, and struck out. And in Game 2, he pinch-hit for Gore, who had again pinch-run for Butler during the Royals’ five-run 6th inning, and struck out with the Royals leading 7-2 in the 8th. (Willingham did not make an appearance in any of the three World Series games in San Francisco, a fact which still astounds me.)

Willingham would then retire after the season, making this single the final base hit of his career. I’m sure that, in the grand and glorious history of major league baseball, there are other players who have made the final hit of their careers count for more. It’s just that I don’t know who they might be. Willingham was a Royal for barely two months. He had 18 hits in a Royals uniform, and 17 of them are completely unmemorable. And he’ll never be forgotten.

Oh, and why was Willingham in the game at all? He was pinch-hitting for Mike Moustakas. Ned Yost abhors pinch-hitters as much as any manager I’ve ever seen, but even he understood that when a left-handed hitter who batted .212 on the season, and who hit .172/.241/.313, is scheduled to face a left-handed closer in the 9th with your season on the line, you need to look for another option. Willingham was on the roster for basically this situation, and Yost used him. Had Moustakas had the year he had in 2015 in 2014 instead, he’s not coming out of the game, and everything turns out differently.

Everything happens for a reason. What makes the 2014-2015 Royals so special is that the reasons are all laid out for us, clear as day.


Tuesday, March 22, 2016

Top Moments (#45 - #41) of the 2014-2015 Kansas City Royals.


This set of five Moments includes arguably the most underrated hit in either postseason, two remarkable and emotion-fueled innings from a kid less than four months out of college, and two singles in the thick of the Miracle at Minute Maid. And we still have 40 Moments left to go.

Moment #: 45
Date: October 27, 2015
Game: 2015 World Series Game 1, vs. New York Mets
Score: New York 4, Kansas City 4, Bottom of the 14th
Situation: No outs, man on first
Count: 2-1
Matchup: Ben Zobrist vs. Bartolo Colon
Result: Single, runner advances to third
WPA: 23%

Summary: Ben Zobrist singles to put the winning run on third base with no outs in the bottom of the 14th inning.

Link to video: Here.



Baseball has something called the “Esurance MLB Awards”, which I’m sure is totally a prestigious award and not something they invented just to get money from a corporate sponsor. One of these awards is for “Best Major Leaguer, Postseason”, which you and I would call the Postseason MVP. In 2015, it was awarded to Wade Davis, and I’m not about to tell you that was a mistake – Davis threw 10.2 scoreless innings in the playoffs, the Royals won all eight games he appeared in, and he recorded four saves along with a win in Game 6 of the ALCS in one of the gutsiest relief outings you’ll ever see. His WPA was 0.949, so he was worth about a full win above an average (not replacement) pitcher in just eight games – such is the impact of pitching high-leverage innings.

The two other finalists were Daniel Murphy, which is understandable, and Alcides Escobar, who was the ALCS MVP and hit .329/.347/.514 in the postseason. Escobar’s WPA in the 2015 playoffs was only 0.078, though – he was barely average when you consider the context of his at-bats, which is to say he did some of his best work in games that weren’t particularly close. (In Games 3 and 4 of the ALCS, for instance, he was 6-for-8 with a triple.) But I would submit that the player who had the best case for challenging Wade Davis for the award was Ben Zobrist. Zobrist hit .303/.365/.515 in the playoffs, with a WPA of 0.392 – not nearly in Davis’ class, because everyday hitters, unlike relievers, can’t be saved for the highest-leverage moments. But he always seemed to come through with exactly what the Royals needed, whether it was a sacrifice fly to drive home an insurance run (Moment #115) or a walk to start an 8th-inning rally (Moment #104) or a home run to open the scoring (Moment #119 and Moment #85) or a go-ahead single in the 7th inning (Moment #55).

Or his biggest Moment of all, and in classic Zobrist fashion, one that is so overlooked that MLB.com doesn’t even have a highlight for it: with Alcides Escobar on first base after David Wright’s error to start the bottom of the 14th, Zobrist took advantage of Lucas Duda holding Escobar on first base to create a huge hole on the right side of the infield, and punched a single through the vacated space, allowing Escobar to go first-to-third and put the winning run 90 feet away with no one out. The WPA of this play (+23%) was not only the largest of the game, it was the fourth-largest by any Royals hitter in the 2015 postseason, and two of the three bigger plays were actually errors by the opponent. Eric Hosmer gets all the glory for his sacrifice fly two batters later, but Zobrist was more responsible than anyone else for the game-winning rally.

Was Zobrist the MVP of the postseason? I’m not sure, but I wouldn’t write off his case. WPA doesn’t take position into account, and getting that kind of offensive production from second base is even more valuable. It also doesn’t factor in defense, and while Zobrist didn’t make any spectacular plays during the playoffs, he also didn’t make any errors, which isn’t an insignificant fact over the course of 16 games.

(Here’s an underrated fact: while everyone knows the Royals’ defense in the playoffs has been spectacular, that’s more predicated on their making so many outstanding plays as opposed to making all the routine ones. But guess how many errors the Royals have made in the last two postseasons? Five. Five errors in 31 games, which would extrapolate to 26 errors over a full season. That would be less than half the current all-time record for fewest errors in a season, 54 by the 2013 Orioles.)

As an aside: Hosmer hit .212/.236/.288 in the 2015 postseason…and his WPA was 0.812 anyway, because his hits were so timely. That doesn’t account for his costly error in Game 1 of the World Series – and gives him credit for Daniel Murphy’s error in Game 4 – but it also doesn’t account for his mad dash to score the tying run in Game 5.


Monday, March 21, 2016

Top Moments (#50 - #46) of the 2014-2015 Kansas City Royals.



There’s so much awesomeness in the Top 50 that going forward, I’ll be posting articles five Moments at a time instead of ten so that you can savor them all the more. In this batch alone we have the most dominant inning in Royals postseason history, two improbable RBI singles from Eric Hosmer, a leadoff single in extra innings in the final game of the year, and the moment the Royals won their first pennant in 29 years. And we still have 45 Moments to go.

Moment #: 50
Date: October 10, 2014
Game: 2014 ALCS Game 1, @ Baltimore Orioles
Score: Kansas City 5, Baltimore 5, Bottom of the 9th
Situation: Two outs, bases empty
Count: 1-2
Matchup: Nelson Cruz vs. Wade Davis
Result: Strikeout swinging
WPA: 3%

Summary: With Game 1 of the 2014 ALCS tied in the bottom of the 9th, after the Royals had blown a golden opportunity to take the lead, Wade Davis throws the most dominant inning in Royals playoff history.

Link to video: Here.


We start the Top 50 with a Moment that you almost certainly have forgotten about. That’s because I cheated a little; this isn’t a single moment as it was a single inning. A dominant, hellacious, series-changing inning.

To set the stage: Game 1 of the 2014 ALCS was tied at 5 entering the ninth inning. The Orioles turned to their closer, Zach Britton, who proceeded to do the unthinkable: he walked the bases loaded. First he walked Alcides Escobar on a 3-2 count, which is difficult enough on its own. But Britton then faced Jarrod Dyson, who can’t hit lefties worth a damn, and had entered the game as a pinch-runner for Nori Aoki in the 7th (and then was thrown out trying to steal second base) – on four pitches. Britton then walked Lorenzo Cain – on four pitches. The bases were loaded, there were no outs, the heart of the Royals’ order was due up, and the pitcher on the mound suddenly couldn’t throw strikes. You might even say that the Royals had…momentum.

And then Zach Britton, on a 3-2 pitch to Eric Hosmer, got Hosmer to ground out to the first baseman – who, with the infield in, threw home and got the force out to keep the game tied. That brought up Billy Butler, and Buck Showalter called on Darren O'Day - like Britton a groundballer, but who also had the benefit of being right-handed - to face off against one of the game’s biggest GIDP threats. Sure enough, on the 7th pitch of the at-bat, Butler rolled over to the shortstop, who started an easy 6-4-3 double play. Butler’s double play had a WPA of -35%, making it by the far the most damaging plate appearance by a Royals hitter in postseason history. (No other play is even at -20% WPA.) After having the bases loaded with no outs, the Royals didn’t score, and the Orioles would bat in the bottom of the 9th with their 2-3-4 hitters due up, needing single run to end the game. You would definitely say that the Orioles had…momentum.

It was Earl Weaver who said “Momentum is the next day’s starting pitcher”, because Earl Weaver was a very smart man. I have proposed a 21st-century corollary to this rule that applies to momentum within games: Momentum is the next inning’s reliever. And in the history of baseball, there has never been a better reliever to call upon in the next inning than 2014-2015 vintage Wade Davis.

Davis had already pitched the 8th inning, but having dispatched the Orioles on just seven pitches, and with the game tied and poised to continue indefinitely, it made sense to try to milk another inning out of him. And oh, what an inning it was. Pitching through a steady rain, Davis struck out Alejandro de Aza on four pitches. He then struck out Adam Jones on three pitches. And finally, as you see here, he struck out Nelson Cruz on four pitches.

I unfortunately do not know a way to check this for sure, but I’m fairly certain that there has never been another instance in the playoffs of a Royals pitcher striking out the side on 11 pitches or less. So I think it’s safe to say that this was the most dominant inning in Royals playoff history. 

(Update: the above paragraph is dead wrong, as brilliant reader Taylor Witt pointed out in the comments, and I am an idiot for forgetting. In Game 5 of the 1985 World Series, Danny Jackson - on his way to a complete game win, the second time that October that he threw a complete game victory in a Game 5 with the Royals down 3 games to 1 - struck out the side in the 7th inning on nine pitches. That's right: Danny Jackson threw an Immaculate Inning in the World Series. He is the only pitcher to ever thrown an Immaculate Inning in the postseason.

And the reason I'm an idiot for forgetting is that Bill James wrote about this in his "A History Of Being A Kansas City Baseball Fan" essay in the 1986 Bill James Abstract, which I've only read about a dozen times. Here I quote: "Jackson was never challenged again. In the seventh inning, Brett slid into the dugout in a spectacular, but unsuccessful, attempt to catch a pop up; that failing it became strike one, and Jackson struck out the side on nine pitches. (I wonder if that's ever happened before in a World Series game? I'd be very surprised if it has.) The Royals added a run in the eighth and one in the ninth, and had their second easy victory of the series."

Brett's slide into the dugout, incidentally, is one of the most famous highlights of the entire 1985 Royals championship, even though he didn't make the catch - he hurtled himself at full speed into the dugout and could have been seriously injured, but came out without a scratch. You can watch that inning here, starting at the 1:55:15 mark.)

And it could hardly have come at a better time. After squandering their opportunity against Britton, the Royals would take full advantage of their opportunities against Darren O’Day and Brian Matusz in the top of the 10th, scoring three runs. Davis was credited with the win.

The next night, Davis was credited with the win in Game 2 when he pitched a scoreless 8th inning and the Royals scored two tie-breaking runs in the top of the 9th. After the game, Jarrod Dyson made his comments to the media that he didn’t think the series was coming back to Baltimore, and posited that the Orioles didn’t think the series was coming back either. That led to this now-famous entry at the online forum Orioles Dugout:





And that, my friends, is how Wade Davis came to be known as The Cyborg.





Saturday, March 19, 2016

Top Moments (#60 - #51) of the 2014-2015 Kansas City Royals.


This set of ten Moments includes the second-biggest stolen base of Jarrod Dyson’s career – which means it’s the second-biggest stolen base in Royals history – a pair of huge leadoff at-bats from Alcides Escobar, two game-tying hits, four at-bats that gave the Royals the lead, and a curtain call. And we still have 50 Moments to go.


Moment #: 60
Date: October 12, 2015
Game: 2015 ALDS Game 4, @ Houston Astros
Score: Kansas City 0, Houston 0, Top of the 2nd
Situation: One out, man on first
Count: 1-2
Matchup: Salvador Perez vs. Lance McCullers
Result: Home Run, two go-ahead runs score
WPA: 18%

Summary: Before the Miracle at Minute Maid starts, Salvador Perez crushes an opposite-field home run to give the Royals an early 2-0 lead.

Link to video: Here.


When Salvador Perez was young and new to the major leagues, he crushed opposite-field home runs with some regularity. But over the years he has become far more pull-happy with his home runs, and not coincidentally, his batting average has dropped from .331 to .301 to .292 to holding steady at .260 the last two years. Compare his spray chart from 2012 to the one from 2014-15:


Perez had more home runs to the opposite field in 2012 (4) – when he played in only 76 games – than he did in 2014 and 2015 combined (3).

So it was a very pleasant surprise, and a very welcome relief, when Perez opened the scoring in Game 4 of the 2015 ALDS by hitting a 97 mph outside fastball from Lance McCullers on a 1-2 count deep into the right field seats. It came with a man aboard, and were the only two runs the Royals had scored before The Miracle started in the 8th. His home run has been forgotten by all the drama that followed it, but it was enormous in the moment, and even more significant in retrospect. The Miracle only happened because Perez’s home run meant they still had a prayer to begin with.


Tuesday, March 15, 2016

Top Moments (#70 - #61) of the 2014-2015 Kansas City Royals.


This set of ten Moments includes two key moments in a five-run inning against David Price, two enormous strikeouts with a pair of men on base, two huge plate appearances from the 8th inning of the Wild Card Game, the first three at-bats of the Miracle at Minute Maid, and concludes with what was then the biggest Royals moment in 29 years. And we still have 60 Moments to go.


Moment #: 70
Date: October 17, 2015
Game: 2015 ALCS Game 2, vs. Toronto Blue Jays
Score: Toronto 3, Kansas City 0, Bottom of the 7th
Situation: No outs, bases empty
Count: 0-0
Matchup: Ben Zobrist vs. David Price
Result: Single
WPA: 5%

Summary: Ben Zobrist lofts a pop-up that Ryan Goins and Jose Bautista allow to drop between them. But there was no one on base and the Blue Jays led 3-0 and David Price was on the mound, so what was the worst that could happen?

Link to video: Here.


There are a lot of Moments on this list, but this might be the only one that involves the Royals’ hitter throwing his bat down in disgust after putting the ball in play.

For a quarter century, it was the Royals that allowed routine pop-ups to turn into singles. For pretty much the entirety of the Allard Baird Era in Kansas City, I was terrified by every pop-up that was hit between the infield and the outfield – and with good reason. Do these names bring back any painful memories: Chip Ambres…Kerry Robinson…Terrence Long?

But just as the 2014-2015 Royals bulldozed through the postseason, they were turning the tables on the franchise’s own history. Now it was the other teams making silly mistakes, and it was the Royals who were taking advantage. Now it was the Royals who were hitting the pop-ups, and their opponents who were letting them drop for singles. On a Saturday afternoon at Kauffman Stadium, in Game 2 of the ALCS, Ben Zobrist led off the bottom of the 7th inning against David Price, who after allowing a single to lead off the game had retired 18 batters in a row. Zobrist skied the first pitch to right field and flung his bat to the ground.

Who says home field advantage doesn’t matter? If the Royals hadn’t retaken the league’s best record from the Blue Jays during the final weekend of the regular season, they wouldn’t have been at home for Game 6, when they got a pair of questionable ball-strike calls to go their way in the 9th inning. And they wouldn’t have been at home for Game 2, when a raucous home crowd made it difficult for second baseman Ryan Goins and right fielder Jose Bautista to hear each other, and then one of our own (I’m convinced this happened) called out “I GOT IT!” and confused Goins, who let the ball drop.

(Addendum: as astute reader Chris Esch reminded me, in the middle of the 7th inning, the Royals played their well-known clip of Royals fan Eric Stonestreet (along with co-star Jesse Tyler Ferguson) - in character as the flamboyantly gay Cameron Tucker in Modern Family - rooting on the Royals and exhorting the fans to "Let's make some noy-oyse!" But then Crown Vision went live to Stonestreet, sitting in the stands and taking in the game that afternoon. That definitely added a buzz to the crowd, which hadn't worn off by the time Zobrist hit the first pitch, and the crowd noise was undeniably a crucial part of this play. So let's give an assist to Stonestreet. As a reward, he can pelt Jimmy Kimmel with a paintball gun.)

The Blue Jays had made a mistake, but it was still up to the Royals to make them pay. The Royals would make them pay. By the time the inning ended, they would lead, 5-3, making it the Royals’ most dramatic postseason comeback since…well, since Monday.

Saturday, March 12, 2016

Top Moments (#80 - #71) of the 2014-2015 Kansas City Royals.



This set of ten Moments commences with the most important wild pitch in franchise history, continues with a handful of iconic defensive plays, wraps up with a pair of game-icing home runs, and concludes with an event so unlikely it nearly broke the space-time continuum. And we still have 70 Moments to go.


Moment #: 80
Date: September 30, 2014
Game: 2014 Wild Card Game, vs. Oakland Athletics
Score: Oakland 7, Kansas City 5, Bottom of the 8th
Situation: One out, men on second and third
Count: 0-1
Matchup: Alex Gordon vs. Luke Gregerson
Result: Wild pitch, one run scores
WPA: 11%

Summary: In the midst of the Royals’ furious 8th-inning comeback in the Wild Card Game, Luke Gregerson throws a wild pitch to score a run and moving the tying run to third base with one out.

Link to video: Here.


When did I start to believe that the Royals not just could, but would, win the Wild Card Game? Probably around the time that Luke Gregerson bounced a slider to Alex Gordon in the dirt. Billy Butler had just singled to drive in the second run of the inning and bring the Royals to within two; Terrance Gore had pinch-run for Butler, and on the first pitch to Gordon, Gore stole second base (Moment #173) like it was nothing. Eric Hosmer was already on third base, so Gore represented the tying run, meaning that all the Royals had to do was bring home The Fastest Man In Baseball from scoring position.

And then Gregerson threw this slider too low and too inside, and Derek Norris let it bounce crazily off his glove, and Hosmer scored, and now The Fastest Man In Baseball was on third base with one out. It felt like destiny at that point. It felt like the Royals had all the momentum on their side. But as you know from the fact that I mentioned the word “momentum”, that’s not what happened at all. Gregerson walked Gordon, but rebounded to strike out Salvador Perez on three pitches (Gordon stole second base on the last of them), and then he struck out Omar Infante on four pitches. My faith was perhaps never tested more than it was at that moment, when a potentially historic four-run rally in the 8th inning of a double elimination game fell short because the Royals could not bring home Terrance Gore from third base with one out. (True story: after Perez struck out, I had such little confidence in the matchup between Infante and Gregerson that in the stands I was pushing for Gore to try to steal home. Come on: like you wouldn’t have wanted to see him try?)
But thanks to this wild pitch, the Royals exited the inning down only one run instead of two. And while Gore’s stolen base was ultimately in vain, the Royals had another ace baserunner up their sleeve.

(Also, just to cut off the protests in advance: Todd Worrell’s pitch in the 9th inning of Game 6 of the 1985 World Series was scored as a passed ball, not a wild pitch.)


Tuesday, March 8, 2016

Top Moments (#90 - #81) of the 2014-2015 Kansas City Royals.


This group of Moments include a pair of wild and memorable defensive plays, three tie-breaking home runs, and the wingmen in some of the most important rallies of the last two years. And we’re still not in the Top 80.


Moment #: 90
Date: October 2, 2014
Game: 2014 ALDS Game 1, @ Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
Score: Kansas City 2, Los Angeles 2, Bottom of the 7th
Situation: Two outs, man on third
Count: 0-0
Matchup: C.J. Cron vs. Wade Davis
Result: Flyout to right field
WPA: 7%

Summary: With the go-ahead run on third base in the bottom of the 7th of the ALDS opener, Nori Aoki atones for a bad route on C.J. Cron’s fly ball with a terrific, game-saving catch.

Link to video: Here.


How do you describe Nori Aoki? The best I can do is call him baseball’s version of Bean – a comically clumsy player who is constantly stumbling into good fortune. There may be no finer exhibit of both those traits than this play, coming just one inning after Aoki saved Jason Vargas and Ned Yost with one of the most unlikely catches I have ever seen. This catch wasn’t nearly as unlikely, or at least it shouldn’t have been before Aoki used his route to pay tribute to Magellan.


Game 1 of the 2014 ALDS was still tied in the bottom of the 7th inning when Kelvin Herrera began the inning by walking David Freese on five pitches – and then came out of the game with an elbow issue that had us all convinced he was about to undergo Tommy John surgery. (Instead, he was back in action three days later for Game 3.) Brandon Finnegan replaced him and gave up a sacrifice bunt to Erick Aybar, followed by a groundout to Josh Hamilton that moved Freese to third base. Ned Yost then called on Wade Davis to face C.J. Cron with the go-ahead run 90 feet away and two outs. On the first pitch, Cron hit a deep fly ball to right field. Aoki turned and ran almost directly to the wall, and then, realizing that the ball was not only hit behind him but also well to his left, made a 90-degree turn and started running parallel to the wall along the warning track, before making a diving catch to preserve the tie. It shouldn’t have been this dramatic. Had Aoki run a better route, this play wouldn’t rank in the Top 100. But then we wouldn’t have had this Moment, and the past two seasons would have been that tiny bit less fun.