A Look Back: 1985, Part One.

When the Royals hosted the All-Star Game in 2012, at the behest of my friends at 810 WHB I wrote a look back at the 1985 season for their All-Star Game program which was distributed throughout the city. With the Royals back in the playoffs for the first time since then, I thought this would be a good time to share that article with you here. This is the first half of that article.

Here’s the thing about the 1985 Royals, the only Kansas City team to win a World Series: they weren’t the best team in Royals history. Not even close.

The 1977 Royals won 102 games, the most in the majors, and seemed to be able to steamroll opponents at will – at one point in September, they won 24 of 25 games. In 1980, George Brett hit .390, Willie Wilson stroked 230 hits and stole 79 bases, and the Royals led the division by 20 games at the end of August before engaging the cruise control.

The 1985 Royals? That team won 91 games, tied for the fifth-highest total in franchise history. They had one elite hitter in their entire lineup, which might explain why they ranked next-to-last in the American League in runs scored. Their rotation was so wet behind the ears that three of their five starters couldn’t legally rent a car.

They weren’t the best team the Royals ever had. They probably weren’t the best team in the majors that season. They just happened to win the final game of the season.

And that’s why we love them so much. Guys like Buddy Biancalana and Darryl Motley, Pat Sheridan and Onix Concepcion accomplished something that eluded Amos Otis and John Mayberry and Darrell Porter: win a championship in Kansas City.

For most of that season, it looked like the story of the 1985 Royals was going to be the death of a dynasty. After winning 90 games five times in six years from 1975 to 1980, the franchise had gone stale. They had a losing record in 1981, and after winning 90 games and narrowly missing the playoffs in 1982, the Royals were stung by the scandalous cocaine trials of 1983. Four Royals, including Willie Wilson, spent time in jail, and missed the first six weeks of the 1984 season. The Royals squeaked back into the playoffs that year, winning the AL West with an 84-78 record, but they were swept by the Detroit Tigers in the ALCS.

When the Royals sputtered into the All-Star Break in 1985, they were 44-42, and this time a .500 record wasn’t going to keep them in contention – they were 7.5 games out of first place. It had been a great run, the pundits said, but the glory days in Kansas City were over.

Rumors of their demise were premature. The Royals won 11 of their first 13 games to open the second half, closing to within two games of the California Angels. They still couldn’t hit, but they could pitch, thanks to a trio of young starters who were blossoming in their second season in the majors.

Mark Gubicza, the Royals’ second-round pick in the 1981 draft, made their rotation out of spring training in 1984, at the age of 21, and posted a solid 4.05 ERA in 29 starts. He replicated his efforts in 1985, making 28 starts and fashioning a 4.06 ERA, and would go on to make two All-Star teams and finish third in the league in the Cy Young vote later in the decade, before his shoulder gave out in 1990.

Left-hander Danny Jackson, the #1 pick in the now-defunct January draft in 1982, got a cup of coffee in the majors in 1983, and spent half the 1984 season with the Royals, fashioning a 4.26 ERA. Jackson made the 1985 rotation out of spring training, and began the year with 18 shutout innings. He would finish with a 3.42 ERA in 208 innings, and he allowed just seven home runs, the best ratio in the AL. After solid seasons in 1986 and 1987, Jackson was traded to the Reds, and in 1988 he won 23 games and finished second to Orel Hershiser on the Cy Young ballot.

The real prize among the Royals’ young guns was Bret Saberhagen, perhaps the greatest scouting find in the team’s history. Saberhagen’s prowess on the mound was so little-regarded in high school that he was drafted in the 19th round – as a shortstop. But after just a single season in the minor leagues, Saberhagen was deemed ready for his closeup, making the Royals’ roster out of spring training in 1984. He made his major-league debut a week before his 20th birthday; he is still the youngest player ever to wear a Royals uniform. Used as a swingman as a rookie, Saberhagen had an excellent 3.48 ERA, and even earned a start in the ALCS against the Tigers.

Saberhagen arrived in camp in 1985 throwing harder and better than ever, and he got better as the season went on. He was 7-4 with a 3.23 ERA through the end of June, and from that point on Saberhagen won 13 of 15 decisions with a 2.60 ERA. He finished the season with 20 wins, a 2.87 ERA, gave up the fewest baserunners per inning in the league – and won the Cy Young Award. Arm injuries probably cost Saberhagen a Hall of Fame career; he holds the all-time record for days spent on the disabled list. But even so, he won a second Cy Young Award with the Royals four years later, and won 167 games in his career.

But the biggest surprise in the 1984 Royals’ rotation was a retread left-hander named Charlie Leibrandt. Leibrandt had pitched – poorly – for the Cincinnati Reds from 1979 to 1982, but in the summer of 1983 was languishing in the minors when the Royals traded for him, sending Bob Tufts to Cincinnati in exchange. (Tufts would never pitch in the majors after the trade.) Leibrandt began the 1984 season in the minors, but after going 7-1 with a 1.24 ERA in his first nine starts, was promoted to Kansas City, and went 11-7 with a 3.63 ERA the rest of the way. In 1985, Leibrandt – not Saberhagen – led the Royals with a 2.69 ERA, and he would remain effective through the early 1990s, serving as the veteran mentor for the great Atlanta Braves rotations in 1991 and 1992.

Rarely in the annals of baseball history has a team turned over 80% of its rotation, or graduated three pitchers to the major leagues who would each win over 100 games in their careers. The 1984 Royals did both. The 1985 Royals reaped the rewards.

After Kansas City closed the gap on first place, the Royals and Angels engaged in an epic dogfight the rest of the season – from August 12th on, the teams were never separated by more than three games in the standings. From September 19th until October 2nd, the teams were never more than a single game apart.

The Royals entered the final week of the season one game behind California, and hosted the Angels for four games with the division on the line. The Angels had a talented, veteran team, one that would win the division the following year. But the Royals had George Brett.

Brett may not be the greatest player of all time, or even the greatest third baseman of his era, depending on how you feel about Mike Schmidt. But when Brett got hot, he could carry a team on his back like few players in the history of the game. In the final week of the season, George Brett got hot.

On Monday, Brett homered in the 4th to tie the game at 1, then hit a sacrifice fly in the 8th as the Royals won, 3-1.

On Tuesday, Brett had an RBI single and a walk, but it wasn’t enough, as the Angels won, 4-2.

On Wednesday, the Royals knew if they lost, they’d be two games behind with four games left. Brett hit a three-run homer in the bottom of the first to take the pressure off. He added a double and a single for good measure. The Royals won, 4-0.

On Thursday, Brett walked in the 1st and scored on Frank White’s home run. He added a homer of his own in the 5th inning. The Royals won, 4-1.

On Friday, the Oakland A’s came to town. Brett singled in a run in the 4th to give the Royals a 3-0 lead. In the 7th inning, after Oakland had closed to within 3-2, Brett led off the inning with a home run. The Royals won, 4-2. The Angels lost in Texas, and the Royals had a two-game lead with two games left.

On Saturday, the A’s had a 4-0 lead heading to the bottom of the sixth, and the Angels were winning in Texas. Brett hit a two-run homer to cut the lead in half. In the seventh, Brett walked and scored as part of a two-run rally to tie the game. Willie Wilson hit a walk-off single in the tenth inning, and the Royals were AL West Champions.

On Sunday, George Brett rested.

In six games, with the season on the line, the Royals won five times – and Brett homered in each one. He hit .450 in those six games, and drove in 11 runs. He was at his best when the Royals needed him the most.

To be concluded tomorrow.

Final Four.

On the one hand, we’re playing with house money at this point. If you had told me, or pretty much any fan, or the Royals themselves, that they would reach the ALCS this year, we would have taken that happily with no expectations for what might happen beyond that point. No matter what happens from this point on, the 2014 Royals season has to be considered a rousing success.

On the other hand, the Royals are eight wins away from turning “a rousing success” into the kind of sports story they write books and produce movies about. A week after their season was all but dead in the Wild Card round, a season which would have been historic yet unsatisfying at the same time, the Royals are the darlings of baseball. They are such a Cinderella story that they’re playing the Baltimore Orioles, who have gone longer without going to the World Series (1983) than the Royals (1985) – and pretty much the entire country outside the mid-Atlantic states is rooting for the blue and white.

It’s never going to be this good again, folks. Unless there’s another 29-year drought, there will never again be a season where the Royals can capture the attention of the nation the way they have at this very moment. We may never have a chance to get in on the ground floor of a dream season quite like this one. So they might as well win the whole damn thing.

- You can’t talk about the Royals’ ALDS sweep of the Angels without talking about Eric Hosmer, who apparently has been punking us by playing possum for the last four years before finally choosing to fulfill his destiny over the past week. While Salvador Perez’s walk-off single in the Wild Card game gets all the attention – and it should; it increased the Royals’ Win Expectancy in the game by 39%, the most of any play – Hosmer’s triple with one out in the 12th, when it looked like the Royals’ valiant comeback would fall short, was nearly as important analytically (it increased WE by 30%, the second-most of any play in the game), and arguably more important psychologically. And his walk on a close 3-2 pitch in the eighth inning that chased Jon Lester was, to me, the most underrated play in the entire comeback, bringing the tying run to the plate and giving us 40,000 in the stands the real hope that they could actually pull this off.

After a quiet Game 1 in the ALDS, Hosmer doubled to lead off the second inning in Game 2 and scored the Royals’ only run of regulation. He singled in the sixth but did not score, walked in the ninth but did not score, and finally took matters into his own hands by murdering a baseball in the eleventh inning. He reached base four times in the game for the second time in three playoff games. In the history of the Royals, the only player who had reached base four times in two separate playoff games was George Brett.

And in Game 3, he crushed another baseball, this one left of center field, to make the score 5-1 and essentially turn off the lights on the Angels season. In four playoff games, Hosmer has hit .500/.632/1.143. He has two homers, a triple, a double, and five walks in four games.

This didn’t come completely out of the blue. From July 1st until the end of the regular season, Hosmer had hit .321/.379/.509, a trend that we sort of missed because it was interrupted by a broken hand that he may or may not have tried to play through (causing his numbers to dip) before he missed a month of the season. So maybe he had figured things out months ago and we’re just noticing now. Maybe he really does have a flair for the dramatic. Or maybe this is just a glorious fluke. I don’t know the answer. I do know that having a player who slugged .398 on the season batting cleanup suddenly doesn’t seem like such a bad idea.

- Let’s be blunt here: Ned Yost outmanaged Mike Scioscia in the series. That isn’t as astonishing as it sounds; Scioscia has long had a history of playing smallball even when his personnel doesn’t always fit the profile, and his disastrous bunt call in Game 1 epitomized that.

But Yost, with the exception of the decision to leave Jason Vargas in during Game 1 that almost turned disastrous, did a pretty good job in this series. In Game 2 he stuck with Yordano Ventura for seven innings. I thought the decision to bring him back out for the seventh was a close call; on the one hand, even with Kelvin Herrera unavailable the Royals had plenty of relief depth for that situation. On the other hand, Ventura had thrown just 84 pitches and – just as crucially – was still working through the lineup for the third time only.

Over time I have become more and more convinced by the evidence that, as much as rising pitch counts will hamper a starting pitcher’s effectiveness, as much if not more of a concern is how many times he has faced a batter. The times-through-the-order penalty is very real; batters hit better against a pitcher the third time they see him in a game, and much better the fourth time. You can make a strong case that no pitcher, save maybe a freak like Clayton Kershaw, should ever face more than 27 batters in a close game. Then again, the 28th batter Kershaw faced on Friday, Matt Carpenter, hit the game-breaking three-run double. This is one reason why Matt Williiams’ decision to pull Jordan Zimmerman with two outs in the ninth on Saturday, rather than face Buster Posey for the fourth time, might have been the right move even though Drew Storen blew the save and the Nationals lost the game.

Ventura had only faced 22 batters entering the seventh. He only faced 25 batters after the seventh, and then was pulled. Yost handled him well. The fact that Ventura pitched so well also allows us to cross off “Ventura will be scarred by this decision” from the list of reasons why having Ventura relieve James Shields in the Wild Card game was such a bad idea. (Don’t worry, there are still plenty of others.)

Yost again held Greg Holland back for a lead rather than use him in a tie game on the road, but again, 1) most managers would do the same, and 2) the Royals have enough good relievers that it didn’t matter. Jason Frasor pitched the ninth, Brandon Finnegan pitched the tenth, and when Hosmer went Big Fly, Finnegan got the first victory of his major league career. Impeccable timing, that kid has.

- Speaking of Greg Holland, if you’re looking for yet another reason why the Royals’ success this season might be preordained, you can’t ignore these facts:

            - In 1985, Bret Saberhagen’s wife had a son to whom they gave a four-letter first name (Drew). The next night, Saberhagen closed out a victory, which happened to be Game 7 of the World Series.

            - In 2014, Greg Holland’s wife had a son to whom they gave a four-letter first name (Nash). The next night, Holland closed out a victory, which was Game 1 of the ALDS.

            - Here’s where it gets spooky: Drew Saberhagen grew up to be a pitcher himself, and attended college at Pepperdine University. Prior to the 2007 season, he transferred to Western Carolina. After the season he was named the starting pitcher on the All-Southern Conference team.

The relief pitcher named to the All-Southern Conference team was his teammate at Western Carolina: Greg Holland. Click here for proof.

I’m just the messenger. I’ll leave it up to you to decide where the message is coming from.

- We need to have a talk about Omar Infante. While he had two hits in the Wild Card game, he went 0-for-11 in the ALDS. He made a throwing error on a routine ground ball that should have ended Game 2. He’s not helping the Royals very much right now.

It’s not entirely his fault; Infante has never been a player who was able to play every day, and Yost’s insistence on pushing a square peg into a round hole hasn’t helped. If Infante was healthy enough to play this season, he played, even if he could have used the rest. He missed two games in April after he was hit in the face with a pitch. He was on the DL with a lower back injury in May and missed 17 games. In June, he started every game but one (and he pinch-hit in that one game). In July, he started every game but two, and those missed ames (July 4th and 6th) were due to some lower back tightness. In August he had a day off on August 14th, and then missed four straight games from August 26-29 with inflammation in his right shoulder – he literally couldn’t throw the ball to second base. He got back in the lineup on August 30^th and has started every game at second base since. By my reckoning, Infante has had two games off all season – May 31st and August 14th – that weren’t because of an injury.

From August 9th on, Infante hit .221/.273/.276, and now he is 2-for-16 in the playoffs. He’s not completely useless; he still makes contact most of the time, and with Alex Gordon on third base with one out in Game 1 of the ALDS, he hit a fly ball deep enough to score Gordon with the go-ahead run in the fifth inning.

It just so happens that the guy who could replace him, Christian Colon, also makes excellent contact, and also drove in a runner from third base with one out earlier in the playoffs. And, all things considered, would probably give the Royals a better chance of getting a hit from their second baseman than a hobbled Infante right now.

I’d be stunned if Yost made the change. He stuck with Infante every day in September when there were no off-days; hard to see how he wouldn’t stick with Infante after he will have had seven off days in eleven days before the ALCS gets started. But then, Yost didn’t have a healthy Christian Colon in September either. Hopefully the rest will rejuvenate Infante and he’ll come through for the Royals in a big spot. The Royals have gotten this far with almost nothing from their second baseman; if they start to get something from that position, look out.

- The best part about Jarrod Dyson’s throw to nail Colin Cowgill in Game 2 was that it was Jarrod Dyson. It was the guy who is supposed to be a burner, a slap-happy singles hitter who hits the ball on the ground and runs really fast, who told the world, “That’s what arm speed do.”

This is what has made Dyson’s profile so fascinating to me literally from the time he was called up to the majors. When you think about all the speed-only guys in the majors, they almost all have noodle arms. (Ichiro Suzuki being the game-changing exception, as he is in so many ways.) Think Juan Pierre, or Ben Revere: these are guys you can run on. And I wonder if the Angels ran in that situation in part because they just couldn’t reconcile the Jarrod Dyson they see at the plate and on the bases with a Jarrod Dyson that has a comfortably above-average outfield arm.

But he does. He showed them Friday night. Dyson did with his arm what he didn’t do with his legs in this series: helped save a game for the Royals.

- For all the talk about the Royals turning back the tide of 30 years of sabermetrics by winning with speed and defense, let’s not forget something kinda important here: the Royals won Game 1 on an extra-inning home run. They won Game 2 on an extra-inning home run. They won Game 3, 8-3, and their first six runs came on a bases-clearing double, a two-run homer, and a solo homer.

Speed is nice, and it makes a difference on the edges – Billy Butler’s fabled speed allowed him to score from first base on Gordon’s double. Unfortunately, Butler’s speed was unable to turn his stolen base into a run. Terrance Gore has pinch-run in three playoff games, and has stolen second base each time – yet he hasn’t scored a run in the playoffs.

Speed makes for a hell of a sidekick, and sometimes the sidekick rises up and saves your life, like Jarrod Dyson did in the Wild Card game. But power is still the superhero. Ball Go Far, Team Go Far.

The Royals beat the Angels playing the style of baseball they had all season: good starting pitching (five runs allowed in 19 innings), a great bullpen (one run allowed in 12 innings), and insane outfield defense (the whole nation now knows what we’ve known for years: you do not hit the ball in the direction of Lorenzo Cain if you want to live to tell about it.)

But the Royals didn’t just beat the Angels – they swept them. They swept them because in addition to doing all the things they usually do well, they hit four homers and four doubles in three games. Going forward, that’s what makes this team potentially scary: if Hosmer and Moustakas and Gordon and Butler and Perez can hit balls over the wall at the same time that Escobar and Cain and Dyson and Aoki and Infante can hit singles and scoot around the bases, well, that’s a pretty unbeatable formula.

We’ll get into the Orioles matchup later, but Camden Yards seems like the perfect place for the power binge to continue.

Royals Today: ALDS Game 1 Recap.

Man, did it feel good to type out the words after Royals Today…

- If Tuesday night was a miracle wrapped up into a single game, last night has me starting to believe that the Almighty has more in store for the Royals than simply an ALDS berth. It started right before the game, when I was talking with my 11-year-old daughter and she was telling me about all the new friends she was making in sixth grade now that the four local elementary schools had merged at the middle school level. She told me one of her new friends’ first name, and then said, “and she had a really fun last name – BI-AN-CA-LA-NA.”

I responded like I had been shot.

Tuesday night it was Room 2323. Last night it was a classmate named Biancalana. This is getting spooky, my friends. And if you don’t think so based on that story, you have to think so based on the game itself.

- The one button that Ned Yost keeps pushing no matter how many times it burns him is the “WHO TO PITCH IN SIXTH INNING” button. As Brian Bannister tweeted, “The dreaded 6^th. Too late for a starter…too early for a reliever.” Well, if you’re Ned Yost.

Jason Vargas had pitched as well as we had any right to expect, taking full advantage of his outfield defense – Lorenzo Cain had two brilliant catches in the first two innings alone – to keep the Angels off the bases. He couldn’t keep them from trotting around them, though, giving up home runs to David Freese and Chris Ianetta, but at least he had the presence of mind to give them up with no one on base.

I probably wouldn’t have let him start the sixth inning, although I could see a case for it given that Kole Calhoun, one of only two left-handed hitters in the Angels’ lineup, batted second in the inning. But after Calhoun singled with one out there’s no way on earth that Vargas should have been left in there to face the heart of the Angels lineup – Mike Trout, Albert Pujols, and Howie Kendrick – all of whom bat right-handed.

Vargas got Trout to fly out harmlessly, and to the Royals’ credit it’s possible that they have hit upon a weakness in Trout’s game the same way they hit upon a weakness in Jon Lester’s game on Tuesday. Sam Miller certainly thinks so. But Vargas was clearly surviving on guile at that point; when he fell behind Pujols 3-1 I was literally hoping that he would walk Pujols just to guarantee that Yost would pull Vargas from the game before he gave up the go-ahead run.

Sure enough, Vargas walked Pujols, and sure enough, Yost came out of the dugout and walked to the mound…and left Jason Vargas in the game. I can not comprehend why this particular situation – two outs in the sixth inning with men on base – continues to yield the same lack of urgency from Yost, even after repeated instances of the Royals letting a game get away from them while their best relievers watch from the bullpen.

I mean, if you don’t believe me, how about a future Hall of Famer?

So Vargas was left in to face Howie Kendrick, and he threw ball one, and then Kendrick smoked a line drive that hit off the right-centerfield wall and drove in two runs and the Royals lost 4-2.

Or he would have, if not for one of the most remarkable catches I have ever seen.

It’s not just the confusion and chaos of having two outfielders converge on a flyball at the same time. It’s not just that Lorenzo Cain may have shielded Nori Aoki from seeing the ball with his own fruitless effort to snag it. It’s that Aoki’s face smashed into the wall at the same time the ball hit his glove. If one of you who has watched a super slow-mo angle of the catch a dozen times can answer this for me, but is it possible Aoki’s face hit the wall before he had secured the ball in his glove? And it’s not like the ball hit his glove in the webbing – he had to squeeze tight to prevent it from falling out.

It’s not the greatest catch I’ve ever seen. It’s not the most difficult catch I’ve ever seen. It’s not the most crucial catch I’ve ever seen. But I can’t think of another play in Royals history that combines all three elements together. At least not in the outfield – George Brett’s diving, spinning grab of a Lloyd Moseby groundball and then throwing from foul territory to nail Damaso Garcia at the plate in Game 3 of the 1985 ALCS might have been more amazing, all things considered. But even that came in the third inning, and it only saved one run, and the Royals were leading by a run at the time.

This was a great play, is what I’m saying. And unexpected. And, let’s be honest, stone-cold lucky. Aoki could try to recreate that play 10 times and maybe he’d catch it once. Ned Yost could have left Vargas in that game ten times and maybe he wouldn’t be the goat once. Yordano Ventura gives up that bomb to Brandon Moss ten times and maybe the Royals win that game once.

What I’m saying is, the Royals are living a charmed life right now.

- The Royals’ outfield put on a highlight show, and Alex Gordon wasn’t even involved. Aoki is the Royals’ fourth-best outfielder, and while he twice made catchable fly balls look almost uncatchable with his circuitous routes, he also saved the game and Ned Yost’s hide in one fell swoop.

I’m not kidding. I may want to get a picture of that catch blown up and framed on my wall. Maybe I’ll put it right next to Dyson sliding into third base. The way the last few days have gone, I’m going to need a long wall.

- Yost not only lucked out with Aoki’s catch, but because when Kelvin Herrera did come in to start the seventh only to walk David Freese on five pitches before coming out with a strained forearm, he did so with no one on base instead of doing that to Kendrick in the sixth inning and really making a mess.

Herrera’s injury obviously hurts the team, and while the results of the MRI are unknown as I write this, you have to assume it’s severe enough to keep him out a while. Herrera pitched in just nine games total in 2009 and 2010 because of forearm/elbow issues, and if you remember what happened to Danny Duffy or Luke Hochevar, where upon blowing out their UCL we learned that they had been pitching with a partial tear for years, you have to wonder if the same fate is about to befall Herrera.

I feel for Herrera, and this hurts the team, but not as much as losing Wade Davis or Greg Holland would. Herrera’s ERA is spectacular, but his peripherals not nearly as much; his ERA is 1.41, but his FIP is 2.69 because his strikeout rate is just average, and his xFIP is 3.50 because every pitcher is going to give up a home run eventually, and so far this year Herrera hasn’t. The emergence of Brandon Finnegan gives the Royals a new seventh inning option if they need it. It just complicates what happens before the seventh inning, which of course has been Yost’s problem all along.

If Herrera is going to miss more than a week or two, he can be taken off the ALDS roster and replaced immediately, but if that’s the case he will be ineligible to return until the World Series. The easy and snarky answer to who would replace him would be Aaron Crow, but I’m hopeful that even the Royals have gotten tired of his performance in September, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see Louis Coleman instead. I don’t like the idea of Coleman pitching meaningful innings any more than you do, but you can carry one guy like Coleman in the playoffs, for games that are blowouts (in the hypothetical situation that the Royals would ever play one) or strictly to get right-handed hitters out.

- Aside from the abominable decision to stick with Vargas against Kendrick, I actually don’t have a huge beef with Yost’s bullpen management. He replaced Herrera with Finnegan, then went to Wade Davis with two outs in the seventh and stuck with him in the eighth.

Yost got a lot of attention for not going to Holland in a tie game in the ninth, and yes, that is the percentage move. But I’m not going to come down too harshly on Yost for a decision almost every manager would make. Tim Collins was kind of an inspired choice there; if you’re going to use Collins, that’s how you use him, not as a lefty specialist.

The only issue I really had with Yost was that, with two outs and a man on second base, he replaced Collins with Frasor. He did so presumably to get the platoon advantage with C.J. Cron at the plate, but Frasor has a small platoon split and Collins has none to speak of whatsoever – he’s gotten RHB (.675 OPS) out in his career better than LHB (.702 OPS). More to the point, Collins’ primary weakness is his command, and in that situation a walk is essentially meaningless. The winning run is in scoring position; one single can beat you, while it would take three walks to do the same. That’s a situation to bring Collins into the game, not pull him out.

It worked out, as Frasor did his best impression of Collins, walking Cron before retiring Ianetta on a fly out. Duffy pitched the tenth, and when you give a starting pitcher a clean inning, you’re giving him the best chance to succeed. Duffy gave up a single to Calhoun – the rare hit from a LHB off Duffy – but once again the Royals retired the Angels’ 2-3-4 hitters. And Holland was there to pitch the 11th, and if he was distracted by the birth of his son the night before, he didn’t show it.

In 1985, a Royals pitcher became a father one night and closed out a victory the next night. In 2014, a Royals pitcher became a father one night and closed out a vicory the next night. The stakes and the achievement weren’t quite the same as when Bret Saberhagen pitched a shutout in Game 7 of the World Series, but once again, the signs are all there.

- I said before he series that I thought I’d prefer playing the Angels to the Orioles in large part because I’d rather match up with Mike Scioscia than Buck Showalter, and last night was a perfect explanation as to why.

With the game tied in the seventh, after Herrera walked leadoff hitter David Freese, Erick Aybar bunted back to the pitcher. If the intention was to bunt it back to the pitcher, I’d almost understand, because the pitcher on the mound had been in the majors barely a month and might panic and throw the ball away – except, of course, that pitcher was Brandon Finnegan, who has balls of adamantium. The runner moved to second with one out. He did not score.

In the eighth, Ianetta led off with a walk against Davis. The Angels put on the bunt again, and even when the count was 2-0 and it was clear Davis was having difficulty throwing strikes, Scioscia didn’t take the bunt off. Even when the count got to 3-1, he kept the bunt on – in a situation in which 1) a walk was highly likely and 2) if you did swing away, you were in literally the best hitter’s count possible.

Calhoun popped the bunt up for an easy out; Moustakas could have turned a double play if he had dropped it. The runner moved up anyway on a wild pitch, and then Trout walked, which underscored 1) that Davis, at least early on, didn’t have his command; and 2) how pointless advancing the runner to second base would have been even if they had gotten the bunt down.

The Angels did not score. And for good measure, they also got the leadoff hitter on in the ninth when Collins grazed the shoestrings of Gordon Beckham’s back foot with a pitch. Erick Aybar bunted Beckham to second. The Angels did not score.

Ned Yost drives me crazy, and in September the Royals bunted at in opportune times. But for the season, the Royals only had seven more sacrifice bunts (33 to 26) than the Angels, even though the Angels had the best offense in the league. (ALL NINE HITTERS in their lineup yesterday had an OPS+ above 100. The Royals, by comparsion, had two.)

If Yost had called those bunts, in those situations, and hadn’t taken off the bunt on a 3-1 count, and the Royals had lost by one run, this column would be ten times longer and have a much more focused subject matter. Scioscia killed his team with his managing choices in the late innings. As a Royals fan, I thank him.

- While the winning run came on a home run, the story of the Royals’ other two runs was, once again, about their speed. In the third inning, Moustakas walked with two outs, and Jered Weaver threw over to first base at least three or four times – enough that I openly wondered whether the Royals’ speed game was just completely getting into the heads of their opponents. I mean, when you’re worried about Mike Moustakas…you’re probably not focusing on the #1 priority, which is the batter at the plate. And then Weaver hung a breaking ball that Escobar blasted into the corner for a run.

In the fifth, Alex Gordon hit a fly ball in front of Trout…and when Trout appeared to briefly lose the ball in the lights, Gordon turned the corner hard and made it into second safely. This allowed him to move up on two fly balls, the first by Salvador Perez that almost went out, and the second by Omar Infante.

The Royals had a runner on third base with one out three times in their last two games with Nori Aoki, Christian Colon, and Infante – three of the team’s best contact hitters – at the plate. All three found a way to get the run home. All three runs proved indispensible.

Put the ball in play. Run like hell. Then put the ball in play again. I don’t know how it keeps working, but it keeps working. And the Royals need to win just two of their next four games to move on to the ALCS.

Coronary At The K.

If you told me today that I will never in my life again witness a game that good in person, I don’t think I’d be upset. I certainly wouldn’t be surprised.

If you haven’t read what I wrote about the Royals’ first playoff game in 29 years for Grantland, please do so here. After nearly 6,000 words, I don’t have anything more to say.

HAH! Just kidding. I always have more to say.

- I’m not going to rehash Ned Yost’s decision to use Yordano Ventura in relief too much, because so many people already have. I mean, when the broadcaster during the game and an analyst after the game on TV – both of whom are ex-players, one of whom is going to the Hall of Fame, and have the credibility to speak on such things – rip you to shreds, and you WON THE GAME, I think it’s safe to say it was a bad decision.

It’s like the nation hasn’t just woken up to the idea that the Kansas City Royals are a playoff team; they’ve also woken up to the idea that Ned Yost, whatever his strengths are, is a tactical disaster waiting to happen.

And yet...the Royals won. They won after being down 7-3 with six outs to go. They had to score four runs in two innings just to tie the game…and they had only scored four runs in a game about half the time this year (83 of 162). They hadn’t scored eight runs in a game since August 17th.

And they did. Does Ned Yost deserve some credit for that? I don’t think we can entirely rule that out. It would have been easy for this team to give up at that point, to pack it in, to say to themselves, “well, we got to the playoffs, so this is a successful year no matter what,” and go gently into that good night. Yeah, Yost screwed up, but Jon Lester has owned the Royals throughout his career, and his postseason ERA was barely 2 before the game, and we did the best we could and scored three runs and it just wasn’t enough.

They didn’t. They fought like hell, they tied the game, and when they found themselves down again in the 12th inning, they fought like hell some more, and tied the game again, and won it.

Evaluating a manager based on his impact in the clubhouse is essentially impossible from an analytic perspective, and so it’s tempting for analysts to say that there is no impact. But given that Yost’s impact in the clubhouse is supposed to be his single greatest strength as a manager, perhaps it’s not fair to rip him for what he does poorly without at least acknowledging that he might deserve credit for what he’s supposed to do well, especially when the Royals surged in the second half after a disappointing first half for the second straight year, and then they re-enacted the 2014 season (and the A’s 2014 season) in the span of one glorious game.

Ned Yost is, on the balance, a terrible tactician. But if a manager is Ron Washington from 7 pm to 10 pm but George Washington from 10 pm to 7 pm, on the balance he’s an asset. It’s just that we don’t know all that goes on from 10 pm to 7 pm.

I’m not saying Yost is an asset overall. I am saying I’m not 100% convinced the good doesn’t outweigh the bad. It doesn’t mean we can’t rip him a new one when he screws up, because his mistakes are both obvious and correctable. But it does mean realizing that we have to take the whole package with a manager, both good and bad.

- And the advantage of having a manager who is poor tactically but strong in terms of leadership is that the former can be taught. It’s pretty much impossible for a manager to change their personality for the better, at least on the fly – I’d argue that Buck Showalter has probably done so over the course of his career, and he’s one of the five best managers in the world right now, maybe one of the three best. But a manager can learn from experience to make better in-game decisions.

The problem is that learning from experience generally requires you to lose a game. It took a couple of losses to ram the point home, but Aaron Crow is not on the Royals’ postseason roster, while Jason Frasor was the winning pitcher Tuesday night. And Yost presumably has learned from what happened Tuesday that it’s probably not best to bring in a starting pitcher on his throw day in the middle of an inning with men already on base when you have your entire HDH trio rested and ready to go.

Look, I liked having Ventura on the roster for that game, because if the game went extras or Shields had to depart in the second or third inning, I thought having Ventura throw 100 mph for an inning or two was better than Crow or Bueno or one of the Colemans. And I LOVED the fact that Yost pulled Shields there – my #1 concern going into the game was that he wouldn’t jump on the fact that a Game 7 meant not sticking with any pitcher in a bind. But that particular spot – sixth inning, two men on, nobody out – cried out for a different skill set. The sixth inning was Finnegan’s spot – particularly with lefties Brandon Moss and Josh Reddick batting – and the start of the tenth inning was Ventura’s spot.

I do think that every time Yost pushes a button and singes one of his fingers, he learns to stop pushing that button. The problem is that pushing the button usually costs the Royals a game. Improbably, Tuesday night’s win washes away every mistake Yost has made all year – Crow, Scott Downs vs. Jonny Gomes, the Ibanez at-bat vs. Detroit, everything. It all starts fresh tonight. If the Royals had won 110 games this year, the only difference was that they’d have one extra potential home game in the ALDS and ALCS. (And given how well this team has played on the road, it might not matter anyway.)

The problem is, we don’t know how many other buttons there are on Yost’s dashboard that are booby-trapped. It seems like he’s defused all the obvious ones, but you never know.

- Hey, remember how the Royals were 26-76 in games with a crowd of 30,000 or more since 2004? Well, it’s now 27-76.

And there’s no way the Royals win Tuesday night’s game if it were on the road. These amazing, wild, historic postseason games – think about Game 6 of the 2011 World Series, or Game 6 of the 1986 World Series – tend to be won by the home team. Some of that is because a home team win makes them more historic, but I think – someone please run the data – that home teams do win a preponderance of the really close, extra-inning games in October. A crowd that large has an impact. We just saw why. Those 76 losses, like everything else, suddenly explained themselves Tuesday night.

- Dave Roberts’ steal remains the most significant one in postseason history, but I think it’s safe to say – old-times correct me if I’m wrong – that Jarrod Dyson’s steal in the ninth was the most significant one in Royals history. Practically the same situation: down a run in the ninth, the base means everything, everyone in the stadium knows you’re going…and you go. The only difference was that Dyson stole third base with one out instead of second base with none out.

Jeff Sullivan over at Fangraphs has a spectacular breakdown of how Dyson stole that base, which I encourage you to read.

“'Maury Wills once told me that there will come a point in my career when everyone in the ballpark will know that I have to steal a base, and I will steal that base. When I got out there, I knew that was what Maury Wills was talking about.”

Roberts said that in 2005, and one day soon maybe Dyson will say the same thing.

- The second-most significant steal in Royals history? Probably Christian Colon’s, three innings later, allowing him to score from second base on Salvador Perez’s single. It was a good day for the stolen base. It was a very good day.

- I don’t know how you rate the significance of Alcides Escobar’s steal or Lorenzo Cain’s steal in the 8th, given that the Royals were down four runs and three runs, respectively, at the time. From a cost-benefit standpoint, they were both a terrible risk. If either one had been thrown out, the decision to send them would have been ripped apart almost as much as the decision to bring in Ventura.

But they were safe, and at least in Escobar’s case it wasn’t close. And while I almost never put too much stock in psychological explanations for what happens in baseball, I really do wonder if the Royals got in the A’s head with their running game. The A’s starting catcher got injured, and the new catcher doesn’t have a good throwing reputation, and Escobar got on, and steals in a situation where you shouldn’t steal, and then Cain singles, and steals in a situation where you shouldn’t steal, and Lester walks Hosmer, and suddenly the tying run is at the plate.

I was sitting with Chris Kamler - @TheFakeNed – and he loved both Escobar’s and Cain’s steal. I thought he was nuts, but I now think he was dead on. Yeah, there was a risk, but there was also a reward. The reward was throwing Lester off his game, and it worked. The Royals won. They’re in the ALDS.

There’s also this: before the game I was speaking with 810 WHB’s Nate Bukaty, and he told me – I think I can say this now because he talked about it on air after the game – that the Royals had told him that they had figured out something on Lester. A tell of some sort, maybe, but they seemed like they had unlocked a secret on how to steal on him without risk. They stole seven bases Tuesday night, tying the all-time postseason record, and their only caught stealing came when Yost put on a delayed double steal with Billy Butler and Eric Hosmer, which 1) is as dumb as it sounds and 2) wasn’t his worst decision of the night. But on actual steal attempts, they were 7-for-7. Five of those seven scored a run. And two of them – the tying run in the ninth, and the winning run in the 12th – would not have scored without putting the steal on.

The Royals haven’t embraced sabermetric orthodoxy, or at least the traditional sabermetric orthodoxy of valuing walks and power over other things. But don’t tell me they’re dumb. Knowledge is knowledge. Knowing how to run wild on the A’s on Tuesday is the reason why they’re in Anaheim and Oakland is at home.

- Kamler was on fire in the late innings. Not only did he see the value of stealing while down 3 or 4 runs in the eighth inning, but – a quote I had forgotten until Alex Robinson reminded me – at some point in the eighth inning, he said, “I don’t know what’s about to happen, but I can promise you it’s going to be SPECTACULAR.”

As usual with the man who calls himself @TheFakeNed, he was being understated.

- I don’t have time to actually break down Game 1 of the ALDS, but let’s just say that I wouldn’t start Jason Vargas tonight. The Angels hit LHP much better than RHP, and they kill changeups, and Vargas has been terrible for several weeks. I would go Guthrie tonight, not that anyone’s asking.

I think Ventura in Game 2 could work out well, and if he hadn’t pitched on Tuesday it would be a no-brainer. Just another reason why bringing him in was a bad idea – we now have to worry about both his head and his arm tomorrow night.

- I do love the 25-man roster for the ALDS, and probably wouldn’t change it at all. They made the difficult but necessary decision to drop Raul Ibanez in favor of keeping Gore. They also kept Tim Collins instead of Francisley Bueno, which I was surprised by because Collins was banished to Omaha for two-thirds of the season, but Collins is the better pitcher. Just as long as Yost doesn’t realize he’s not really a LOOGY. If he’s used to get one LHB out in a key spot, it’s probably a mistake. But the Angels have very few LHB anyway, so having the LHP who can pitch to both sides makes sense, since if Collins or Bueno are being used there’s a good chance it’s an extra-inning game anyway.

- After waiting 29 years for the Royals to play a playoff game, I only had to wait 48 hours for another one. And they’re playing again tomorrow. And again on Sunday. Man, I could get used to this.

Wild Card.

The time for analysis is over. The moment we’ve been waiting for these last 29 years, the moment Dayton Moore has been building towards for the last eight years, the moment that the Royals promised to deliver us from the moment they traded for James Shields two years ago is upon us. And it is just that: a moment. A single game. Three unforgiving hours that will shape the narrative of a trade, a season, and a franchise.

It’s not fair. But then, fairness was never the point. If the Royals didn’t want their season to come down to a single game, they should have beaten the Tigers one more time – I can think of a game – and they’d be resting up for the Division Series right now. If the Royals’ season ends tonight, they can’t blame that solely on what happens tonight. They didn’t have to be playing this game. They almost weren’t.

But if they are playing this game, at least they have the man they want on the mound to start it. I would have loved a Monday night tiebreaker game in Detroit – always better to have two chances into the ALDS than one – but at least it spared us the decision to start James Shields on three days’ rest for the first time in his life. I’m as huge a proponent of the concept as anyone – I’ve been advocating the four-man rotation for over 15 years – but you don’t go to that strategy at the last moment unless it’s a must-win game. Monday night wouldn’t have been a Game 7; it would have been a Game 6. But if the Royals had lost, they would have pitted Jason Vargas against Jon Lester in Game 7 tonight. At least we are spared that indignity, and at least I’m spared the 10,000 word column on Yost’s decision that I would have had to write.

- You may have read it already, but I wrote an apology column in the KC Star this morning for my original take on the Shields trade. Many have already complained that my apology was premature, that the Royals haven’t won anything yet, that they were lucky to make the playoffs with an 89-win team, that I’m a wuss for not sticking to my guns. Fair enough. But my apology wasn’t because the Royals have won the trade or that the trade worked to perfection; my apology was that, at the very least, no one can claim the trade was disastrous, and the tone I’ve taken these last two years was much too harsh if the trade turned out to be anything other than disastrous.

If Shields pitches poorly tonight and the Royals lose, that may be all the apology the Royals get from me; it will simply be too soon to evaluate if the trade was worth it until we see how these next few years play out – both in terms of how Wil Myers and Jake Odorizzi develop, and whether the Royals narrowly miss the playoffs in seasons where Myers and Odorizzi would have made the difference. But if Shields pitches a gem tonight and the Royals win, well, I’ll write an apology that makes that one look tame. And I'll have a blast doing so.

- Yost has announced his lineup for tonight, and if it looks familiar, that’s because it’s the exact same lineup he trotted out there for the last week of the season. Yost gives his starting players a day off as rarely as any manager in baseball – not only did Salvador Perez catch 150 games this year, but Alcides Escobar became the first player in the history of the Royals to start all 162 games at shortstop.

The only question was whether he would go with Moustakas at third base or try somebody – anybody – who might actually be able to hit a left-hander. This is Yost, so of course he stayed with Moose. I would have started Christian Colon myself; I don’t think he’s a .333 hitter or a .293 hitter in reality, but I think his ability to put the bat on the ball makes him a superior option to a guy who hit .212/.271/.361 and would be facing a same-side pitcher.

I do prefer Moustakas to Jayson Nix, however, and that was a real danger given that Nix has gone 8-for-26 with 3 homers against Lester in his career – he has more hits, homers, and RBIs against Lester than any other player – and we know how much Yost loves pitcher-hitter matchup stats. To reiterate for the hundredth time: there is no evidence that what a specific hitter has done against a specific pitcher in the past has any predictive value on what will happen in the future. The sample sizes just aren’t large enough. 

What Nix did against Lester in years past has something to do with how Nix hit in general in years past. This year, he was 10-for-83 (.120) with one extra-base hit. He has zero career hits as a member of the Kansas City Royals. Tonight would have been a foolish time to see if he could get his first one, and if that was the alternative, I’m happy that Yost stuck with Moustakas. At least Moustakas gives you range at third base (along with the too-frequent error), and could get lucky and run into a ball.

The roster itself is hard to argue with. I’m surprised that the Royals are carrying three starting pitchers, but 1) they’re only carrying nine pitchers overall, and 2) all three starters are available for relief work – Duffy and Ventura, in particular, could be one-inning monsters, while Guthrie would be the guy reserved for a 15-inning game if and when all the short relievers have been used up. Duffy and Finnegan give the Royals two power left-handed relievers. Aaron Crow is not on the roster. Jason Frasor is. Hallelujah.

The Royals are carrying 16 hitters, including Terrance Gore, and just as importantly, including both Christian Colon and Jayson Nix. That’s important not because you’d want Nix to bat, but because having two backup infielders gives Yost the freedom to pinch-run for pretty much anyone with Gore in a situation where a run means everything. Moustakas is fair game; Infante is fair game.

The problem is the lineup itself, or specifically the cleanup spot, occupied by one Eric Hosmer. We’ve talked enough about Hosmer’s golden-boy status in the organization, but it’s hard to think of a better example of this than tonight: a guy hitting .270/.318/.398 overall, and .264/.297/.378 vs. LHP, is the Royals’ cleanup hitter in an elimination playoff game. Meanwhile, Josh Willingham, who hit .258/.380/.461 vs. LHP this year, and .248/.368/.486 vs. LHP for his career, is on the bench. At least Willingham can pinch-hit for Moustakas against Sean Doolittle. And then Gore can run. And then Colon or Nix can come in to play third base in extra innings. And then I will be overcome by the pressure and be rushed to the hospital with chest pain.

- My three biggest fears for tonight’s game:

1) That Shields will give up a four-spot in the top of the first and the Royals’ playoff hopes will all but expire about 15 minutes after they started. This isn’t a criticism of Shields at all; this is just an acknowledgment of the reality of being a Royals fan.

2) That Shields’ reputation will entice Yost to leave him in too long, and that Shields will give up a game-winning rally in the seventh or sixth or even fifth inning while the game’s best bullpen trio sits beyond the outfield wall, helpless to stop the bleeding. That, to me, is the dangerous flipside to the value of Big Game James: none but the very best starting pitchers remain being their team’s best option on the mound the third, or especially the fourth time through the lineup. If Yordano Ventura were starting this game, the Royals would get nearly the same quality, and at the same time Yost would be quick to turn to someone else if and when Ventura got into a jam. In the regular season, Shields has earned the right to pitch out of jams. This isn’t the regular season. This isn’t even Game 2 of the ALCS. This is a Game 7, and Yost HAS TO HAS TO HAS TO manage as if it’s a Game 7. I’m terrified he won’t.

3) Bunts!

And that’s all I got before I head to the park. If you’re at the game, stop by; I believe I’ll be in Section 116 [Edit: NOT section 119], Row U, although follow me on Twitter for confirmation.

Tonight’s the night I’ve been waiting for for a generation, and yet tomorrow baseball might leave us to face the fall all alone. It’s a brutal game. But baseball owes us nothing. Even if the Royals do.

The Promised Land.

“You know, it’s very strange – I have been in the revenge business so long, now that it’s over, I don’t know what to do with the rest of my life.” – Inigo Montoya’s final line in The Princess Bride

Playoff Odds: 100%

I’ve waited for tonight for twenty-nine years. My entire adult life and nearly half my childhood, I’ve been waiting for the day that the Royals clinched a playoff spot.

And from the moment last year when the 2014 schedule was released and it was revealed that the Royals, for the second straight season, would finish the season in Chicago, I’ve been waiting for the opportunity to watch them clinch a playoff spot in person. Waiting skeptically, perhaps, but waiting nonetheless.

At some point in the last month, that possibility went from abstract to very, very real. At some point in the last week, it started to feel like an inevitability. The Royals were going to clinch a playoff spot. It was going to happen here in Chicago. And damned if I wasn’t going to watch it in person.

Seattle’s victory on Thursday ended the possibility of clinching that night, and when the Royals were down 3-1 after four innings the doubt started creeping in like an alien creature in a B-movie. James Shields never looked comfortable on the mound, the Royals stranded a leadoff double in the fourth without moving the runner, and after Salvador Perez led off the fifth with a triple, Omar Infante and Mike Moustakas both struck out.

But then Alcides Escobar singled him home with two outs. Then Eric Hosmer homered to tie the game in the sixth. And then Shields turned the ball over to Kelvin Herrera and Wade Davis and Greg Holland. And then Billy Butler hit a tailor-made double play ball to shortstop with men on first and third and one out in the eighth, only Alexei Ramirez’s relay throw to first bounced, and Jose Abreu couldn’t come up with it, and the Royals had the lead. And then Terrance Gore pinch-ran for Butler and created a run with his speed, and then in the ninth Jarrod Dyson walked with two outs and created a run with his speed.

The Royals won, 6-3, and their magic number dropped to one, and not only did they all but make themselves a playoff team Thursday night, you could see the outline of a team that deserves to be a playoff team – good starting pitching, a dominant bullpen, a lineup that puts the ball in play and runs with abandon.

And we had a blast. I attended Thursday night’s game alone, but some of you dropped by early on and took advantage of the White Sox’s gracious hospitality – empty seats all over the place behind the first base dugout – to sit down and enjoy the game with me. We slapped hands after every run scored and every scoreless inning from HDH; we yelled ourselves half-hoarse chanting “LET’S GO ROYALS” for the last three innings. I’ve never seen U.S. Cellular Field with so many Royals fans, and we congregated near their dugout, and the shared communal experience of hundreds of long-suffering fans in sight of the promised land huddled together in a hostile ballpark made the game somehow more and less meaningful at the same time. More meaningful because we all knew what a win would mean to all of us, and yet less meaningful because sharing in the experience together, win or lose, is what makes being a fan so fulfilling in the first place.

Now take that experience, jack it up a degree or ten, and you had tonight.

My brother Roukan came with me tonight; he was nearly as rabid a Royals fan as I was from the late 1980s to the mid 1990s, but at some point the losing broke him, and he’s only now finding his way back. We again sat in the box seats behind the Royals dugout, in the 31st row. By gametime I saw and greeted half a dozen fellow Royals fans from the night before like old buddies. We moved up to the 23rd row before the first pitch. And tonight the Royals took the drama away early, scoring two runs in the game’s first six pitches and three runs before the top of the first was over.

They would sprinkle a little drama back in as the game progressed, as they were unable to put Hector Noesi away. They had two on in the second and Aoki – who continues to channel Peak Ichiro – hit a hard line drive that was flagged down by the left fielder. In the third, Gordon hit a bomb to right field that was betrayed by the cool temps and a breeze that went still, and died at the wall. Between Infante’s single in the fourth and Butler’s single in the ninth, 14 straight Royals failed to reach base.

And it didn’t matter, because Jeremy Guthrie reminded us that the strength of this team is that there are so many guys who can contribute in so many ways. He was fantastic tonight; the White Sox will be seeing his curveball in their sleep before awaking in a cold sweat. By the fifth inning we were counting outs, like Denny Matthews on an October night so many years ago.

By the time Wade Davis came in for the eighth, we had moved down to Row 15; Davis got scratched for a run, yielding the most tense moment of the game, when he faced Jose Abreu representing the tying run. But Davis struck out Abreu swinging, and then Conor Gillaspie swinging, and complete strangers were exchanging knowing nods and thumbs up and high fives. Even with a much larger Friday night crowd that wanted to acknowledge the retiring Paul Konerko, the “LET’S GO ROYALS” chant broke out so many times that White Sox fans had no choice but to respond, leading to what sounded like “LET’S GO ROYSOX” reverberating throughout the stadium.

And then Greg Holland came out for the ninth, and we spotted some vacated seats in Row 5, and we moved down as Royals fans from all over the stadium started streaming into the section. Konerko tried to give the other fans something to cheer for, but his line drive was snagged by Gordon. Jordan Danks struck out swinging. We stepped out of the row and down the steps as far as we could go; my brother snuck around an usher and leaned on the dugout itself.

And we all had a fantastic view when Michael Taylor stepped in, and skied the first pitch straight up, a perfect white sphere on a perfect black background, and Perez stared up into the sky and positioned himself under it, and then we all heard the ball land in Perez’s glove with a cathartic thud, and then we all lost it.

I don’t know that I’ll remember everything that happened afterwards, but what I do remember will probably remain a memory for a long, long time. We screamed. We gave high fives until our palms tingled. We continued yelling “LET’S GO ROYALS!” at the top of our lungs while the team congregated on the infield. We introduced ourselves to each other, the Royals fans who like me happened to live in Chicago, the fans who had driven up from Kansas City or from Nebraska or who flew in from Cleveland or Minnesota or elsewhere, all with the singular intention to be there for that moment. I found Curt Nelson, the Director of the Royals’ Hall of Fame, who had driven up from Kansas City early in the morning to be at this game, and Dave Webster, a.k.a. KayCee, who drove up as well after his flight was cancelled by the fire at O’Hare this morning and made it just in time for the first pitch. He was in full work attire, with his 1880s baseball uniform and his big blue “W” in tow.

The players disappeared into the dugout and didn’t emerge for a while; I imagine you all saw them celebrating in the clubhouse. But we didn’t go anywhere. Friday night is Fireworks Night, and we watched the fireworks and assumed they were for us, and who’s to say they weren’t? And then the fireworks ended and we waited, and screamed, and chanted some more.

And then Mike Moustakas and Eric Hosmer came out first, goggles on the top of their heads like flip-down sunglasses, huge goofy grins on their faces, and they started spraying champagne into the crowd. Then Raul Ibanez popped his head out. “RA-OOOOL!” The rest of the team soon emerged, turning to the crowd and cheering us on. The players came around the dugout to high five the fans; I slapped hands with Tim Collins and Wade Davis. Alex Gordon emerged from the dugout carrying his child, and he was as emotional as I’ve ever seen him – he was smiling – and we started chanting, “AL-EX GOR-DON! AL-EX GOR-DON!” until he smiled even more.

Camera crews came by and stared interviewing the fans in the front lines, stopping only when one of them was asked how he was feeling and he replied with questionable sobriety, “I’M F***ING GREAT!” (You’ll have to tell me whether they were broadcasting live or not. I kind of hope they were.)

And then Perez looked into the crowd and started pointing at someone, and telling them to come closer. I figured that maybe his girlfriend had made the trip or something, until I realized that he was pointing at Webster, and insisting that he come down on the field. So KayCee climbed up on top of the dugout, and then Perez helped him down, and KayCee held up the big blue “W” for everyone to see, and we all screamed at the top of our lungs again.

And then someone yelled out “NORI!” to a contingent of Japanese reporters that had surrounded a player, and Aoki beamed, and we started chanting “NORI! NORI! NORI!”, and he came over with his hands raised exultantly, and he threw his cap in the crowd. Johnny Giavotella threw a shirt into the crowd and was greeted with roars. If you were a Royal, we loved you. I caught a glimpse of a beaming Ned Yost before he trotted into the dugout and screamed out "NED!" like he was Terry Francona and Joe Maddon wrapped into one. I’m pretty sure in that moment I would have kissed Aaron Crow.

And before we were done the fans insisted on giving one player what might be his last hurrah, chanting “BILL-Y BUT-LER! BILL-Y BUT-LER!” until he separated from a pack of reporters and acknowledged his adoring fans. Tonight wasn’t just about this season, but about an entire generation of fandom that came before it, and we weren’t going to simply ignore one of the best Royals hitters of that generation just because he was having a tough year.

And then the players slowly drifted back into the dugout, and we said our goodbyes, and we slowly headed to the exits, losers no more.

There will be time to analyze soon enough, to talk about these last few games (Hosmer’s heating up!), and the games to come (should Guthrie bump Vargas from the playoff rotation? Is Yost really serious about starting Shields on short rest on Monday?). There may even be a long apology posted that I need to start writing. But right now, I just want to enjoy the moment. I want to enjoy this moment. The moment I’ve been waiting for since I was ten years old.

There’s still so much uncertainty left in the regular season. With just two days left, it’s still possible that the Royals could have to fly to Oakland for the Wild Card game Tuesday night; it’s possible that the Royals will host the A’s (or the Mariners) at Kauffman Stadium that night; it’s possible that they’ll play in Detroit on Monday for the AL Central tiebreaker, and then play again in Kansas City the next day if they lose; it’s even possible that they could win the AL Central outright and enjoy a three-day rest before opening the ALDS in Baltimore on Thursday.

But one thing is certain. The Royals are a playoff team again. The longest postseason drought in North American sports is over.

I have been in the business of waiting for the Royals to make the playoffs for so long that, like Inigo Montoya, I need a little time to process the news that the quest is over, and it’s time to find a new quest.

But only a little time. Because clinching a playoff spot isn’t the end of a quest; it’s simply the beginning of one. The Royals disguised this for decades, but making the playoffs is the easy part. Ten out of thirty teams (33.3%) make the playoffs, but just one of those ten (10%) wins a championship.

Tonight, the Royals took the first step towards winning a championship. They’ve still got four steps to go. I don’t need to think about what I’m going to do now that the six-fingered man is dead: I’m just going to keep rooting for the Royals to take the next step. And I’m going to enjoy this ride as long as it lasts, all the more so because I get to enjoy it with all of you.

Royals Today: 9/25/14.

Playoff Odds (ESPN/Fangraphs): 99.9% (20.6% Division, 79.2% Wild Card)

Playoff Odds (Baseball Prospectus): 99.1% (5.0% Division, 94.1% Wild Card)

The two systems agree on the Royals’ overall playoff odds are over 99%, but vary wildly when it comes to their odds of winning the division. I have to think there’s a bug in the Fangraphs’ system at this point: there’s no way the Royals have a 21% chance to win the division when they’re down two games with four to play. That would imply they have about a one-in-three chance of finishing tied with the Tigers (along with a small chance of winning the division outright), and I don’t know how you make the math work.

Anyway, the Royals’ odds of making the postseason went up yesterday, thanks to Mark Buehrle being a beautiful human being, and the Mariners being kind of a tire fire right now. It is possible that the Royals could end the longest postseason drought in North American sports tonight.

But their path to the postseason is looking more and more like it will have to go through a one-game deathmatch against Oakland, as the Tigers beat Chris Sale (all of the cool teams are doing it now, apparently) to take a two game lead with four to play. With Oakland losing, the Royals and A’s are tied, with the Royals holding the tiebreaker to host that game Tuesday night.

And wouldn’t you know it, Tuesday is James Shields’ day to pitch. What happens that day might not only cement his legacy in Kansas City, it may determine whether I owe Dayton Moore an apology – or whether I need to get down on my knees, kiss his feet, beg for forgiveness, and then commit ritual suicide to restore what little remains of my honor.

But first, Shields pitches tonight, with a chance to take the Royals to the Promised Land after just 29 years. We should know before he takes the mound whether the Royals can clinch or not – the Mariners and Blue Jays play at 3 PM CDT. Either way, I’ll be there – if you’re going to the game, follow me on Twitter if you want to come by and say hello. And maybe, just maybe, celebrate something special together.

- Last night may have been a disappointing loss to the Indians, but if there’s a silver lining here, it’s that it may force the Royals’ hands in keeping both Yordano Ventura and Danny Duffy in their playoff rotation.

I thought Soren Petro was being a little melodramatic yesterday morning when he said that Jason Vargas is cooked, but I'm thinking now that he has a point. Vargas was terrible last night. He gave up a three-run homer in the first; he walked three batters and struck out only one. Over his last four starts, he’s allowed 18 runs in 18 innings. (Meanwhile, Phil Hughes threw eight innings of one-run ball yesterday and finished his season with the best strikeout-to-walk ratio in major league history. Come on, people, I haven’t had the best season from a prediction standpoint, but you gotta give me this one! If Hughes were a Royal, pitching in front of this defense, he’d be getting Cy Young votes this year.)

Vargas isn’t this bad, just as he wasn’t as good as he looked at times earlier this year. But he is worse than Ventura and Duffy – assuming Duffy looks as good in his second start back from injury as he did in his first – and the Royals can’t have a playoff rotation that features both Vargas and Jeremy Guthrie, but only one of Ventura or Duffy. Yes, Ventura/Duffy would make for a better piece out of the bullpen than either Vargas or Guthrie – but it’s not like the Royals are hurting for right-handed relievers, and with the emergence of Brandon Finnegan, there isn’t an acute need for a power lefty out of the pen anymore either.

The problem is that there’s a 50/50 chance that the Royals’ playoff rotation will begin and end with Shields. If Ventura pitches on Sunday – and even if a playoff spot is secured and the AL Central is out of reach, it might be worth it to start him in order to guarantee a home playoff game on Tuesday – then neither he nor Shields would be on full rest to start Game 1 of the ALDS. But Duffy would be on normal rest, and I don’t know about you, but I’ll take my chances with Duffy and Ventura in Games 1 and 2, with Shields starting Game 3 at Kauffman again. Any other alignment would be sub-optimal. (Also, the way the off days work, if the ALDS goes to Game 5, you could start Duffy on five days' rest OR Ventura on regular rest.)

The other silver lining here – we hope – is that yesterday might represent the last time Aaron Crow is allowed to pitch in a close game. He entered with the score 5-4 in the sixth, and promptly walked the leadoff batter – Mike Aviles, who we know from intimate experience is a hard man to walk. Aviles stole second, advanced to third on a grounder, which ended Crow’s outing. Francisley Bueno came in and allowed a sacrifice fly to double the Indians’ margin and put the game out of reach.

You may have read this on this blog before, but if you haven’t: AARON CROW ISN’T A GOOD PITCHER. Ned Yost keeps trying to prove otherwise, and he keeps getting burned. I don’t think Crow is one of the 25 best players on this team, and I think you can make a very strong case that he should not be on the Royals’ playoff roster. And I’m damn sure that he has no business in being used in any fashion other than as a mop-up man or as a human victory cigar in a 10-1 game.

- One last time: the Royals could clinch a playoff spot tonight. No, really. And if they do, MLB has to let them in – I checked the rulebook and everything.

The last two months have been a crazy ride, and barring a seismic collapse, the ride won’t end on Sunday. On the contrary, it might just be getting to the good part.