Kansas City Royals: A Look Back At An Exciting 2013

Kansas City Royals pitcher

(54)Mandatory Credit: Peter G. Aiken-USA TODAY Sports

JULY

The month of July may just be one of the strangest, most up and down months in Royals history. They started off 5-3 but they stubbed their toe severely going into the All Star break by losing 5 games in a row, including 3 to the Cleveland Indians, with whom the Royals were trying to battle with for second place in the AL Central.

It was a gut wrenching stretch which saw the Royals drop to 6 games under .500. In those losses, neither the hitting or the pitching came through as Kansas City was out scored 30-12.

During the All-Star break, many people, myself included, believed the Royals should trade Santana and start building for 2014. It didn’t look like the Royals had any chance whatsoever to get back in the race.

The Royals returned from the break by beating the Detroit Tigers twice, before dropping the last game of the series. The Royals dropped the next game and were sitting at 45-51 after action on July 22nd.

An amazing things happened at that point. The Royals started winning, despite the fact George Brett stepped down as hitting coach, a position he took in May on an interim basis. Kansas City finished out July with 8 straight wins. Suddenly, they were 2 games over .500 with just 2 months to go. The Royals went 15-10 in July.

The trade dead line passed with the Royals not trading away any key pieces to their team. They were going to go for it!