Kansas City Royals: What needs to happen for Royals to make playoffs

STAY HEALTHY!

This one is another no brainer, but it’s worth discussing. The 2016 Royals were a .500 team because they had way too many injuries throughout the year.

Key players like Lorenzo Cain, Wade Davis, Alex Gordon, Luke Hochevar, and Mike Moustakas were put on the shelf for several weeks (some even missing a good chunk of the season) and the team suffered as a result. With injuries to a lot of the Royals starting pitchers this season, it looked like this team might have been ready to call it quits in May.

Health is everything in sports.

Now, however, Danny Duffy is back and (hopefully) healthy and he needs to stay that way. If he or Jason Vargas spend any amount of time on the disabled list this season, then the Royals will be watching the playoffs from home.

Matt Strahm is done for the year and that is a devastating loss for the Royals bullpen. He proved to be one of the key back end relievers out of the pen and without him, the Royals are probably going to have to trade a reliever now.

Health is everything in sports. When the Royals went to back to back World Series in 2014 and 2015, people can talk about chemistry and magic all they want, but the most important part of contending for a championship is staying healthy.