Kansas City Royals: Postseason berth slowly slipping out of reach

By Leigh Oleszczak | Sep 9, 2017

Kansas City Royals manager Ned Yost waits with the infield after relieving pitcher Trevor Cahill in the fifth inning against the Minnesota Twins at Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City, Mo., on Friday, Sept. 8, 2017. (John Sleezer/Kansas City Star/TNS via Getty Images) /

The Kansas City Royals lost to the Minnesota Twins again. The most they can do in this current series is to force a split, which at this point, just might not be enough to get the Royals into the postseason.

The 2017 season hasn’t been what Kansas City Royals fans were expecting at all. It was the last year of the fan favorites like Eric Hosmer and Mike Moustakas and was going to seem like the senior year for these guys. Everyone would be going their own way after the season (school year) wrapped up and it was one last hurrah for the group.

Instead, this season has created a whirlwind of emotions for the Royals and their fans. Early in the season, the team couldn’t score to save their lives. The bullpen was also horrible.

The starting rotation was pretty good at the beginning of the year, but it’s struggled tremendously in the second half of the season. The offense is either flaming hot or ice cold. The bullpen hasn’t been a shut down unit all season long. This just isn’t the team that has what it takes to make it to the finish line as a playoff team.

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The postseason is now seeming to be a pipe dream, as the Royals had to take at least three out of four games from the Twins in this series. Minnesota sits ahead of the Royals in the Wild Card standings and taking this series from them would have propelled Kansas City into a more favorable position towards making the Wild Card.

Now, however, the Kansas City Royals sit four and a half games out of that second Wild Card spot and the 2017 season is beginning to look like a wash. The Royals opted not to trade the big name players at the deadline, which I still believe was the right decision, but the players they brought in (minus Melky Cabrera) have not panned out for the team.

None of us expected the 2017 season to go like this. We were all hoping that we’d get to see this group make one last run in October and go for their third World Series appearance in just four years. That likely won’t be happening though and it’s easy to believe that the season could be about over for the boys in blue as we near the end of the Major League Baseball season.

A lot of sports fans always say, “There’s always next year!”, but that’s tough for Kansas City Royals fans to say because next year isn’t going to be a great one. The key free agents will likely be off seeking greener pastures with other teams and the talent the Royals will have left will be scarce.

It could be a rough few years coming up for the Royals, but we experienced over 20 years of that here in Kansas City. Hope you were grateful for those World Series appearances and that championship title because it could be awhile before Royals fans experience that again.

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