KC Royals: A look back at success and a vision for the future
By Gage Stagner
In the air, where most KC Royals fans were when Joe Buck was making the call as Alcides Escobar was sent home by Mike Jirschele. It’s been almost four years since Esky led the 2015 World Series off with an inside-the-park home run.
The pulsating game, lasting 14 innings, was the perfect example of who the 2014-15 Kansas City Royals were. They were fun, fast, intoxicating, and extremely rough on the hearts of Kansas City fans. The team was built on perseverance and a killer bullpen, not money or legacy.
While they took years off the lives of its desperate watchers, they were captivating. The back-to-back World Series runs turned non-baseball fans into Royals enthusiasts. Kansas City homes everywhere filled their TV screens with Fox Sports Midwest just to watch them take on Detroit on a random Wednesday evening. They were the cardiac kids and Kansas City couldn’t get enough of them.
With studs like Eric Hosmer and Mike Moustakas, who basically grew up together in the Kansas City farm system, these Royals were built from the ground up. A 30-year World Series drought brought nostalgic Royals die-hards and brand new bandwagoners together like never before. It was a rare mixture of George Brett pine-tar story tellers and Hosmer hair lovers. It was beautiful.
With no real face of the franchise, the whole team shared the spotlight. Lorenzo Cain was the home-run robber, Salvador Perez the glue, Ben Zobrist the deadline darling, Alex Gordon the hometown kid, Jarrod Dyson the speed, and the late Yordano Ventura was the ace.
Kansas City is one of the smallest markets in Major League Baseball, meaning Dayton Moore had no choice, but to build the team that way. Not in 2014 and not ever have the Royals had the luxury of going out and signing or trading for perineal all-stars with gigantic salaries.
Johnny Cueto seemed to be a great acquisition for the 2015 run, and while he is a two-time All-Star, he struggled for the Royals during the regular season with a record of 4-7 and a 4.76 ERA in his 13 appearances. But just like many other Royals, he turned it on when it mattered most in the playoffs.
Manager Ned Yost turned a once-starter Wade Davis, Kelvin Herrera’s 97-MPH fastball, and closer Greg Holland, into the most fearsome three in the AL. In 2015, Davis took over closing duties after Holland was injured. Davis turned into Mr. Automatic with a 0.94 ERA that year and so announcer Rex Hudler coined the term, “Waiter, check please.”
After years of being the laughingstock of the majors, the Royals finally stumbled into some good fortune and talent. If there was one thing Kansas City folks learned in those two years, it was to never turn off the game before it was over.