With every new Royals piece I've written over the last two-ish months, it's hard not to begin and finish in a negative tone. Jockeying with the LA Angels and the Colorado Rockies for the worst record in baseball will do that to a guy. This was a year in which Kansas City, led by manager Matt Quatraro and superstar shortstop Bobby Witt Jr., with better players emerging were supposed to return to the playoffs and make some noise, as they did two years ago.
Alas, it hasn't been close to the season we all expected, and securing a top seed now feels like a world away. With that said, not everything needs to be so dreary and forward-looking. And that's the mentality this team has taken all year. They've kept the faith, remained confident, and continued to fight. That's a team worth cheering for.
And it's evident by the Royals' latest two-game stretch where they've not only dug themselves out of misery, but have actually launched into batting elation. 31 runs, 41 hits, six homers, and a Tyler Tolbert masterclass performance are remarks that sound, look, and feel unbelievable if you've gotten used to this team all year, but it's the truth of what happened. And despite a porous season, it's a two-day accomplishment that we can be okay with feeling happy about.
31 runs in two games, and Tyler Tolbert breaking records? Sure!
Let's start with Monday afternoon's series finale at home versus a solid Philadelphia team, which was tied at one a piece. KC began the game strong, scoring six runs in the bottom of the first thanks to some frenzy hitting and a three-run blast from Luke Maile. From that point on, the Royals scored at least one run in every inning of that ballgame, powered by solo shots from Salvador Perez, Lane Thomas, and Tyler Tolbert (who went 5-5 on the game).
It marked arguably the most impressive win of the season with a final score of 15-1 and a seven strikeout, 105 pitch performance from 26-year-old Noah Cameron. It marked the Royals' first series win since beating St. Louis on June 18-21. Whatever magic the Boys in Blue seemed to conjure up from that 15-run barrage, they carried it into yesterday's victory, scoring 16 times on 19 hits.
While KC did not add to their tally every inning, a five-run fifth and a seven-run seventh, capped off a 16-12 win over the New York Mets, where seemingly no pitcher on either side had anything going. Lane Thomas stayed hot with three hits and four RBIs, while Nick Loftin got in on the action with a two-run homer himself. The story of that game, however, was the aforementioned Tyler Tolbert.
The 28-year-old, often pitch-running, backup second-baseman continued an ungodly hot streak, with hits on his first five at-bats. It brought him to 12 straight plate-appearance hits, tying an MLB record held by Johnny Kling in 1902 and Walt Dropo in 1952. Furthermore, his back-to-back, five-hit games tied another record which he will now hold alongside Hi Myers in 1917 and the Hall of Famer Roberto Clemente in 1970.
Tolbert, over this span, has propped his batting average up from .200 to .396. His record-breaking performance, along with the Royals' surge in hitting, is why no matter how desperate things might seem, baseball is random, and a win or a loss is just one swing away. That's what Kansas City will continue to tell itself every game.
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