| KChiefs1 |
04-13-2016 10:02 PM |
Fun read from September 2013.
Quote:
TYLER KEPNER
SEPTEMBER 17, 2013
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Salvador Perez was 16 and living in Venezuela when he signed with the Kansas City Royals for $65,000 in 2006. He knew the Royals played major league baseball, he said Monday, but not much else. That was probably for the best.
“I feel so happy when I signed,” Perez said by his locker at Kauffman Stadium. “But after that, we have to go through some process to make it.”
Process has been the buzzword here for years, a plea from the front office to a restless fan base. The Royals have gone longer without a postseason appearance than any other team in the four major American professional sports, a drought that stretches to their victory in the 1985 World Series. Trust the process, the team has said, and at last, the results are showing.
The Royals, at 79-72, are fighting for one of the American League’s two wild-card spots. After splitting the first two games of their series this week with the Cleveland Indians, they are tied with the Yankees at three and a half back, trailing Cleveland and Baltimore for the spots held by Tampa Bay and Texas.
“This is what baseball’s all about,” said starter James Shields, who struck out 10 in six innings in a victory Monday. “This is where we want to be. We can pull it off, absolutely. We’ve just got to keep winning games.”
KEPNER
SEPTEMBER 17, 2013
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Salvador Perez was 16 and living in Venezuela when he signed with the Kansas City Royals for $65,000 in 2006. He knew the Royals played major league baseball, he said Monday, but not much else. That was probably for the best.
“I feel so happy when I signed,” Perez said by his locker at Kauffman Stadium. “But after that, we have to go through some process to make it.”
Process has been the buzzword here for years, a plea from the front office to a restless fan base. The Royals have gone longer without a postseason appearance than any other team in the four major American professional sports, a drought that stretches to their victory in the 1985 World Series. Trust the process, the team has said, and at last, the results are showing.
The Royals, at 79-72, are fighting for one of the American League’s two wild-card spots. After splitting the first two games of their series this week with the Cleveland Indians, they are tied with the Yankees at three and a half back, trailing Cleveland and Baltimore for the spots held by Tampa Bay and Texas.
“This is what baseball’s all about,” said starter James Shields, who struck out 10 in six innings in a victory Monday. “This is where we want to be. We can pull it off, absolutely. We’ve just got to keep winning games.”
The crowd was enthusiastic Monday — one man reveled in jiggling his supersize gut for the cameras — but just 15,413 fans showed up under threatening skies. The crowd was bigger Tuesday, but the Royals are averaging only 21,340 per game, down a bit from last season, when they hosted the All-Star Game. They have not averaged 25,000 since 1991.
Dayton Moore, the general manager, grew up here in the glory years of the 1970s and 1980s, rooting for the Royals. He has built a roster with emerging stars who may stick around, and said fans had started to identify with Perez, Billy Butler, Alex Gordon, Eric Hosmer and others.
“To me, that’s huge as we grow our organization — you grow new fans,” Moore said. “One of the frustrating things with this fan base, simply, is this: You have parents and grandparents who grew up loving the Royals because they always won. And then they had kids and grandkids, and they grew up liking the Red Sox and the Yankees and the Phillies and the Braves because those are the teams that were winning.
The Royals’ Salvador Perez applying a tag against the Mariners. Through Monday, Kansas City was 36-22 since the All-Star break.
ED ZURGA / GETTY IMAGES
“It created frustration in the community, and Kansas City is a very proud community. A lot of people come back here to live; it’s a nice quality of life. People want to be able to root for the Royals.”
Finally, they have a compelling reason. The Royals have come alive since the All-Star break, with a 36-23 record through Tuesday that was a game behind Detroit for the best in the American League.
The right to play important games in mid-September has validated the latest rebuilding effort. Several attempts failed before Moore arrived, and his has taken seven years to blossom. Many of the players have come through the farm system together, striving for games like these.
“It’s pretty cool seeing the front office, your minor league directors and farm directors, come in and watch the games when we’re still in it and still have a chance in September,” said Hosmer, a first baseman hitting .302. “We know all the work we’ve done to get to this point, and this is the final project up here. We’ve got a lot of guys that have put together some good seasons, and we’re heading in the right direction.”
The Royals may run out of time in their playoff push; the field is crowded, and just 11 games remain. But if they make it, the Royals could be tough to knock out. They would have momentum, and they do a few things very well.
The Royals are a team of extremes. They rank first in the league in stolen bases and their hitters have the fewest strikeouts — but also the fewest home runs. Their pitching staff has the best earned run average in the league, at 3.50, and a sturdy, rebuilt rotation has kept the bullpen rested and dominant.
The Royals’ bullpen E.R.A. is 2.60, the best in the league, although the relievers wasted a strong major league debut by the hard-throwing Yordano Ventura on Tuesday, squandering a 3-1 lead in the Indians’ 5-3 victory.
“They’re a good bullpen — every last one of their dudes throw hard,” said the Indians’ Michael Bourn, who homered and tripled. “You’ve got to be ready and try to do what you can against them. That doesn’t happen often against them, but we were able to get them tonight.”
The Royals have played so well that losses like Tuesday’s are surprising. They were routine in May, when the team reassigned its hitting coaches and installed the Hall of Famer George Brett in the role, temporarily, with Pedro Grifol.
While Grifol focused on mechanics, Hosmer said, Brett emphasized attitude in his two months on the job. He implored hitters never to let a starter leave the game without inflicting some kind of damage on him. That jolt of positive thinking, along with more selectivity at the plate and the discipline to go to center field and the opposite way, has helped Hosmer revive his season. His 143 hits since May 19 are the most in the majors in that span.
Hosmer also credited Shields, who came from Tampa Bay last winter in a deal for the top prospect Wil Myers, with imparting a winning approach. Shields took an active role in pitchers’ pregame meetings, and the hitters noticed.
“A lot of guys on the offensive side, myself and Gordon, we’re trying to get the offensive guys ready like he does the pitching,” Hosmer said. “Gordo’s done a great job of that, and leading by example. Bringing that into this locker room was a big help.”
Starting pitching allows the Royals to be competitive most nights, and their lockdown bullpen has helped produce 41 comeback victories; only Texas and Atlanta had more through Monday. The players are likable — aggressive on the field, earnest off it — and while the fans have not flocked to Kauffman Stadium, they are paying attention.
The team said local television ratings had risen 69 percent over last season, when the Royals were 70-92.
“A lot of that goes to the energy they bring, and how fun they are to watch,” said the Royals broadcaster Rex Hudler, himself a former high-energy infielder. “It’s the exciting plays they make, it’s the fun that they have. Baseball can be slow, station to station, but on this team, there’s action.”
A stolen base Monday helped the Royals score their first run, and a wild pitch on a strikeout led to their second. They broke the game open with back-to-back triples to start a three-run rally in the sixth, and the bullpen took over from there.
There was constant motion on the field, an uptick in the standings and, after the last out, the Beatles singing about Kansas City over the loudspeakers. The process has led to this.
“We can do it,” Perez said. “We play hard, and we’ll see what happens the last game of the season. For sure, we believe.”
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