Tag Archives: Kansas City Royals

MLB Wild Card: The Final Weekend

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Wednesday night was the final curtain for several teams with playoff hopes. The Yankees lost to Tampa Bay 8-3 and, when coupled with the Indians’ win over Chicago, were eliminated from post season play for only the second time in nineteen years. This also signaled the end of the Mariano Rivera era and his significant contribution to success over his career. Kansas City lost and its hopes ended as well. We will see more of this fine, young team next year. Both Pittsburgh and Cincinnati lost, setting the stage for the three games they play each other in Cincinnati this weekend. Pittsburgh has a one game lead over Cincinnati, so, if Cincinnati wins the series, it has home field advantage based on the record between the two teams this season where they are tied 8-8 at this time. Regardless, these two teams will play for the wild card on October 1.

In the American League, Texas remains one game behind Cleveland for the second wild card slot. Tampa Bay leads Cleveland by one as well. An interesting note here is that the inter-league, unbalanced schedule means that Texas has played seventy-eight games against +.500 teams and the Rays have played 100+.500 teams. A large part of the difference is that Texas is 17-2 against Houston. That is reality. Cleveland plays at Minnesota and the Twins play well at home and have played well there against Cleveland, Texas plays at home against the Angels who need two wins to finish at  .500, a significant achievement for them, and Tampa Bay plays at Toronto. What this means is that these three teams will play intensely to finish and win. Just think that if Toronto sweeps Tampa Bay, the Rangers win two of three with the Angels and Cleveland loses two of three in Minnesota, all teams will be at 89-72, a three team tie. This is highly unlikely, but it is baseball, so is possible. We will worry about that on Sunday.

The wild card games will be played October 1 for the NL and October 2 for the AL. The games will be played, if I am to hazard a guess, in Cincinnati and Tampa Bay. We’ll see.

August 17, A Review

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I was thinking about the date today and that it means there are two weeks of August left, but that only two weeks of August and then a serious month, September, arrives, when the NFL starts and MLB finishes the regular season.  As the Vikings have lost two pre-season games, I will join my fellow fans by ignoring that fact. Denial is big around here.

The Twins have been playing well since the All-Star Game, but are still well out of the race. However, the Division is competitive, if having Kansas City 6.5 games out in third, makes it competitive. The Royals won a double header in Detroit yesterday with pitching, and that is how to beat the Tigers. Kansas City Royals Emerge was posted on June 18 and discusses how this team is rapidly learning how to win. I think it is good enough now to beat the Tigers and that will be the best baseball story of the season. That is, unless you look at the Dodgers, who were in last place in June and have won 41 of 49 games since.  This is the triumph of baseball culture as this team played horribly, but the long season allows for a rebound and what a rebound it has been!

I mentioned the difference between baseball and the games that watch a clock in MLB, Where You Have to Give the Other Guy a Chance that quotes Earl Weaver.

This is the year that I became fixated with the Miami Marlins. Yes, the team that is 28 games behind the Braves. I have watched it play close games and lose and it is now playing close games and winning its share. When young, poorly performing teams show a habit of tenacity and relentless pursuit of wins, it often becomes a habit of winning. Not this year or maybe next, but keep your eyes on these players in Miami. This style of play indicates good management at all levels and that augurs well for the future.

Remember that there are two weeks left of August, but then it is September and it becomes serious. Stay tuned.

The AL Central Is Hot

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I recently wrote about the race between the Detroit TIgers and Cleveland Indians for the AL Central Pennant. Now I add the Kansas City Royals to that race. In the earlier articles, I mentioned that tension and focus would be important even mentioning that “playing with your hands around your throat” is difficult.  The Indians had just blown two games with the Twins at that time with costly errors.
This last week has seen the Indians win six in a row, the Tigers win four in a row, and the Kansas City Royals win seven in a row.
Clearly, the Indians have their goove back. I saw the Royals beat the Twins 7-2 last night and was impressed by this very balanced team. Furthermore, seven of the Royals are batting over  .260 and Eric Hosmer and David Lough are moving towards  .300. I have been very impressed by these two players for some time and have been waiting for them to emerge as stars.
The point here is that Detroit is still playing well, and Cleveland has removed the “hands of the throat” play of a week ago. The Royals have arrived as a contender and believe, if I can properly interpret the way the game was played last night, that they can also win. If Detroit falters, either the Indians or Royals can move up. Both of these teams are also in the Wild Card race, but it is a little early to focus on that and the new Wild Card playoff that occurs this year. Stay tuned, folks, this will be interesting.
The Boston/Tampa Bay race in the AL East is very tight. I will be watching that as well going forward, but the AL Central has the most potential for drama as the teams involved can either flourish or flounder in the next two months. Right now they are all flourishing.

Kansas City Royals Emerge

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This is a very interesting MLB season. The National League East Division has four teams within 1 1/2 games of each other with the highly paid, but poorly performing Dodgers buried in last place. This one may go down to the last week of the season. The American League East Division has four teams winning more than half their games. Separation will have to occur when they play each other more.
The race I am focused on is in the AL Central where my beloved Twins play.
In this division, the Kansas City Royals are emerging as a real contender. It has moved ahead of Cleveland for second place and is within the critical five game margin that means one good week for it and a bad week for Detroit and they will be neck and neck.  All teams have bad streaks and good streaks, the Royals had its bad streak and the Tigers will have one. 
The Royals success pleases me because I saw this team at the end of the 2011 season and predicted great things for 2012. It was not to be. Players such as Hosmer, Butler, Gordon, and Perez lead this team that is for real now, and James Shields will win going forward if the team scores more than 2 runs a game for him.
Gene Mauch, the great manager said, “teams have to learn to play, then to win, then to win when they have to.”  Kansas City has learned to play, and is learning to win. We will learn if it can win when it has to sometime after Labor Day. Detroit will be hard to beat with its superb starting pitching, but its relief pitching is suspect. This will be a great race and that is all I ask for in a Major League Season and this one has great races that will keep us engaged until the snow flies.

Major League Baseball, Attendance and Competitive Balance.

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Major League Baseball is my first interest each morning. World news can wait as I peruse the sports section, especially MLB standings and box scores.There is a lot of information there and I find something of note every day.

Today, what captured my eye was MLB attendance levels at the ten games played Monday.  This is an era of intense media coverage and modern stadiums that has pushed average attendance at MLB games to rise to over 30,000 per game. Yesterday, however, the attendance figures were more typical of the 1970’s. In those days, for example, the only video available of live action, was a 10 second shot of something that happened in the first five innings of the local game that was shown in the 10 O’clock news on one  of the four channels available.. It was hard to generate excitement with this limited exposure. Today, fans see all the great plays that occur each day, on multiple cable channels, and that drives interest and attendance.

Last night, however, attendance was 17,653 in Kansas City, where the Royals extended its winning streak to 6, 15,514 in Baltimore, where the Orioles beat the Angels 4-3, 15,447 in Tampa, where the Red Sox won in 14 innings, 18,126 in Chicago, where the White Sox won , 12,811 in Seattle where the Mariners won 3-2, 13,259 in Miami, where the Brewers beat the Marlins, and 21, 192 in San Diego where the Padres beat the Braves 7-6. Texas and the Dodgers both drew over 30,000 for their games. 

I am always concerned by low attendance as that is the first measure of public appeal. The games were well played, five were decided on one run, one was extra innings. MLB is a very competitive business and teams rely on attendance for revenue to pay for players who are more expensive every year. Reduced attendance has an effect on competitive balance, and competitive balance is what it is all about.

The next topic that captured by attention this June morning, was the intense competition in divisions where three teams are within four games of the lead. In the AL East, Boston, New York and Baltimore are within 3.5 games, even the fourth team, Tampa Bay is over .500. In the NL West, Arizona, Colorado, and San Francisco are within two games and in the NL Central, St.Louis,the best team overall, Cincinnati, and Pittsburgh are within four games. The most intense two team race is Texas and Oakland, where one game separates them.

This all means that the championship will be determined by the little things that happen, a ball that bounces erratically, a double play missed, an outfielder that loses the ball in the lights, and the hundred other little events that determine the outcome of a game or two of the 162 played each year. 

This is why we pay attention to the game and these races. There are 100 games to the playoffs, and I am making no predictions other than Detroit will win the AL Central. Then again, I picked Toronto to win, and it is last in its division. The infinite possibilities make this a wonderful game, I just hope attendance reflects that wonder.