Welcome to the existential Royals recap. Where we ask the questions: Do these games matter? Why are we playing them? Why are we here? Can we bring our dogs?
Speaking of dogs, it was Bark At The Park night at Kauffman. Fitting. The Royals played like dog crap.
The hard truth was learned last night. The reality was delivered with subtlety of a fist to the face on Wednesday. This season is over.
Yordano Ventura was all over the place. A single, a walk, and a wild pitch didn’t immediately result in a run. It didn’t exactly inspire confidence. Although a reprieve was earned, the A’s were still able to cash in both runners after another walk and a double. He walked another in the second. Then followed up allowing five hits in the fourth. A walk, a hit batter and a wild pitch ended his night. These games are no longer “must win.” However, they’re still brutal to watch. It’s one thing to play out the string. It’s another to stink up the joint.
Perhaps some perspective should be applied. It’s not like the Royals are doing this on purpose. It’s likely with injuries and regression and whatever reason you’d like to assign to falling to the middle of the American League pack, this team’s true talent level lies somewhere around .500. Some nights, they’ll look like the defending World Champions. Another night, they’ll look like the Twins. A miserable July yielded to a fantastic August. Push the records together and you have a team that had a record of 27-28. Since the start of September, the Royals have gone 5-7. I’d bet that at some point soon, this team will rip off a modest three game winning streak.
(This is probably where you begin to question my sanity. Yes, I saw the game Wednesday. Yes, it was as ugly a contest as we’ve seen this year against a team that is truly bad. No, it was not fun. Yes, there are still some wins left in this team.)
The bullpen entered in the fifth and not a moment too soon. They threw three more runs on the bonfire, but did it really matter? What’s three runs when your offense can only muster four hits. Eric Hosmer had a pair. Kendrys Morales and Whit Merrifield had the others. Singles, all. Blah, blah, blah.
There will be another game tomorrow. They may win. They may lose. It will matter only to the students of history and those compiling the numbers that go in the official baseball registry.
And so it goes.