KC Royals Slide A Reminder Of Recent Past

KC Royals fans should never take winning for granted. The Royals, with their first five-game losing streak since May 2014, are proving back-to-back World Series appearances and the championship in 2015 mean little in 2016.

That we care so much about a five-game skid is a testament to what the Kansas City Royals have done in recent years. We now expect them to not only win most of the time, but every single night. I joined the KC Royals fan base in 2008 when I was working for a daily newspaper in Central Kansas. We printed at night and I was always the last guy out as I waited for the baseball games to finish. I came to enjoy watching even a losing baseball team.

2008 was an interesting year. Kansas City finished that season with a 75-87 record, its best record since 2003. After a 6-2 start, the KC Royals took a 21-22 record into Boston where they were no-hit by Jon Lester. That prompted a 12-game losing streak, the longest in the majors since their own 13-game skid in 2006.

Back then, Joakim Soria was the Wade Davis of the squad. Through the first 40 games of the season, he had yet to allow an earned run and had 10 saves. That season he was Kansas City’s lone representative in the All-Star Game.

In spite of a strong finish that season, the Kansas City Royals backslid over the next two seasons, winning just 65 games in 2009, and bottoming out with 61 wins in 2010. The squad began to improve after that, from 71 wins in 2011, to 72 in 2012, and an 86-76 winning season in 2013. We know what happened after that.

All the winning has brought in a wave of new fans. Living four hours from Kansas City, it was nearly impossible to find KC Royals apparel in my hometown in 2008. Even in Topeka, about an hour from the stadium, apparel was limited. These days, regardless of where you are in Kansas, Missouri, and presumably a few other bordering states, it’s rare to not see several Kansas City Royals shirts or jackets wherever one goes.

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But these new fans may not know of Kansas City’s struggles in recent years. This latest dry patch is a good reminder of how frustrating the game can be. Heading into Sunday’s day game against Seattle, the Royals had posted 27-straight scoreless inning.

They’d lost seven-straight road games, and were a paltry 4-for-35 with runners in scoring position before Omar Infante’s bloop single scored Alex Gordon in the second inning. Lorenzo Cain followed with an RBI-single in the third. Alcides Escobar banged out three hits.

The 2016 KC Royals are a far cry from the 2008 Royals that were 12-16 at this point eight years ago. Soria, Gordon, and Luke Hochevar were the only players on that 2008 roster still on the roster today, and Gordon was listed as an infielder.

That’s right, many of today’s young fans will forget that Gordon was supposed to be the next George Brett at third base. They were impossible expectations, but Gordon was a huge disappointment regardless. Gordon was often injured and spent time on the disabled list in 2008 and 2009, earning the nickname “Alice” in some circles. In 2008, his 16 errors and .955 fielding percentage were the worst among all American League third basemen. Again, we know how all that turned out.

While this current slide is a bit frustrating to watch, let it serve as a reminder of what the Kansas City Royals were just a few short years ago. No one call tell if and when the KC Royals will break out of the slump, but things were already looking up Sunday in Seattle with the two early hits with runners in scoring position, and Cain’s two hits.

With a .220 average entering Sunday, he had just one multi-hit game heading into the Seattle series, but had multi-hit games in two of his last three games.

Next: Royals Snap Five-Game Losing Streak With 4-1 Win Over Mariners

The magic of the baseball season is that a lot can happen in 162 games. We are not even to the warm weather yet, when hitters begin to perform better. In spite of all that, Kansas City is still at 13-11 and four games behind a white-hot White Sox team. There is plenty of baseball to be played. If they Royals have proved anything over the past two years and in several close games already this season – don’t ever count them out.