Kansas City Royals: Lexington Legends are division leaders

The Class A affiliate of the Kansas City Royals, the Lexington Legends, are leading the South Atlantic League Southern Division. The Greenville Drive, affiliated with the Boston Red Sox, are two games back going into the final week of the season.

The Kansas City Royals affiliated Lexington Legends are in the driver’s seat in their final week of the regular season. Their season rounds out, starting at home in a four game series against the second half last place Augusta GreenJackets, and then they head on the road for a four game series against the Greenville Drive.

As aforementioned, Greenville is two games back in the second half with a record of 35-27. The Legends are 36-24. Overall, the Legends are the leaders on the season at 73-55. The closest team overall is the Rome Braves, seven games back.

In the first half, the Lexington Legends finished tied for second with the Augusta GreenJackets, with a record of 37-31 behind the Rome Braves.

The road to the playoffs

Class A playoffs are run a little differently than most. Because the GreenJackets took the Northern Division in the first half, they have already secured a spot in the playoffs. As long as the Lexington Legends remain in first place after their last eight games, they will take on the Augusta GreenJackets in a best of three series to determine who is the Southern Division Champion.

Pending these last eight games, the Lexington Legends would host the first game of the series, before heading to Augusta for game two and potentially three.

Class A is the only league that runs their playoffs this way. On the other side, in the Northern Division, the Lakewood BlueClaws, affiliated with the Philadelphia Phillies, were the first half winner, and they are in position to take the second half as well. That means the team with the next best record overall, which is currently the Kannapolis Intimidators (Chicago White Sox). The West Virginia Power (Pittsburgh Pirates) and the Delmarva Shorebirds (Baltimore Orioles) are not far behind.

Once both the Northern and Southern League Champions are determined, there is a best of five series to determine the South Atlantic League Champion

What does this mean?

The Lexington Legends are currently playing host to plenty of talented young players. Those include Nick Pratto, MJ Melendez, Seuly Matias, and Jackson Kowar. The cast of young talent with the Lexington Legends makes this seem like a huge step in the right direction, especially because of the rebuild.

Though there still is a chance they may not make the playoffs, the Lexington Legends had a successful second half, which bodes well for the Kansas City Royals in the future.