Kansas City Royals: Top moments of the 2019 season

In a season plagued by bad pitching, one unlikely Royals pitcher gave the fans a game to remember.

On July 16, 2019, the Kansas City Royals matched up against the Chicago White Sox in the second game of a four-game series at Kauffman Stadium. The Royals had taken the win the previous night and were hoping to move closer to taking the series.

Glenn Sparkman took the mound for the Royals, and little did he know he would have one of the best games of his career. Sparkman struggled throughout most of 2019. Seeing a lot of starts in an always-changing Royals rotation, Sparkman ended the regular season 4-11 with a 6.02 ERA.

While Sparkman often struggled, there were times during the year that he showed he had some good pitches in his arsenal, he just struggled to control the ball and let the games get out of hand. On the night of July 16, though, Sparkman took the mound ready to play.

Over 116 pitches, Sparkman left the game with five hits, one walk, eight strikeouts, zero earned runs, and nine innings pitched. Sparkman sat down the White Sox and pitched a complete game shutout.

Sparkman may have had his share of struggles, but pitching a full game shut out is an amazing accomplishment for any pitcher and a good memory for the Royals of 2019.

Whit Merrifield was able to continue his outstanding hitting, allowing him to make history and find himself in the 2019 All-Star Game.

Every fan of the Kansas City Royals knows Whit Merrifield. He’s one of the best players on the Royals that nobody expected to be the best. While many of the Royals had poor 2019 seasons, Merrifield went against the grain and exploded for another great campaign.

While he did decline in certain aspects of the game, Merrifield continued to impress by being a stellar defender in any position and hitting the ball for a 0.302 average, helping him to hit more than anyone in baseball. For Merrifield, it’s difficult to decide which moment is the best, so this top moment will actually be two moments for one player.

The first moment for Whit came towards the beginning of the year. In September 2018, Merrifield got on a hitting streak that lasted until the end of the season. Whit didn’t skip a beat, as he carried that hitting streak into the 2019 season. On April 10, he hit safely in his 31st-consecutive game, giving him the longest hitting streak in Royals history and beating George Brett‘s streak of 30.

While the streak unfortunately ended at 31, Whit didn’t let that keep him down. He kept hitting, and he hit some more, and after going through a small slump mid-year, he hit even more. Whit was able to record 206 hits in the 2019 regular season, leading Major League Baseball in hits for the second-consecutive year.

Whit is one member of the Kansas City Royals that fans hope sticks around for the long haul. If the Royals can get some other pieces of the puzzle, Whit will be a good player to help base a team around.

Jorge Soler has dealt with his fair share of injuries but in a year where he was able to stay healthy, his baseball ability started to take form.

Jorge Soler, like Merrifield, is another player who had so many great moments in 2019 that it is hard to pick just one. For this reason, this top moment will again be two moments for one player which go hand-in-hand with each other.

Jorge Soler is something that many Kansas City Royals fans aren’t used to. The Royals, at least recent Royals teams, have been focused on maintaining defense and speed. In stadiums like Kauffman, that can sometimes work, but in years of the home run, like 2019, some hits just can’t be caught.

For the Royals, home runs don’t ever seem to be a priority. There have been some decent power hitters, but the Royals focus on other areas is one of the reasons they had never had a hitter knock over 40 home runs in a single season, until Soler that is.

The first home run accomplishment Soler had in 2019 was breaking the Royals single-season home run record, set just a few years early by Mike Moustakas. The Royals record was set at 38, relatively low compared to other team records. On Sept. 3, Soler launched a ball into the stands, giving him 39 home runs.

The hitting didn’t stop, though. Soler continued to smack baseballs into the fountains of Kauffman, eventually hitting his 46th home run of the year. With the 46th home run, Soler took the lead in home runs for the American League and held onto it, becoming the first Royal in history to lead the AL in home runs.

https://twitter.com/MLB/status/1178014187265675265

The Royals may have struggled through a great portion of the 2019 season, but some of the players created great moments to remember. While it is hard to decide which moments qualify to be the “top moments,” the moments above prove the Royals are still trying to make noise, even in a second 100-loss season.

If the Royals can continue to push and produce moments like these, the years of the rebuild may soon be over and contention could be right around the corner.