Kansas City Royals: Top moments of the 2019 season

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.