KC Royals: 2 losing skids doomed playoff chances

The KC Royals entered this strange season with a chance to make the playoffs. Two losing streaks got in the way.

In any other year, the 2020 KC Royals wouldn’t be considered probable playoff contenders. Other than some low-risk free agent signings that satisfied their apparent annual need to salvage struggling pitchers, and a deal designed to bolster third base defense, the Royals did little in the offseason to improve a 2019 team limping away from its second consecutive 100-loss campaign.

But this has been no typical major league season. Unless the current pandemic thrusts its ugly self into the 2021 campaign, 2020 will remain a season unparalleled for its uniqueness. Interrupted by COVID-19 for almost four more months, this short 60-game venture into empty stadiums, bigger rosters, player pools and protective measures, gave everyone shots at October baseball. Expanded playoff eligibility bolstered those chances.

“A season in which anything can happen” quickly evolved from cliché to fact. The Miami Marlins, losers of 105 games last season, clinched a playoff berth Friday night; so did the Reds. The Padres finished last in the National League West in 2019 but will play this October. San Francisco remains in the race. Defending World Series champion Washington won’t make it.

The KC Royals, however, squandered their chances. Two prolonged streaks of bad baseball relegated them to non-contender status and assured them of watching the playoffs from home.

An inconsistent offense, the most glaring of the club’s 2020 flaws and the one most in need of offseason repair, drove a pair of losing skids that assured Kansas City would miss the postseason once again. The Royals averaged far less than three runs per game in both spans, the first a six-game losing streak, the second a seven-game dive.

By the time the second streak ended, the Royals were done.

The path they took to get nowhere was rough.

The KC Royals’ worst losing streak of the year scuttled their playoff hopes.

As September dawned with a home game against Cleveland, Kansas City was still reeling from three heart-breaking walk-off losses in its last five games. The Royals’ victory over the Indians in the previous evening’s series opener proved to be the slightest of respites.

The Indians struck early and attacked Matt Harvey, making his third start of the season after becoming the latest Royal pitching reclamation project, for five runs on three homers in the first two innings. Harvey lasted only an out into the second and left with a 15.43 ERA (he’d also lose the sixth of the seven-game skid). KC’s only run came on Hunter Dozier’s sixth-inning homer. Cleveland won 10-1.

Sept. 2: Indians 5, Royals 0.  That Kansas City left only one on base and went 0-for-1 with runners in scoring position had nothing to do with efficiency and everything to do with lack of opportunity. Proving yet again they need better bats, the Royals managed only three hits off starter Triston McKenzie and none off the Tribe’s bullpen.

Sept. 3: White Sox 11, Royals 6.  The Royals scored six, but their inability to drive runners in was fatal. They left nine on base and hit 3-for-13 with RISP. Duffy suffered his worst start, giving up six runs and walking five in six innings and the Sox slammed Jake Newberry for five runs in a third of an inning. Nicky Lopez, hitting just .200 coming into the game, drove in three runs.

Sept. 4: White Sox 7, Royals 4. Despite their nine hits, the KC Royals still lost, an understandable result considering all the hits were singles. That fact accounted as much as anything for the 12 runners the Royals left on and their 3-for-11 RISP.

Starter Brady Singer put the club in a hole by giving up five runs on 10 hits before manager Mike Matheny pulled him with two outs in the sixth.

Sept. 5:  White Sox 5, Royals 3.  Kansas City’s downfall came in the fifth inning. James McCann led off by reaching on Maikel Franco’s error; Bubic retired the next two batters but a single and a two-run homer accounted for three unearned runs. The Royals couldn’t overcome the resulting 5-1 lead and lost their fifth in a row.

Sept. 6: White Sox 8, Royals 2.  The White Sox finished their season’s dominance over Kansas City with their ninth win in the teams’ 10 games. Clinging to a slim 2-0 lead, Chicago broke this one open with three runs in the seventh and another three in the eighth. The Royals’ typically reliable bullpen was the culprit: Josh Staumont gave up three runs in just a third of an inning and Chance Adams, pitching in his fourth game of the year, surrendered three runs for the third time.

Notable were the six runners the Royals left on base and their 0-for-7 RISP.

Sept. 7: Indians 5, Royals 2.  Credit Cleveland’s pitching with the last loss in the KC Royals’ longest losing streak of the season. Starter Zach Plesac gave up a run (Adalberto Mondesi’s first home run of the year) in his seven innings and the Tribe bullpen allowed a run in the eighth. The Royals managed nine hits but only two—Mondesi’s homer and Dozier’s first triple—were for extra bases.

The Royals beat the Indians 8-6 the next night to end the streak at seven.

Two unfortunate stretches contributed heavily to the KC Royals’ lost 2020 playoff chances.

The good news, after Kansas City’s victory over Detroit Friday night, is that the Royals can only lose two games in a row before the season ends Sunday. The bad news, of course, is that their two longest losing streaks, the six-game skid that started July 31 and the seven-gamer that began Sept. 1, destroyed any hopes Kansas City had of playing in October. That those streaks occurred in a short season when even inferior teams could legitimately compete for extra playoff spots made them even more distasteful.

The first streak started with the KC Royals just two games out of first and tied for a Wild Card spot; it ended with them 7.5 games behind the league lead and 3.5 behind in the Wild Card. The second streak started on the first day of the campaign’s final month when the club was eight games out of first, but a manageable five games behind in the Wild Card fight.

The last skid finished the Royals off–after the seventh loss, the club found itself 12.5 games out of first and 7.5 behind in the Wild Card with slightly less than three weeks to play.

That Kansas City played badly on the road (11-19) and hasn’t dominated at home (the club was 14-14 at Kauffman Stadium after Friday’s win) certainly contributed to the club’s missed opportunity this season. But losing six in a row and seven straight a month later probably hurt the Royals more.

Some uncharacteristically poor pitching (for 2020), including the worst performances of the year for Duffy and Holland, some shaky starts by Bubic and Singer, and bad outings by Matt Harvey, took its toll. So did the inconsistent offense that’s plagued the Royals all season—they averaged 2.33 runs per game and hit .224 with runners in scoring position during the first streak, then averaged 2.57 runs and had a .195 RISP in the second.

The reasons the club lost itself in two damaging losing streaks, the impact of their length magnified by the short season, are easy to see. The result is hard to take.

Losing streaks are a fact of baseball life. But in this short season, they hurt more than usual.