Festivities, 'HDH' bobbleheads headline big 2014 KC Royals weekend celebration

In some ways, it feels like a lifetime has passed since the KC Royals made their first postseason appearance in nearly three decades, riding a walk-off Wild Card Game win for the ages to Game 7 of the 2014 World Series, where they were ultimately denied the title by San Francisco and Madison Bumgarner, the pitcher who to this day remains "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named" to many Royals fans.

Along the way, the Royals won eight American League playoff games in a row, sweeping the top-seeded Angels and the favored Orioles with exciting speed, defense, and one of the most dominant bullpens in major league history. The team started slowly and looked destined to fall well short of high expectations before turning it on in the season's second half and rising far higher than many dared dream. The Royals won the World Series a year later, but many fans still consider their surprise 2014 run as more fun.

The KC Royals are celebrating the 2014 AL champs this weekend

To mark the 10th anniversary of their pennant victory, the Royals have these exciting festivities planned for this weekend, including an on-field reunion of players before Friday night's game and a Thursday evening dinner at Union Station with proceeds earmarked for the Kansas City Royals Foundation.

And don't forget the bobbleheads.

The 2014 Royals had the best back-end of any bullpen in the majors — no club's came close to the "HDH" trio of Kelvin Herrera, Wade Davis, and Greg Holland, a three-headed monster that changed the way teams build bullpens. To pay tribute to them, the Royals are giving away bobbleheads at every game against the A's this weekend — Herrera's Friday night, Davis' Saturday night, and Holland's Sunday. But the bobbleheads, which interlock to form a single awesome display, are only available to the first 15,000 fans through the gate each game.

And just in case you need a reminder of how good those pitchers were, or weren't around to see them in action, here's who they were and what HDH did.

Kelvin Herrera was the first line of defense

Herrera's early path in the big leagues wasn't smooth; he debuted late in 2011 but later bounced back and forth between Kansas City and Triple-A Omaha. He had a couple of auditions for the closer role and, while he looked great at times, struggled with the long ball and failed to lock down the position.

His turnaround came in 2014, when manager Ned Yost made him the seventh-inning guy in the HDH trio of dominant late-inning relievers assigned to close out wins. Herrera repaid Yost's trust by going 4-3 with a 1.41 ERA and 1.143 WHIP in 70 games. He didn't slow down in the postseason, appearing in 11 games, giving up only three runs and striking out 16 in 13.6 innings, and winning Game 2 of the World Series.

The Royals carried this successful formula over to 2015 until Holland went down with an elbow injury in September. That forced Herrera to the eighth-inning spot, but thanks to Luke Hochevar, who became the primary seventh-inning man, the club skipped scarcely a beat. It didn't even have to change the initials of the back-end of the bullpen, although HHD didn't have quite the same ring as HDH.

Herrera stuck with the eighth inning through the 2016 season, but after Davis was traded to the Cubs, he moved into the closer role in 2017. He wasn't bad there, converting 26 of 31 save opportunities, but his career-worst 4.25 ERA suggests the Royals were at their strongest when he was in the seventh-inning spot.

Greg Holland put his name in the record books but didn't reach the summit

Holland debuted in Kansas City in 2010 but, like Herrera, his early tenure was rocky. He struggled to find consistency and to carve out a role for himself, but as the Royals became relevant in 2013 for the first time in decades, Holland figured things out. He set a new club record with 47 saves and staked his claim alongside franchise icons Dan Quisenberry and Jeff Montgomery.

The next year, Holland quickly put to rest any fears that his breakout season was a fluke. He saved 46 games, and went 1-3 with a 1.44 ERA and 0.914 WHIP.

And he might have been even better in October. He saved seven games in the postseason, a record he holds with several others. He saved all four of the club's ALCS victories, a feat no AL reliever had achieved since Dennis Eckersley did it for Oakland in 1988, and one no major leaguer had accomplished since John Wetteland saved four in the 1996 World Series.

We'll never know how many saves Holland might have recorded in KC's 2015 run to a championship — the September elbow injury that took him out of action required Tommy John Surgery, so he missed the rest of the regular season and the postseason. Holland was having another excellent year but had to watch from the dugout as the Royals won it all.

Holland missed all of 2016, but bounced back and won the 2017 NL Comeback Player of the Year award with Colorado. He was a bit of a baseball nomad in the following seasons but, like Davis, ended up back in Kansas City. And he pitched well in 2020 before he and Davis both lost steam in 2021.

Unfortunately, Holland and Davis couldn't find the magic a second time, perhaps because they were lacking Herrera. There was a time, though, when together the HDH trio was practically invincible.

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