Former teammate helps KC Royals slip into MLB Playoffs

The KC Royals had the chance to walk into the MLB Playoffs Friday night. Beat Atlanta at Truist Park, and they'd secure one of the two American League Wild Cards still available after Baltimore nailed down the top one earlier this week.

But when the evening's weekend series opener between Kansas City and the Braves ended a minute short of two hours, things hadn't gone the way the Royals probably preferred.

Their recently resurgent offense regressed. Seeing to that was Braves' starter Max Fried, who held the Royals scoreless and struck out nine over the 8.2 innings he worked after missing his scheduled start earlier in the week when weather concerns forced postponement of two of his club's three games against the Mets.

The Royals were 0-for-5 with runners in scoring position.

Salvador Perez didn't get a hit in four at-bats and, trying to gun down Marcell Ozuna on his attempted eighth-inning steal of third base, uncorked a wild throw into left field that allowed Ozuna to score.

Only Bobby Witt Jr. with two, and Michael Massey with one, mustered hits.

And Brady Singer, the Kansas City starter tasked with shutting Atlanta down, struggled off and on (he threw 98 pitches in six innings) and gave up the two-out, one-on homer to Sean Murphy in the fourth that gave Atlanta all it needed. The Braves won 3-0, stalling the Royals' magic number at 1.

But later, at night's end when it was time for the Royals to head back to their hotel, none of that mattered. Not a bit of it.

The Royals, as it turns out, are headed for the MLB Playoffs.

Here's why.

The KC Royals got the help they needed Friday night

It was almost a week ago, after Kansas City dropped its last home game of the regular season to San Francisco to extend its losing streak to seven games, that we wrote reaching postseason play would require the Royals to get some help from others.

The Orioles rendered that assistance in Minnesota later Friday night by throttling the Twins 7-2 in a game the Royals watched from the visiting clubhouse after they lost to Atlanta. Minnesota's loss puts Kansas City into the playoffs for the first time since they won the World Series in 2015.

And it was one of the Royals' former teammates, Ryan O'Hearn, who provided what proved to be almost all Baltimore — and in turn Kansas City — required. O'Hearn, traded by Kansas City to the Orioles not long before spring training opened last year, belted a two-run homer off Minnesota starter Pablo López in the second to give the O's an early 2-0 lead; the Twins managed to match that total by pushing across a pair of runs in the bottom of the ninth, but it was too little, too late.

Baltimore's win closed out the AL Wild Card race because Detroit clinched one of the Cards by beating the White Sox earlier in the evening.

What's next for the KC Royals?

No matter what happens Saturday and Sunday, Kansas City is guaranteed the third Wild Card. The club now trails Detroit by a game for the second but, because the Royals own the tie-breaker over the Tigers, can take it away from them if they win one of two against the Braves and Chicago beats the Tigers twice, or if they win both games against the Braves and Detroit loses once.

Kansas City will open Wild Card Series play Tuesday at either Houston or Baltimore. Game times haven't been determined.

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