How resurgent KC Royals’ rally reflects mindset of ‘something good’s going to happen’
Even with pandemic protocols being peeled back enough to enable vaccinated fans to dispense with masks at Kauffman Stadium and some 15,540 people in attendance on Sunday, for 2 hours 49 minutes the sound effects resembled what you might have heard a year ago when the Royals played in an empty stadium.
Beyond some bursts for the national anthem and “God Bless America” and that lovely recording of Buck O’Neil singing “Take Me Out To The Ballgame” on Salute to the Negro Leagues Day, the soundtrack was mostly the hush of one hand clapping as the Royals bats were virtually muzzled by Detroit starter Casey Mize.
With the steady rush of the outfield fountains dominating the backdrop, even from the upper deck across the field you could hear Jorge Soler call a ball in right field. Or a pitch thump off of Nicky Lopez’s leg.
You could certainly feel, if not outright hear, some collective sighs when two Royals innings ended with outs at third base.
Even audible from above, at least it sure seemed like, was some of manager Mike Matheny’s hollering at first-base umpire Adrian Johnson that led to Matheny being heaved in a game that had all the earmarks of ending as a dud.
But it’s funny about baseball, about how tedium and frustration can be transformed into euphoria in what seems like an instant … and vice versa, of course.
In this case, one swing of the bat by Carlos Santana changed the complexion of the day and extended the resurgent trajectory of a team in some ways still dusting itself off from an 11-game losing streak.
Santana’s 442-foot home run in the ninth inning with Whit Merrifield aboard gave the Royals not only a 3-2 victory but also their sixth win in nine games to lift them back to within one win of .500 (22-23) as they set off on a six-game road trip.
Their third walk-off win of the season (and seventh career walk-off home run by Santana) gave them something else yet, something they keep demonstrating to themselves through these tight and tense games and after that recent stretch of haplessness: more cause to have faith instead of just hope in where this season is going.
They’ve gone through these sorts of crucibles enough now, Matheny said afterwards, that they can have legitimate conviction about being “right in this” in such games.
Maybe they can consider the notion as part of the DNA of this team.
With a certain caveat: This characteristic is only true until it isn’t.
“We need stuff like that to continue to happen,” Matheny said.
On the surface, of course, he’s speaking about Santana summoning that magic as he continues to demonstrate what a meaningful off-season acquisition he was between his disciplined approach at the plate and his nine home runs and 31 RBIs.
“He’s brought everything to this team,” Matheny said.
Just the same, this victory also was about all the little things that kept the game in their grasp along the way.
And the mindset toward the final moment: It wasn’t just “us coaches,” Matheny said, “yelling like idiots, ‘Keep us there, keep us there, something good’s going to happen. Keep us there.’ ”
Sometimes you don’t get kept there, no matter how much imploring is going on.
But as they wore the uniforms of the Kansas City Monarchs on Sunday, they did … in ways both subtle and substantial before Santana’s momentous swing.
Consider the effort of starter Kris Bubic, who entered the game with a 0.96 ERA but could promptly tell he was struggling with fastball command and gave up hits to four of the first five batters he faced. But pitching in the frame of mind that he simply had to do “damage control,” Bubic emerged from the first having allowed only two runs and stranding three Tigers on base.
Those would be the only two runs he’d give up in five innings.
In his first major league season a year ago, Bubic said afterward, he may not have been able to bear down through the first and likely would have been out well before the fifth.
Meanwhile, the Royals were sputtering against Mize, who had allowed just one hit into the seventh inning when Andrew Benintendi and Sal Perez led off with singles. Benintendi scored on a crucial sacrifice fly by pinch-hitter Hanser Alberto to help position the Royals for fireworks in the ninth.
So did four innings of scoreless relief, highlighted by Kyle Zimmer’s two clean innings with three strikeouts for what would become his third win.
It was something he sensed was coming, Zimmer said afterward, when Merrifield led off with a hard grounder to third that was too much for Jeimer Candelario to handle and was ruled a single.
In the dugout, after all, they were calling for “a bloop and a blast” and suddenly only needed the exclamation point on that furnished by Santana.
Which Matheny said left him jumping around, wherever he stood out of view following his ejection, but not necessarily surprised.
Much like Perez, he said, Santana is the sort of player who tends to “rise to those occasions.”
On a team that’s learning to do the same more and more … even on days when everything seems on mute until the final scene.
This story was originally published May 23, 2021 at 8:37 PM with the headline "How resurgent KC Royals’ rally reflects mindset of ‘something good’s going to happen’."