It's just funny the way it happens sometimes.
In the last 20 years of baseball, when I think about the epitome of an underdog story, I mean obviously you think of the 2019 Nationals, or the 2023 NLCS, or the David-Goliath battle of the 2011 NLDS, but...the team that has most regularly run the underdog status to glory has been the Kansas City Royals. And if you think about it, they've only really been *good* for like three or four of the last twenty years. From 2006 to 2013, they were routinely a punchline. Rebuilding, wasting away, trying to put something together, failing. You heard about their rookies, like Alex Gordon and Luke Hochevar and Billy Butler, and then nothing really happening to them. And then in 2014, they finally have the team to sneak into the postseason and upset literally everyone, including the Baltimore Orioles, who were looking like the favorite that year, to make a World Series. They did not win, but the legend was born, and in 2015 they were no longer the underdogs, and won easily. It was, of course, downhill from there, but it had been worth it. They built a team, rode the current, played the game and took it all.
To this point, in 2024, it was looking like it was going to happen again.
I applauded the really smart moves the Royals made this year, from signing Michael Wacha and Seth Lugo to giving Michael Massey another chance to start. The team followed, with Bobby Witt having an MVP caliber year, Seth Lugo having his best season to date, Ragans and Singer delivering solid campaigns, Perez and Fermin becoming an excellent catching battery, and Kyle Isbel once again being an underrated, game-saving hero on many occasions. At their peak, the Royals chased 1st place, and nearly took it from Cleveland. And then around being staved off for 1st, the downturn happened, the schedule gave them some really tough teams, Vinnie Pasquantino got injured and the losses kept coming. There was a rebound in mid-September, but it was more of a race at this point. Against time, against inevitability...and against themselves.
The strangest part of this whole ordeal is that the Royals are in grave danger of being lapped for a playoff spot, and potentially forced to watch from the sidelines, by a completely different underdog team. The Detroit Tigers. Going back to 2014, the Tigers were not underdogs. They were the commanding leaders of the division, and they were ultimately the victims of the Royals' incredible come-up. The playoff drought caused by the shift in that division around 2014 and 2015 has lasted to this day, and up until very recently the assumption was that it would keep going. But midyear, the Tigers came alive, Parker Meadows caught fire, the bullpen solidified, the small-ball tactics worked, and the Detroit Tigers went from fourth to second.
As of right now, the Tigers, with more momentum than they've had in years, have sole possession of the second wild card spot. Meaning the Royals are in win or die territory. If they keep sliding, there's a very real possibility of the Twins, the team they've consistently staved off, or the Mariners, another wild underdog, taking their place in the 2024 playoff picture. They do technically have enough power to get out of this hole, but I worry about their lack of current momentum. As luck would have it, they do have the Nats this week, and they got Michael Lorenzen back last night.
As for the Tigers...if they manage to pull this off, and find genuine playoff success, it'll be one of the most inexplicable things I've ever seen. This team was dead on arrival months ago, and now they're genuinely exciting and have so many players on at the moment.
It'll be wild to see how this shakes out. If the Royals miss the playoffs and the Tigers make it, that'll be the kind of ironic cosmic justice I wish I could write.
Coming Tonight: He may have missed the playoffs, but at the very least he's giving a decent preview of 2025.
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