Royals’ new veteran sparkplug reveals mindset team must adopt to reach postseason

The focus amongst Kansas City Royals baseball in recent weeks has been around their current push for the postseason.

After seeming down and out and certain points this year, the Royals now find themselves just on the outside looking in on the American League Wild Card spots, trailing the Seattle Mariners by 3.0 games with 28 games left on the docket.

Nobody is saying it will be easy, but there seems to be optimism that the Royals could potentially defy the odds and reach the postseason, including from one of their new impact trade deadline day additions in veteran outfielder Mike Yastrzemski.

Mike Yastrzemski shares mindset that Royals must adopt down the stretch

Yastrzemski, who’s been on a tear since joining Kansas City on deadline day, with six homers, a .959 OPS and 154 wRC+ as a Royal, took to MLB Network Radio earlier this week and weighed on the calming mindset the team needs to adopt amid a current time of chaos.

“We’ve got to just play our game,” he said.

He went to elaborate, saying that their focus needs to be simplified and not grounded in what is going on around the league that they can’t control.

“One of the things that I try to keep people from doing is checking the box scores immediately after the game,” Yastrzemski said. “It’s so hard to not be focussed on what other teams are doing because we’re chasing them down.”

He stated that their focus rather must be on how they’re performing and on what they can control, putting specific emphasis on simplifying the game and honing in on the small things.

“We have to play great baseball,” he said. “We have to play championship baseball in terms of the little things.”

“We’ve got to run the bases well, we’ve got to execute with runners in scoring position, we’ve got to get bunts down, we’ve got to steal our bases and put pressure on the defense,” Yastrzemski said.

He also said that that he believes this refined focus will be the key in getting them back into the race.

“If we do that, people are going to feel us coming,” he said. “When we learn to not panic in moments where we’re behind…and continue just chipping away one at a time, then that’s when you can get in that flow-state and things can really start to groove from there.”

These statements came after their wild comeback victory on Tuesday against the Chicago White Sox and ahead of their blowout victory over them on Wednesday. So, there’s already evidence that this shift in mindset could already be baring fruit.

The Royals will have a chance to really put this to the test on Friday, when they start a challenging home series against the AL Central-leading Detroit Tigers.