Former Royals friend and foe at center of Cubs’ NL Wild Card win

While Tuesday is an unfortunate reminder of the fact that the Kansas City Royals aren’t in the postseason, any fan looking for a reason to still pay attention to the playoffs needs to look no further than former Kauffman denizen and starting pitcher Brad Keller.

Keller has spent the 2025 season with the Chicago Cubs after making the team as a non-roster invitee in the spring. He’s also found a new lease on life as a reliever. Initially, he was a middle-inning reliever, but as the season’s gone on and he continued to throw 100 mph dots past hitters, he’s graduated to the Cubs’ closer.

Former Royals pitcher plays ninth inning hero for former foe’s strong start in NL Wild Card

That’s the spot Keller found himself on Tuesday afternoon when he took the mound for the Cubs in the top of the ninth inning at Wrigley Field. His job was to lock down the game and shut down the San Diego Padres. He did just that, holding a 3-1 lead by striking out one and not allowing a base runner as the former Kansas City Royals hurler recorded the save. The Cubs took a 1-game-to-none lead in the best-of-three NL Wild Card series.

Interestingly enough, while one former Royals friend was closing things out, it was a familiar foe who kicked things off.

Matthew Boyd, also a Cub for the first time this season, got the Game 1 starting nod for Chicago. Putting the exclamation point on a 14-8 season in his first year in the National League, Kansas City knows Boyd well for his eight years with the Detroit Tigers and then last year with the Cleveland Guardians.

There is, in fact, no team Boyd has faced more over the course of his career than the 30 games pitched against the Royals. The Minnesota Twins are a distant second with 24 games. Boyd hasn’t faced any other team more than 20 times.

While Boyd has spent most of his career as a foe to the Kansas City Royals, he was never particularly effective, posting a 9-11 record and a 4.98 ERA.

He was far more effective on Tuesday for the Cubs, allowing just 4 hits and 1 run in 4.1 innings pitched, allowing manager Craig Counsell to hand the game over to his bullpen with a lead.