The Kansas City Royals beat the Los Angeles Angels on Tuesday night, but their fate was sealed before they stepped on the field.
Just before Kansas City and Los Angeles began play, the Cleveland Guardians beat the Detroit Tigers in yet another dramatic game, tying up the American League Central division. But with both teams in a virtual tie for the final wild-card spot, Cleveland’s 85th win guaranteed the Royals (79-78) could not catch either foe.
That meant just a year after making their first postseason bid since 2015, the Royals were guaranteed to miss out on the playoffs, despite adding payroll and losing virtually no important players from last season’s roster.
Kansas City’s players found out the news in the clubhouse as they were getting ready to take the field, and the mood was understandably solemn.
First baseman Vinnie Pasquantino knew the odds of a Cleveland collapse were long coming into the day, but when the news became official, he said the only people the Royals had to blame were themselves.
“You need two teams that have winning records to lose out and we need to win out — it’s not the most likely thing in the world, but you have hope, especially with Detroit going up early,” Pasquantino said, per Anne Rogers of MLB.com.
“The chance was there, but at the end of the day, we eliminated ourselves, in my opinion. Few games in there that we could have flipped. Then you’re not in the spot we’re in. We made our bed, and now we got to lay in it.”
The Royals weren’t bad this season — they were just profoundly mediocre. Their plus-two run differential ranked 18th in Major League Baseball, and while they were fourth in run prevention as a squad, they scored the fifth-fewest runs of any team.
The argument could easily be made that the Royals didn’t get worse on paper after last year, but their AL opponents got better. The Boston Red Sox and Toronto Blue Jays, in particular, missed out on October last year and made big roster upgrades to try and ensure it wouldn’t happen again.
Pasquantino has plenty of talent around him in the Kansas City lineup, but that group will need more consistent performances — and likely some external help — to return to the playoffs next season.
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