Royals hope ALDS loss will 'light a torch' for next season

KANSAS CITY -- It was, by all accounts, a magical season in Kansas City. From 56 wins in 2023 to 86 and the postseason in ‘24. Bringing playoff baseball back to Kauffman Stadium for the first time since ‘15. The marvelous season of shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. and an incredible pitching turnaround fueled by one of the best rotations in baseball.

All of that doesn’t mean there can’t be disappointment for how it ended.

The Royals’ season closed Thursday when they lost, 3-1, in Game 4 of the American League Division Series to the Yankees at Kauffman Stadium. A series of tight games and close calls ended with the Royals losing the final two games, both at home.

As the Royals filed out of the dugout into their home clubhouse, one stayed, hanging over the railing and watching the Yankees celebrate a trip to the ALCS.

Bobby Witt Jr. was the last Royal to go inside.

“It just kind of feels like you let a lot of people down,” Witt said postgame, still in his jersey. “Something that will light a torch in you. Now, for Kansas City Royals baseball, this is what we want. This is what we're going to do every year.

“It's not how we're going to get [to the postseason]. It’s how far we're going to go.”

Certainly, the expectations have been raised after the Royals’ 2024 run. From the start of Spring Training, the goal inside the clubhouse was getting to October baseball, despite all the projections that had the Royals as a sub-.500 team at the time.

In the end, they won 86 games for a 30-win turnaround and became the third team in Major League history to make the postseason following a 100-loss season. And then the Royals swept the Orioles in the AL Wild Card Series before facing the Yankees in the ALDS.

“We knew we were going to be able to surprise some people,” Michael Massey said. “At the end of the day, we proved to ourselves more than anything that we’re capable of being a really good team. I think it creates a different buzz around the clubhouse.”

And as Witt repeated Thursday, “motivation” for the future. For all they showed this season, the Royals will have things to fix for 2025. The offense disappeared the final month of the regular season and for most of the postseason.

Kansas City’s stars and heart of the lineup -- Witt, Vinnie Pasquantino and Salvador Perez -- often carried so much of the offense but went a combined 6-for-49 in the ALDS. Perez’s homer in Game 2 carried the Royals to their only win. After the benches cleared in the sixth inning Thursday, Witt singled and scored on Pasquantino’s double for the only run against Yankees starter Gerrit Cole in seven innings.

Otherwise, the Yankees neutralized the three biggest bats in the Royals’ dugout, and the rest of the lineup wasn’t deep enough to pick them up. Twice Thursday, the Royals had flyouts at the very edge of the warning track in right field, near-homers knocked down into Juan Soto’s glove. Kyle Isbel’s in the seventh inning would have been a game-tying two-run blast off Cole and a home run in 24 ballparks -- including Yankee Stadium.

“There’s so many what-ifs in the game after you get done looking back at it,” Witt said. “So all you can do now is just learn from it.”

Kansas City’s 2024 season was built on its pitching, particularly its rotation, but not one of their starters pitched into the sixth inning this series. Game 4 starter Michael Wacha allowed two runs on six hits in 4 2/3 innings on Thursday. Three pitches into the game, the Royals were down, 1-0. Gleyber Torres smacked a first-pitch fastball for a double and scored on Juan Soto’s single.

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“Usually in the postseason, you're going to have a little shorter leash,” manager Matt Quatraro said. “Playing a team like this where the two, three, four hitters are who they are, there's a little more urgency in those situations.”

Quatraro pulled Wacha on Thursday with runners on the corners and two outs in the fifth inning, bringing in closer Lucas Erceg. The Royals wanted their very best reliever on the mound, in hopes of keeping the game close instead of letting him sit in the bullpen in hopes of being in the perfect situation in the ninth inning.

Erceg got out of that situation in the fifth but allowed another run in the sixth to give the Yankees a 3-0 lead. The rest of the Royals’ bullpen held the Yankees scoreless the final three innings.

“They battled their butts off, man,” Quatraro said. “They gave everything they had. … We kept those guys to three runs the last two days. You've got to tip your cap; they beat us.”

Back slaps and goodbyes filled the Royals’ clubhouse postgame. The team chemistry was evident all year, and it added to the hope of making a deep October run.

Having it end Thursday was abrupt.

“If you back up from it a bit, it was a pretty impressive season,” Pasquantino said. “But as a player on the team, it wasn’t enough. We knew that we had a good shot to compete and make the playoffs, and I think we felt good about our chances. And we just didn’t do enough. That stings. A lot.”