Photo by: Nick Cammett/AP
The 2024 Kansas City Royals have flourished in the season’s second half, no matter what the recent down stretch may indicate. Entering Wednesday’s season finale, Kansas City owned a .545 winning percentage in the season’s second half. That comes after the first half which saw the team finish with a .536 winning percentage. The result will likely be a playoff birth for the Royals. The team only needs to go .500 over the season’s final ten games. A 5-5 finish on the year would require the Tigers to finish their season 8-2 to maintain pace. With the end of the regular season on the way, it’s worth reflecting on perhaps the most important aspect of the team’s standout 2024 season: their division record.
The Royals entered Wednesday with a 33-18 record this season against the American League Central. The Brewers are the only other team in baseball with at least 30 wins against their division (30-19). That dominance against the AL Central (although fueled by the White Sox) has been a driving force behind the Royals’ dash to the postseason. It’s not just that 12-1 record against Chicago either. The Royals will finish 2024 with a winning record against every division opponent except the Minnesota Twins. That bodes well for a team about to enter a playoff field featuring two of their division rivals. Where the team will need to fare better, however, is against the rest of the American League field.
Poor season results against the American League offer a challenge for Kansas City
Barring any extreme finishes to the season, the Royals will be set to face off against either the Houston Astros or Baltimore Orioles. The most likely scenario sees Kansas City pitted against the Orioles as the five seed. The Royals finished 2024 with a 3-4 record against Houston and a 2-4 record against Baltimore. Here’s a look at how Kansas City’s potential three-man postseason rotation fared this season against each:
- Seth Lugo: vs. Baltimore – 5.1IP, 6.75 ERA | vs. Houston – 13.0IP, 2.08 ERA
- Cole Ragans: vs. Baltimore – 8.0IP, 7.88 ERA | vs. Houston – 10.0IP, 7.20 ERA
- Michael Wacha: vs. Baltimore – 5.0IP, 5.40 ERA | vs. Houston – N/A (no appearance this season)
Those numbers don’t look great, especially against the Orioles. If you want to include Brady Singer, he pitched to a 2.45 ERA across 11.0IP against Houston this season but didn’t appear against Baltimore. Despite that, with a lineup stocked full of lefties and switch-hitters, it’s highly unlikely that Brady Singer will find success against Baltimore. He’s allowed lefties to post a .851 OPS against him this season. The Orioles represent a real nightmare matchup for the Royals, and the Astros aren’t much better. Kansas City swept the Astros early in 2024, but that was facing a Houston roster riddled with injuries and on a cold stretch.
If the Royals are going to find success in October, they’ll almost certainly need their lineup to step up. The lineup — with a 78 wRC+ in September — has hardly been reliable of late. The offense has mustered just a .645 OPS this month, good for 25th in all of baseball. Only the Angels and White Sox have been worse in the American League. It’s the worst timing possible for the offense to have gone cold. However, when the calendar flips to October, all of that gets wiped away. The team will lean on Superstar Bobby Witt Jr., but it should allow the team’s in-season acquisitions to shine. Tommy Pham (.313/.333/.513, 120 PA) and Yuli Gurriel (.266/.320/.388, 356 PA) each have extensive postseason experience and will need to be veteran leaders for the lineup alongside Salvador Perez.
It’s a major success that the Royals have all but punched their playoff ticket to this point. Beyond that, however, the waters ahead are anything but smooth sailing. Fortunately, this is exactly what the team built their roster around in the offseason. They’ll need the veterans with postseason experience to step up, and they’ll need Bobby Witt Jr. to continue getting back on track offensively, as he’s done over the last week. If it all falls right, Kansas City has as good a chance as anyone to make a postseason run. The margin for error simply isn’t going to be more than razor-thin.