KANSAS CITY — One day last August, in the midst of one of the worst years in franchise history, Royals manager Matt Quatraro called a meeting. It had been a brutal summer, a young team routinely taking a beating, a pitching staff falling apart, a first-manager trying to survive.
Quatraro hated the losing. What manager wouldn’t? But what really irked him was the feeling that his players were checking out, more worried about the next winter or the next season than the moment at hand. He didn’t want to sleepwalk through the final two months. He didn’t want to waste today.
“There’s very little that’s guaranteed in this game, as well as in life,” he said, reflecting on the story one day earlier this month.
What came out was not exactly planned. Quatraro just spoke from the heart. The Kansas City Royals had nothing to lose. The future was not promised. Start making changes today.
Today.
Quatraro kept saying that word. It wasn’t intentional. It just came out. But something about the mantra stuck. It carried the club through a 15-12 finish last September, through a transformational winter, and through a sneaky-good start in April, when the rest of baseball looked on in curiosity. It carried the Royals from a franchise record-tying 106 losses in 2023 to their first postseason appearance in nine years to a two-game sweep in Baltimore in the Wild Card Series, and it carried them all the way to Thursday night at Kauffman Stadium, Game 4 of the ALDS against the New York Yankees, where the defining image of a 3-1 loss was shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. leaning against the rail alone in the home dugout.
Witt, the Royals’ 24-year-old star, was watching the Yankees celebrate their series victory. He wanted to take it all in.
“That’s where I wanna be,” Witt said.
Bobby Witt Jr. scores in the sixth inning of Game 4 of the ALDS on Thursday. (Jay Biggerstaff-Imagn Images)
The end of the line in Kansas City was painful. For the last four decades, the Royals have been defined by glorious highs and long playoff droughts. This was, amazingly, the first time since 1984 that a Kansas City playoff appearance had ended before the World Series. Yet the hope inside the home clubhouse was that it can be motivating.
The Royals got a taste this year. They won 86 games — an improvement of 30 victories from last year. They brought back playoff baseball to Kauffman Stadium for the first time since 2015, when they won the franchise’s second World Series. They put a scare into the Yankees, the top seed in the American League, losing three games by a combined four runs. They now want to do even more.
“It’s kind of something that will light a torch in you and leave you a bad taste for the future,” Witt said. “Because now for Kansas City Royals baseball, this is what we want. This is what we’re gonna do every year. We’re gonna get in the postseason. Now it’s how far we’re gonna go.
“It’s not how we’re gonna get there. It’s how far we’re gonna go. That’s what we’re gonna work for and that’s what we’re gonna do.”
The particulars of the latest loss in Game 4 revealed a theme: The margins between the Royals and Yankees were small but consistent. Kansas City had starter Michael Wacha and a collection of relievers scratching and clawing to hold the Yankees to three runs. New York had ace Gerrit Cole, pumping 98 mph fastballs to all quadrants of the strike zone. New York had Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton, producing an insurance run in the top of the sixth. The Royals had center fielder Kyle Isbel, putting a jolt into a 98 mph fastball with a runner on and the score 3-1 in the bottom of the seventh.
The sound of bat colliding with ball caused Cole to swing around and peer into the night sky. For a moment, it looked like the ball might carry into the right-field bullpen, tying the game. But it ran out of gas, dropping into the glove of Juan Soto at the base of the wall, 370 feet from home plate. It would have been a home run in 24 of 30 parks in major-league baseball. But Isbel said he did not get it all.
This flyout by Kyle Isbel would have been a Home Run in 24 ballparks, including Yankee Stadium pic.twitter.com/AFowuqqUsi
— Sportsnet Stats (@SNstats) October 11, 2024
“I got it inside of my barrel a little bit,” Isbel said. “I thought it had a chance. But it’s a big stadium. Me personally, I got to get all of it. I saw him drifting back a little bit, so I had some hope. But it just fell a little short.”
The ball also had to fight through a cross-wind, measured at 6 mph when the game began. It was not the kind of gusts that will knock a ball down. But it was enough to wonder.
“I thought it was a homer,” Witt said. “It’s one of those where baseball is a crazy game. Wind, whatever it is, changes, and right there, tie game.”
Witt stood in a quiet clubhouse, surrounded by reporters, the most prominent noise the sound of back slaps, hand shakes and thank yous. The sudden death of a baseball season can come quickly. You spend eight months with one group, and then you say goodbye. On Thursday, the Royals could take solace in the fact that much of their core will return. Witt is an ascending superstar. Catcher Salvador Pérez will be back for another year. Starting pitchers Cole Ragans and Seth Lugo will headline the rotation. One player who might not return is Wacha, who started Game 4 and permitted two runs over 4 2/3 innings. He has a player option to become a free agent.
“It’s a sucky feeling right now,” Wacha said. “We feel like we should still be playing, still have another game. It’s a not a very good feeling.”
It did not matter that very few people expected the Royals to be here, battling the Yankees in October. They had suffered through three 100-loss seasons since 2018 and averaged 97 losses from 2021 to 2023. This year, they became just the third team in MLB history to make the playoffs a year after losing 100 games — and the first to win a postseason series.
“Even though we lost the series, last year we lost 100 games, and this year we proved that we can play baseball and play at this level,” said third baseman Maikel Garcia, through interpreter Luis Perez.
The Royals can rue the missed opportunities. All teams do. They had a chance to steal Game 1 against Cole in New York, losing 6-5. They had Lugo, an All-Star this season, going in Game 3. They lost that by one run, too. Their pitchers walked too many hitters. Witt and first baseman Vinnie Pasquantino combined for three hits in the series.
“Our guys had bigger expectations for themselves, and that’s how you should approach this game,” Quatraro said. “You don’t come here thinking, ‘Oh, I hope we get a little bit better.’ That’s not how it works at the big league level.
“I think it’s okay that it sucks right now.”
For 197 days, the 2024 Royals had lived by a simple coda: Today.
On Thursday, that day was the final one.
The mantra, in some fashion, will survive beyond this year. The best, Witt said defiantly, is yet to come. That is why he wanted to sit alone in the dugout, watching the Yankees celebrate on his home field. The Royals will be back, he said. They know what they want to be.
“That’s reality,” he said. “That’s who we are now.”
(Top photo of Bobby Witt Jr.: Scott Winters/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
