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Three dingers, zero stolen bases. Just like you were told to expect.
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The Royals might play 13 more games this year. They might be one of two teams left standing. They might be the last team left standing. Words will be written about the Royals.
A lot of those words will wax poetic on the speed or the bunting or the speed of the bunting, which misses the point, but whatever. The image of the Royals, and justifiably so, is of a team that needs to make things happen, that needs to push the envelope and manufacture runs. The Royals hit 95 home runs this year. A list of players who would have led the 2014 Royals in home runs:
- Jeff Francoeur, 2011
- Miguel Olivo, 2009
- Jose Guillen, 2008
- Mark Quinn, 2000
These Royals don't hit dingers, you see? This is a new breed of Royals, a new breed of baseball. They're the 1985 Cardinals incarnate, which hurts your brain if you think about it too much. Speed, defense, and moving the runners over, just like baseball used to be. At least, that's the story everyone seems to be pushing.
Except look at these Royals using dingers to win. Relying on them, wholly. Unable to function without them. Dingers, dingers, dingers.
The 1985 Cardinals are something of a buzzword right now, especially as they relate to this year's Royals. Herzog's team was a freak show, a turf-related monstrosity of earthly delights. It would sure be neat if the Royals were the '85 Cardinals, it really would. Except no one is. It'll be a century before anyone approaches 300 freaking stolen bases in a season. This Royals team is unique for 2014, but they're not a freak show. They can run, and they can bunt, but if they're going to win this thing, they'll still need dingers.
The home runs have been flowing, like so much spice, exactly at the right time. Good for them.
To put it another way, the '85 Cardinals had five home runs throughout their postseason run. The Royals hit three home runs tonight. They needed each and every one. They've hit seven home runs in their five postseason games so far -- a 227-homer pace in the regular season. That's more than the '96 Indians, more than the '99 Rangers. The Royals' pace would be the dinger-hittingest pace in modern baseball. They're suddenly turn-of-the-millennium monsters.
Don't expect it to last, but don't be surprised if it lasts, either. We're talking about a dozen-game stretch. They might get a triple play in 11 of those games. All unassisted, to boot. The more sense you try to make of it, the bigger the herring that baseball retrieves to slap you with. Maybe the Royals (Oct. 1, 2014 - Oct. 28, 2014) are one of the best power-hitting teams in the league. Weirder things have happened, possibly in the last three weeks.
The home runs did us all a favor, too. pushing the discussion away from whether or not Jarrod Dyson's foot was pushed off second, or whether Tim Timmons's strike zone was a fever dream divided by a slow gas leak in the seventh inning. There were a lot of ways the Royals could have lost this game, and several of them had to do with bogus calls. There's parity in dingers, though. Let them show the true path.
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Nick Hundley forces Alcides Escobar at the plate.The Orioles were lucky to get to extra innings. Their newish closer, Zach Britton, walked a month's worth of batters in one inning. The Orioles hope he shook some cobwebs off; the Royals hope he dissolved into a puddle of ex-closer in front of their very eyes. Yet the Orioles got out of it, they got the heck out of it. They had new life.
Except they couldn't find the home run button. The Orioles were a homer-happy team in the regular season, and they play in a stealthy homer haven. The dingers nourish them. It's how they're here, how they're still playing in October. They hit more than twice as many home runs as the Royals this year.
They have three this postseason. As many as the Royals had in Game 1 of the ALCS. Live by the dinger, die by the dinger. Just don't expect them to show up when you want them to. Sometimes they're jerks.
Unless you're the speed-'n'-defense Royals. They have other ways to win, they think, but if the baseball gods are just offering home runs, well, they're not made of stone...