A song of ice and fire: The Kansas City Royals' roller-coaster ride

How about this turnaround? Getting swept and then doing the sweeping is quite the up and down that unfortunately will probably be a mainstay this season. For the Kansas City Royals, the biggest take-away from the last week and a half (since the first Twins series) is the hitting, followed by (relatively) poor defence. There are always positives and negatives to every baseball game and series and I want to take a closer look at the last three.

Getting swept by the Twins is enough to beat down any team’s hopes and dreams. The future didn’t look all too bright after the Twins’ sweep of the Royals. What went wrong in that series? Well, everything did for the Royals. No hitting, terrible fielding, and pitching just bad enough to really make one wonder what happened to this once very promising team.

The Royals seemed lost at the plate and in the field, but on the flip side of that everything that could go right for the Twins did. Timely hits and good fielding seemed to just happen for them. There really is no need to look much past that; baseball is a cruel game and forces you to come back after a tough game or series, and boy did they.

I don’t think it can be overstated just how much sweeping the Astros meant to the Royals. I know they are supposed to beat them, but after the atrocious series in Minnesota the Royals needed to right the ship and they did. The hitting was there with Mike Moustakas starting to come out of his slump, and Alcides Escobar dousing his bat with lighter fluid and lighting it on fire. Our defence solidified finally. And wow, what a performance by James Shields! Striking out 12 total and 7 in a row is enough to light a fire under any team.

Performances like that are what the Royals were in need of when they traded away Wil Myers. Another pitcher that shone in this series was Danny Duffy; not letting the Astros get any runs over two innings while striking out 4 really pumped some energy into the Royals bats and most likely led to the extra innings win.

Sometimes baseball plays out like a storybook. After one of the worst series against a team the Royals had an almost instant chance to redeem themselves. Taking two of three from the Twins went a long way to healing the wounds. The most impressive game for the Royals was the second game where they won 4-5; what an exciting game! Just enough hitting to get it to our bullpen, and Danny Duffy again hurled two shut-out innings and was even more dominant than he was in Houston.

This is very promising for the future of the Royals; if Duffy can keep it up we can call on him late in the season when some arms might be waning (think Bruce Chen).

Overall, the past 10 games the Royals have been on quite the roller-coaster, but have shown resilience and a never-say-die attitude. What I have seen of the Royals points to another very exciting and drama-filled year.