Checking In For the Homestretch

This is when baseball gets really good.

Flags fly forever. Or at least nine and thirty-nine years, respectively. (Image credit: KC Star)

Powder Blue Nostalgia remains on hiatus— most of my writing time for the last few months has been spent editing a crime novel, and I’m finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel— but in the meantime, I wanted to check in with a couple thoughts as we hit the homestretch of the 2024 season.

My preseason predictions, which can be found here and here, aren’t as bad as I expected. My World Series pick (Philly over Baltimore) is still very much on the table, and it looks like I’m actually going to get more right than wrong, for a change. I’ll write a more in-depth retrospective after the season, but here are the obvious things I missed.

Toronto has been a dud, and I slept on the Brewers. The Cubs have rebounded a bit as of late in the NL Central, but they were definitely one of my bigger swings and misses. And speaking of Chicago, I correctly had the White Sox in last place, but I had no idea how far down that cellar would go. Powder Blue Nostalgia is a fan of all things historic, however, so allow me to tip my cap to the White Sox and what is shaping up to be the worst season in baseball’s long and storied history.

I completely undersold the AL Central, though I was far from the only one. I expected the Royals to be improved, but I wasn’t prepared to pick them to win the division. Others out there were bolder, but most of those predictions were based on the belief that the Central would be lackluster and a middling team could potentially sneak away with the crown. That has not been the case at all.

The AL Central has been one of the best and most competitive divisions in baseball this year. The Twins are probably the most talented team on paper (they were my preseason pick), but they’ve struggled to stay healthy and a cash-strapped ownership group has proven reluctant to spend the money for reinforcements.

The Guardians have been the front-runner for most of the season, but I’m still not entirely sure how they’ve done it. Outside of the phenomenal Jose Ramirez, the lineup is filled with a bunch of anonymous players. Steven Kwan is obviously a talented hitter, one of those all-too rare modern players who hits for a high average, but he doesn’t really scare anyone. Nobody in that batting order jumps off the stat sheet, but somehow they consistently come through when it counts.

The same is true for the guys on the mound. As per usual, the pitching staff has been really good, but it’s not the usual suspects. Shane Bieber has missed the whole year, Tristan McKenzie struggled and was sent down to AAA, and yet that rotation just keeps ticking. Combined with an outstanding bullpen, led by closer Emmanuel Clase, Cleveland’s pitchers have made them the team to beat all season.

I’m sorry, just typing the word bullpen made me cringe a little. The Royals’ bullpen has been notoriously volatile this season, and the past two weeks in Kansas City have been especially up-and-down, with the bullpen playing a leading role on that rollercoaster ride.

A little over a week ago, I bought tickets for Wednesday night’s game against Cleveland, thinking the Royals might be in a position to put the division in a stranglehold. They’d just won the first three games of a four-game road series in Cleveland and tied the Guardians for first place. The sky was the limit.

Then they blew a late lead in the fourth game of the series and proceeded to drop seven games in a row. Unlike previous iterations, the 2024 Royals have been so resilient precisely because they’ve avoid long losing streaks, and now one reared its head at the worst possible time. To add insult to injury (or perhaps it’s the other way around), they lost one of their top hitters and run-producers, Vinnie Pasquantino, and the shutdown closer they acquired at the deadline, Lucas Erceg, on a fluke play in Houston.

Fortunately, Erceg only missed a few games. He’s still trying to find his groove again after taking a liner off his pitching hand, but he looked good in Wednesday night’s win over Cleveland. Vinnie wasn’t so lucky. He’s expected to miss the rest of the year with a broken thumb. Maybe, just maybe, if they can make a run to the World Series, we could see him again.

That sentence would have sounded ridiculous to me in April. And it still might be unlikely, but it’s definitely not impossible. Once you get into the postseason, almost anything can happen, and recent losing streak notwithstanding, the Royals are in good shape to make the playoffs.

I would have called the season a success if they’d made a run at .500. Instead, they’re on pace to win thirty more games than a year ago. To be fair, when you set the bar that low, it gives you plenty of upward mobility, but that’s beside the point. This team is for real, and they’re playing meaningful baseball in September. It doesn’t get any better than that.

They did get off the schneid at the game I attended Wednesday night, and despite their terrible week, they’re still tied for the second AL Wild Card spot with Minnesota, and they hold a 5.5 game lead over the Red Sox and Tigers. The Red Sox don’t scare me much. They’ve had several opportunities to make a run, and they’ve continued to fall on their face. But the Tigers have gotten hot lately and played their way back into the mix. Their visit to Kansas City in two weeks could be a big one, depending on how the two clubs take care of their business in the meantime.

Make no mistake about it though, the Royals are in the driver’s seat. I’m still having a hard time wrapping my head around that after the last six years. They control their own playoff destiny. The division might be another story after their rough week, but it’s not so far out of sight that it couldn’t change quickly either. Kansas City has twenty-one games left, and the schedule is not easy, but if they can simply play .500 ball the rest of the way, we should have our first postseason in nine years.

Easier said than done, perhaps, but definitely doable. Like I said, the schedule is tough. They host Minnesota this weekend, and the Twins have owned them the last few seasons. Finally taking a series from them and avoiding a new losing streak would go a long way toward punching their ticket. And road trips to New York and Atlanta await, as well as that Detroit series I mentioned. I plan to be in attendance for that one, and I have to tell you, I’m uncharacteristically optimistic.

Nothing is a given, and they’ll have to earn it, but if the Royals can just keep doing what they’ve been doing all season for another three weeks, they should be in great shape. Bobby Witt Jr. has cemented his superstar status with an MVP-caliber year that unfortunately has coincided with an Aaron Judge season for the ages, the starting rotation has been one of the best and most consistent in baseball, Salvy continues to be treat for anyone who loves baseball, and other players have stepped up when it matters.

Yes, the Pasquantino injury is a major downer that’s had an obvious effect on both the lineup and clubhouse, and the bullpen is incredibly suspect. But JJ Picollo has been aggressive and brought in guys to try and fill the hole left by Vinnie, and we’ve already seen it pay off. Tommy Pham hit the game-winning home run against Cleveland last night. And Erceg looked like his old self when he came in to close out. Sure, the rest of the pen is likely to contribute to a significant rise in Pepto sales in the KC metro area, but if Erceg is locked in for the stretch run, Royals fans can feel pretty good every time he takes the mound.

The season has already been a massive success in Kansas City, and it will still be a success even if the Royals stumble down the stretch and fail to make the postseason. But having come this far, why not finish it the right way? The K won’t be around much longer, so we might as well get in some more playoff baseball while we still have it. I can’t wait to see how it plays out. And if playoff baseball does come back to Kansas City this October, I’ll be there.

Whoever you root for, I hope your team is making it interesting in September too— unless you’re a Red Sox or Tigers fan. I’m sorry, but I’ve seen three hundred-loss seasons since 2018, Kansas City really needs this one. You can catch the Twins if you want, but let us have this one.

Because pennant race baseball is the best. Living and dying with your team three hours every night, scoreboard watching, compulsively checking box scores— it’s like I’m a kid again, only instead of the daily newspaper, I have a smartphone in my hand giving me even more access and feeding my obsession. That’s okay though. It’s the beauty of a pennant race. It doesn’t matter how many times your team has let you down. All you need is one run to create something special, and that can never be taken away.

In case you didn’t know, flags fly forever.

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Thanks for reading Powder Blue Nostalgia. As noted at the beginning of this piece, I’m currently on hiatus, though I hope to return to weekly publishing in the near future. In the meantime, I’ll probably check in sporadically as the regular season approaches the finish line and the playoffs begin— especially if the Royals actually make it to the postseason. After the last six years of horrendous baseball, I’m going to live it up if my team is playing in October. Feel free to share your thoughts on the 2024 season and how you’re feeling about your team as we hit the homestretch.