KANSAS CITY -- The quest for an American League Wild Card playoff spot has been a rollercoaster ride for the Royals -- and they took a bit of a dip on Sunday.
After handling the Twins in the opening two games of their weekend series, the Royals arrived at Kauffman Stadium hoping they would be tied with Seattle for the final spot by the end of the day. Instead, the Mariners blew out Atlanta while the Royals saw their bats go quiet in a 5-1 loss.
Kansas City (73-70) is now two games behind Seattle (75-68) for the third and final Wild Card spot with 19 games to play. Texas (74-70) is a half-game ahead of Kansas City, but the Royals would hold the tiebreaker over the Rangers in the event the teams end the season with the same record.
The conclusion of a 4-5 homestand ended with a thud as Royals starter Michael Lorenzen surrendered a leadoff homer to Byron Buxton and a two-run blast to Kody Clemens in the fourth, forcing the Royals to play from behind all afternoon.
Down by four runs, the Royals loaded the bases in the eighth, but Vinnie Pasquantino struck out and Salvador Perez grounded out to end the threat.
The mission for the Royals now is clear: They’ll have to be road warriors to make the playoffs. Kansas City wraps up the 2025 slate with 13 of its final 19 games away from The K, including a tough upcoming road trip against Cleveland (72-70) and Philadelphia (83-60).
“Sign us up,” Royals manager Matt Quatraro said. “What could be more fun than playing meaningful games the last few weeks of the season? We want to be able to control our own fate and play the teams you’ve got to beat.”
The Royals can only hope they’ll be playing the majority of those games with star shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. in the lineup. Witt was out of the lineup for the second straight game on Sunday because of low back spasms, but Quatraro said pregame that Witt is day to day. The Royals didn’t miss Witt’s bat on Saturday when they put up 11 runs against the Twins, including five in the first inning.
But they certainly missed Witt on Sunday.
The Royals went 1-for-9 with runners in scoring position. They left nine men on base, hit into two double plays and had a runner picked off.
“We had our opportunities, but didn’t make anything out of them,” Pasquantino said. “Today was about executing, which we didn’t do. You try to find a positive from it, and that’s the fact that we had guys out there.”
The under .500 homestand certainly paled in comparison to the previous homestand, when the Royals pulled themselves into the thick of the Wild Card race by going 8-2. Even in the two losses, Kansas City was tied in the ninth inning of both games.
On this homestand, the Royals needed two dramatic eighth-inning homers by Witt to pull out two of their four victories.
“We were OK. We weren’t great,” Quatraro said of the homestand. “It’s frustrating to not win more games. Could it have been better? Absolutely.”
Still, Quatraro likes the way his team has been grinding out at-bats. They struggled early on Sunday with Minnesota starter Bailey Ober’s offspeed pitches, but kept battling late against the Twins’ bullpen. The fight from Kansas City’s hitters was best exemplified by pinch-hitter Jac Caglianone’s 13-pitch walk in the ninth. That helped the Royals bring the tying run to the plate for the second straight inning, but once again they were unable to scratch across a run.
Lorenzen has been pleased with how he has thrown the ball in his last two starts, but homers have been his downfall.
“Today, I put the team in a hole early,” Lorenzen said. “In my last start, I wish I had one pitch back. Today, there were about three. Those homers will hurt you.”