BALTIMORE — Dr. Dre and Ludacris were emanating from the Camden Yards’ visiting clubhouse, as guys clapped and slapped backs and yelled “Get those punchies!” and “Way to go boys!” There was a long table, Baltimore crabs piled high. A feast fit for a king, or at least for these Royals, who are playing with house money after taking Tuesday’s Game 1 of the AL Wild Card Series.
Kansas City, which won 1-0 over the higher-seeded Baltimore Orioles, entered the day as underdogs. It’s where they’ve spent most of the season, a year removed from winning just 56 games, compiling a 30-win turnaround that’s the largest year-to-year in franchise history.
It’s been 10 years since the Royals have won a series —any series — at Camden Yards, their own house of horrors. Their visits to Baltimore have produced nine series losses and one split, including two brutal series losses in April that saw Kansas City blow leads and sit through a five-hour rain delay. Those early games were a wake-up call, the first of many tests for a young team that has already dealt with plenty of adversity, including two seven-game losing streaks.
“This team is special,” said Tuesday’s starter Cole Ragans, who tossed six scoreless innings before calf cramps forced him from the game. “We know what we’re capable of. Everybody is pulling for everybody. Everybody is pushing everybody … We know what’s on the line and we want to play baseball for another month.”
While the wild card series isn’t over yet, history is definitely on the Royals’ side. Under the current best-of-three format, the team who wins Game 1 has gone on to win 14 of 16 times.
Momentum may be on their side, too. The Royals, who handed the Orioles their ninth consecutive postseason loss, looked sharper, faster and more energized in the series opener, often silencing a not-sold out crowd at Camden Yards.
“Right from the anthem, when they scream ‘O,’ it was loud,” said second-year manager Matt Quatraro, “but it helps when you’re not letting them get on the board to keep things in check.”
Quatraro — who has impressively mixed and matched his roster all season — deftly navigated around Ragans’ injury, which could have easily derailed a Kansas City team that had just broken through in the top of the sixth inning courtesy of Bobby Witt, Jr.’s two-out single. Quatraro went to Sam Long for the seventh and asked closer Lucas Erceg, one of several players acquired in Kansas City’s aggressive trade deadline push, to get four outs to seal his first career playoff win. It was Kansas City’s first postseason W since 2015.
The only person on that team still around is catcher Salvador Pérez, who said he sees some similarities between the 2014 and ’15 playoffs teams — the latter which won the World Series — and this current group. The youth. The moxie.
This team oesn’t have the turbo-charged bullpen that were the hallmark of those past clubs, but the Royals’ relievers had a terrific final month of the season. Having Witt, Jr. —one of the best players in baseball — doesn’t hurt either. This is a Kansas City group that has surprised people all year, and enjoyed doing so.
In late September, when the Royals hosted the San Francisco Giants, pitching coach Brian Sweeney got to catch up with his mentor, Bryan Price, who has spent more than 20 years in dugouts as a coach. You know, Price told Sweeney, the teams that have to fight to get into the playoffs are usually the most dangerous.
It was, Sweeney thought, the perfect way to describe the Royals’ road. Thanks to the surging Detroit Tigers and their own ill-timed losing streak, Kansas City’s playoff spot was hardly guaranteed, and they only clinched on the final Friday of the regular season. The team has been inspired by the recent runs of wild card teams like last year’s champions, the Texas Rangers, who — like the Royals — ended the season on the road only to fly to another city for the postseason. Just get in has been the mindset.
There are no points for style. The Royals have won all season the same way they did Tuesday: great pitching and just enough offense. Their substance is their style, as understated as the powder blue t-shirts that have adorned the clubhouse on this long road trip, emblazoned with just one word on the front: “Today.”
It’s a favorite mantra of Quatraro’s and a reminder for this group, when the crabs are gone and the music is off, that there’s a lot more work to be done, even if that first step, that first playoff win, was huge.
“One hundred percent, I think momentum has a lot to do with how well and how deep teams go into the playoffs,” Erceg said. “As long as we keep our foot on the pedal, like I know we’re going to, we’re going to be in a good spot.”
(Photo: Greg Fiume / Getty Images)
