A Meager End to a Wonderful Royals Season

It was a great season for the Royals, but they couldn’t slay the mighty dragon that is the Yankees.

Expectations are a hell of a drug. I predicted the Royals would win 75 games this year. They reached that number on August 27, more than a month from the season’s end. But they stumbled down the stretch due to an offense that spent most of the year as one of the most prolific in baseball at scoring runs stopping that. They punched their ticket to the playoffs after getting shut out in Atlanta and were able to set their rotation for a Wild Card series that they ultimately swept. They scored three runs that series, but they gave us hope that maybe they could go on a magical postseason run a decade after the last time they rode a Wild Card high to a magical postseason run.

It just wasn’t meant to be. And that’s okay. You can be upset, disappointed, angry or any other emotion. I’m not here to tell you how to be a fan other than to make sure you take a step back and have some perspective about what we witnessed over the 196 days that spanned the 2024 season. I’ll remind you that it lasted a full 11 days longer than anyone expected when the season began. I’m going to write a full retrospective on this season for early next week, but no matter how you feel at this particular moment, I urge you to take that step back at some point soon.