Elite Eighth

An ugly victory turned into a Royals win with one of the more important innings of the season to date.

Baseball is a funny sport. On one hand, any team can beat any other team on any given day. On the other hand, losing a game to a team like the White Sox feels like three or four losses all rolled into one. This particular team makes the 2023 Royals look like playoff contenders. Okay, maybe it’s not that big of a difference, but coming into last night, the White Sox had lost 81 games against only 27 wins. The 2023 Royals had 38 wins before they lost their 81st game. This particular White Sox team had lost 14 straight games for the second time this season.

So when it was 5-2 heading into the eighth inning, the mood was bleak. Honestly, bleak may not even be a strong enough word. In the real world, it’s just one game. But in the world where every game feels magnified, especially with it being the final game before the deadline, this was going to feel like one of the worst losses of the season. It wasn’t that the Royals blew a big lead or anything. They were up 2-1 before the White Sox tied it in the fifth and took the lead in the sixth. No, it was just the combination of everything. It was the series loss to the Cubs that followed the series loss to the Diamondbacks. It was looking at the scoreboard and seeing the Red Sox had already won. It was the fact that the Royals have played seven games under .500 since their eight-game winning streak ended in May.