2014: The Kansas City Royals have been one of the most down on their luck teams in MLB. Their history is marred by financial restriants and lack of talent through free agency and the farm system. Despite playing at a breath-taking venue of Kauffman Stadium, owner David Glass is as cheap as the previous owner, Ewing Kauffman. Dayton Moore has had his ups and downs since being named GM of the Royals in 2006. The Royals are the ultimate underdog that a baseball fan would root for despite many years of frustration and you just hope they can be successful one day.
Something magical happened in the middle of 2014 that boggled many baseball minds.....and during this time, there was a hit song playing on the airwaves by New Zealand artist Lorde titled "Royals". The Royals reeled off an incredible second half of the season to make the playoffs for the first time in 29 years. Their wild-card game against Oakland is considered one of the greatest playoff games in MLB history. Salvador Perez delivered the game-winning hit to score Christian Colon to send the Royals to the ALDS.
In the ALDS against the league-leading Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, the Royals continued their hot run by sweeping them. In the ALCS, they destroyed the Baltimore Orioles 4-0. If you are counting, that's 8 straight postseason victories to start the playoffs, the first team in MLB history to do that. The lineup had the power of Eric Hosmer, Perez and Mike Moustakas, the defense of Alex Gordon and Alcides Escobar, the smart hitting of Omar Infante and Nori Aoki and the speed of Lorenzo Cain. Their starting rotation really didn't have the ace that most championship- caliber teams have, James Shields, Jeremy Guthrie and Yordano Ventura led a staff that wasn't flashy, but was solid down the stretch. The bullpen was led by Wade Davis, Greg Holland and Kelvin Herrera. The three relievers were tough to hit off of in the second half of the season. So going into the World Series against another Wild Card team, the San Francisco Giants, the Royals had momentum to snatch a title from the Giants' grasp, but the Giants are also on a momentum rash that could stop KC.
2014 WORLD SERIES
In a slugfest of a series, these two took it to a seventh game, inside a blue hysteria of Kauffman Stadium. Due to Bud Selig's unwise decision to use the winner of the All-Star Game as the league that gets home-field advantage, the Royals were lucky. Pelicularly that this year's All-Star Game was Derek Jeter's last one and both leagues weren't exactly killing themselves to win the game. With the Royals down 3-2 in the ninth with a runner on third and two outs, Perez could be the hero again. There was one problem: he was facing Madison Bumgarner. MadBum was on the cusp of arguably, the most dominating postseason in history: 55 innings pitched, 1.03 ERA (0.43 with only one run allowed in the series). Perez popped up into foul territory where Pablo Sandoval snagged it and sealed the Giants' third title in five years.
It had ended. The miracle season of the Kansas City Royals had come short and many baseball experts and fans thought that this was it for the underdogs to be on top of the world. What they got was a precursor of something special.
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