The Royals are very much a team in the throes of a rebuild, but this weekend showed the potential in Kansas City when everything falls into place.
This season has seen the Royals lose plenty of games as they try to develop their promising core of prospects into thriving big leaguers. There have been some rough series throughout, but the Royals inspired some optimism over the weekend by taking two of three from the Dodgers.
After dropping the opener, the Royals won the final two games of the series, taking a close, 6-4 win on Saturday, before blowing Los Angeles out 9-1 in the finale. Not only were things clicking for the Royals, but they were doing it against one of the league’s more formidable teams.
After Sunday’s game, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts was asked about his team falling under .500 on the road. He used it as an opportunity to rave about the Royals.
“I don’t know the road record," Rodgers said. "What I can speak to is this series, which is more fresh to me. Those guys just outplayed us. It’s a different brand of baseball as far as putting the ball in play, hitting behind runners, stealing bases -- they were excellent in situational hitting. So, to be quite honest, we couldn’t keep up, and that’s how they beat us, that's how they won this series. But as far as overall, I don’t know the answer to that.”
That is high praise for any team, but especially a young group like the Royals. Kansas City manager Matt Quatraro responded to Roberts in his weekly appearance on Fescoe in the Morning.
“Those are tremendous compliments to our guys and the way they played over the weekend,” Quatraro said. “As we’ve talked about a bunch, it’s the consistency of being able to do that on a regular basis (that matters). When you talk about the caliber of players the Dodgers are and they have been over the last several years, that’s what makes them what they are. It’s the consistency day in, day out, regardless of the competition on the other side of the field, and that’s what we have to get to.
“We played well over the weekend and we need to be able to put those streaks together to be a winning team. And that’s what these guys are learning at the Major League level.”
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