2014 Kansas City Royals: first place in mid-August!

The Gray Eagle

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Aug 1, 2001
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The Royals are in first place as of this writing, a half game ahead of the Tigers.
 
Will it last? Who knows. Maybe the magic mojo of Sung Woo will keep them in first. 
 
Pretty cool story about how the diehard Royals fan from South Korea came over for a big winning streak and was celebrated by everyone.
 
 

InsideTheParker

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This site (http://www.ramblingmorons.com/?p=1699) has a nice interview explaining, to some extent, SungWoo's Royals fandom.  It seems to have originated with a sympathy for the underdog. "What made me of being a Royals fan?  Now I can’t tell why… just like many of you, Royals fans, I was sort of… underdog lover? sympathy? With more research & understanding of glorious Royals 70-80′s, I much more liked Royals It was much more thrilled Royals beat big market teams rather than big market teams win against weak teams."
 

The Gray Eagle

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KCR with a 2-game lead over the Tigers now. 4 more road games, then a long homestand, mostly against teams with bad records.
 
It's all shaping up well for them, but this is the Royals, so who knows what might happen. 
 

The Gray Eagle

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After going 8-2 in their last 10 games, the Royales now have a 3-game lead over the stumbling Tigers. And after today, the Royals are back at home for a 10-game homestand, mostly against Min, Cleve, and Texas.
 
They have a great shot to pull away by the beginning of September. Then from September 8-10, they are at Detroit for a big 3-game series, but then are back at home for 10 MORE in a row, starting with 4 against the lowly Red Sox, and ending with 3 against the Tigers from September 19th to 21st.
 
They have no one with more than 15 HRs, and only two guys with an OPS+ over 100, but they are doing it with pitching. Killer bullpen, 4 starters in the rotation getting the job done. They are also second behind the Orioles in Fielding Bible's Runs Saved, with 32, despite being -10 at third base. They are getting the best defense in baseball at both LF and CF, at +19 and +23 runs respectively, which has helped their pitching a lot. 
 
KC is positioned well to win the division, and get the city's first postseason win of any kind since 1994, when Joe Montana led the Chiefs to the AFC title game. And they could bring up Pedro Ciriaco and Clayton Mortenson from the minors for September reinforcements! 
 

jon abbey

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They've also started hitting on this recent 19-4 streak that has pulled them out of mediocrity (from 53-52 to 72-56), averaging just over 5 runs per game in that time. 
 

The Gray Eagle

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KC really Royaled-up their chance to pull away, but still lead the division by a half game, after losing the first one at home to the lowly Red Sox. They are only one game ahead of the Seattle, who as of now wouldn't make the playoffs. If the Tigers end up ahead of them, the Royals are going to be in danger of missing the postseason again.
 
They do have 3 more at home with Boston, then host the White Sox for three, before the Tigers come in next weekend for the big showdown.
Then on Monday Sept. 22, they have the resumption of the suspended game against Cleveland, which they are losing 4-2 in the 10th inning. So that's really likely to be a loss. They finish up at Cleveland and at the White Sox, while over the last weekend, the Tigers host the lowly Twins. 
 
It's good that they are still in first place, but they might regret not maintaining that 3-game lead they had against a fairly soft schedule. 
 
They have had some encouraging news about injured pitchers Danny Duffy and Greg Holland.