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What a city, what a story, what a KC masterpiece! The Kansas City Royals, you read that right, your KANSAS CITY ROYALS have made it BACK to the Postseason for the first time since 2015.
With Minnesota falling to Baltimore tonight, the Royals have guaranteed themselves a spot in the 2024 postseason! We have to wait for the final two games of the season to see whether they are the 5th or 6th seed, but for right now we’re celebrating. It really is a remarkable story for this team who only won 56 games a year ago, have had the biggest turnaround in major league history, and now they’re going to be fighting with the big dogs in the playoffs for the right to go to the World Series. We all thought that this team was going to be better, but I don’t think we all anticipated a playoff spot in year one.
What a turnaround for this squad, who made it a priority to get better and compete in a division that looked like it was for the taking. During the offseason nobody expected four teams from the AL Central fighting for playoff spots headed into the final weekend of the regular season. So, General Manager J.J Picollo set out to put together a squad to fill the holes, and they did more than that. Now, they’re where they thought they were going to be at the beginning of the season, batting in October.
First, a hats off to the eventual AL Manager of the Year, Matt Quatraro. If he doesn’t win, he is at least in the top three. He endured a tough first year in 2023, winning only 56 games, but stood true to the team message that it was an evaluation season, and now he’s reaped those rewards. It is also a credit to everyone involved that they stuck to their word and actually spent money to get the team better. Instead of just telling everyone it was “an evaluation season”, and then you do nothing. In 2024 we really saw how great Matt Quatraro can be at managing a baseball game. To start, every single one of his players have the same mentality that he has, which is to stay in the ballgame. Anything can happen when you just keep yourself in it. Second, it proved that Q knew what he was doing, and knows this team. You don’t go from 56 wins to 85+ without having an incredible system that your players buy into. Third, all the times people would complain about Adam Frazier, Garrett Hampson, or Sam Long, and then they would come through in some weird way, Matt Quatraro knows ball everyone. Hopefully he stays in KC for the immediate future.
Kansas City now sets its sights to Target Field where the Twins trail 2-0 in the fifth inning.
With a Twins loss, Matt Quatraro would become just the third manager in franchise history to reach the postseason in his first two seasons. The last to do so was Jim Frey in 1980.