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Royals Rumblings - News for October 13, 2015

Today is a new day, and the Royals are still alive.

By Max Rieper

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Eric Christian Smith/Getty Images

Royals Rumblings - News for October 13, 2015

Ned Yost never lost his confidence in the team when they were down.

"You have confidence that sooner or later, they're going to put together some hits and they're going to put some runs on the board," Yost said. "And even though we were down four in the eighth inning, I felt real confident that we were going to make a game out of it. I just felt that the bats were going to come alive, and they really did in the eighth inning. I mean, really did." It may have saved the season, just in the nick of time.

"That's the mentality for this whole entire team," Hosmer said. "It's 'never quit,' and the character we showed today, that's what a championship ballclub does."

Eric Hosmer talked about snapping out of his funk and getting a crucial hit in the eighth.

Hosmer fouled off two pitches and held up on two outside the strike zone. "Finally got one out over the plate and put a good swing on it," he said A line drive single to right field produced another run and made it 6-4. Hosmer got his swing back just in time.

"I’ve been getting beat by a lot of fastballs," Hosmer said. "You get down two strikes, you miss a couple of heaters, and I’m just trying to put the ball in play." The inning continued until the Royals had scored five and taken a 7-6 lead.

Mike Moustakas is the new Raul Ibanez.

I want a copy of that speech to hang in my office.

Sam Mellinger marvels at the comeback, but is cautious not to jump to conclusions.

It would be fun to draw that connection between Moustakas’ shouting and the Royals’ comeback. That would make for a fantastic story, like Raul Ibañez giving the pep talk before the eighth inning of the Wild Card Game. But, as Jonny Gomes pointed out, the Royals did the same kind of shouting before the seventh inning on Monday, and no one got a hit. Heck, they did the same kind of shouting throughout Game 3 on Sunday, and lost.

Baseball is funny. It is our most measurable mainstream sport. We can know exactly how every hitter has performed with two outs or with runners on first and third or against soft-tossing lefties. We can know exactly how much movement is on every pitch, where it crossed the plate, and that combination’s expected success rate.

But we can’t know this. We can know the Astros’ bullpen is shaky, and that the Royals have reached this point in large part through resiliency, but we cannot know when it will all happen together. We can’t know when the moment will grab us.

Is a bit of bad blood brewing between these teams?

Salvador Perez had a rough day in the field, getting hit in the ribs, and passing two concussion tests after a foul tip off the mask.

Sal was also banged up the day before with a minor car accident.

"We are all fine. It was actually pretty funny. We were on an Uber ride to this Venezuelan food truck called Sabor Venezolano," Nieves said. "Our driver was driving on a left-only lane and continued straight. The car on our right turned left and hit us."

Five Astros fans driving from Minute Maid Park emerged from the car and were extremely angry, according to Nieves.

"They were barking at our driver and then Salvy gets out of the car," Nieves said. "They are shocked and like, 'Oh my God, it's Salvador Perez!' They asked for pictures and didn't care about the car anymore. We are just happy everybody is OK."

Dave Cameron at Just a Bit Outside looks at the turning point in the game, the Carlos Correa miscue.

The team's odds of winning dropped 31 percent on that play, and then went to zero over the next few innings, as Hosmer deposited a home run into the Astros bullpen and Wade Davis dominated for the final two innings. The Royals capped off a remarkable comeback even by their own standards, showing that, once again, they aren't out of it until the final out has been recorded. But in the midst of their string of singles, the Astros had two chances to turn a rally-killing double play, and neither the pitcher nor the shortstop could quite get the ball to end up in their glove. An inch here or an inch there, and maybe the Astros are planning for the ALCS right now. But that's baseball; the ultimate game of inches.

Tom Ley at Deadspin writes that the Terrance Gore play yesterday is evidence that replay in baseball is turning into replay in football.

This isn’t really the kind of mistake instant replay was meant to rectify. There are certainly moments in which replay is a very good thing to have—determining if a home run really cleared the top of the fence or whether a ball is fair or foul come to mind—but the game is not served well when it’s used as a tool to reverse plays based on a base runner’s momentum popping his foot off the bag for a fraction of a second. Bases are hard, and I bet that if you looked at every slide in super slo-mo, you’d see a lot of feet popping a few millimeters off the bag for a split second. When a guy who’s functionally safe—and would be called such in most circumstances—gets called out like this, it makes the game more arbitrary, not less.

Eric Hosmer penned a column in the Players Tribune about how the Royals are no fluke. (h/t Michael Messerly)

When the season began this year, I knew we were a team that had several identities — that represented a lot of things: Comeback kids. A new generation. Playoff veterans. The defending AL Champs. But one identity stood out above the rest: No fluke. And that, to me, is what has defined this team all season long — and has made it so special, and its objective so unique. While every other contender right now is playing with the goal of proving that they belong this year — for us the stakes are even higher. For us, we feel like we aren’t just playing for this year … we’re playing for last year as well.

Lee Judge explains why Danny Duffy faced right-handed hitter Chris Carter in Game Three.

Kansas City offices were not very productive around town on Monday afternoon.

If you think Royals playoff tickets are high, look how high Mets tickets are! (h/t Vivid Seats)

The KCPD were amazed at the comeback.

Did you notice that Astros catcher Hank Conger does the Chappelle Show robot dance after every home run?

The Houston Astros collapse was just the latest heartbreaker in Houston sports history.

Leonys Martin is pretty ticked about not being on the Rangers post-season roster.

Harold Reynolds does not think Canadians know how to catch foul balls.

Kiley McDaniel, formerly of Fangraphs, has joined the Braves front office.

Cleveland wants to add a bat for one of their arms this winter.

Who might be the Tigers closer next year?

The Chiefs confirm that Jamaal Charles has a torn ACL and is out for the year.

South Carolina football coach Steve Spurrier is reportedly retiring.

ESPN is shelving their "30 for 30" about how Kevin Johnson saved the NBA in Sacramento in light of sexual misconduct allegations.

Why do the words for "mom" and "dad" sound similar in so many languages?

If you love beer and coffee, you might be a psychopath.

Twitter won't suspend accounts for harassment, but if you continue to post sports GIFs like Deadspin did, you're gone.

The ten best movie mistakes that ended up in the final cut of the film.

Your song of the day is Simple Minds with "Alive and Kicking."

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