Last night, Mike Moustakas set the Royals single season club record with his 37th HR, so now KC’s home run mark goes from a shameful 36 to an embarrassing 37. There’s still eleven games left to grab three more and finally extinguish the distinction of being the only team to have never had a 40 HR hitter.
Two bombs previous, when Moose hit his 35th, he was on pace to hit 49 for the season, making it seem like 40 was inevitable and that we might even dream of having someone do the unthinkable and threaten 50. But that was over a month ago, and he’s been playing hurt since, with little rest, and Ned Yost has had the bright idea to consistently bat him 6th, ahead of .210 hitting Brandon Moss, as well as Alex Gordon and Alcides Escobar, who have been two of the very worst hitters in all of MLB, so Moustakas hasn’t had a whole lot of decent pitches to work with. With playoff hopes extremely dim before half the team’s World Series core all bolt for free agency, getting to 40 is about the only thing Royals fans can look forward to while the season winds down and baseball nuclear winter begins.
Incidentally, when Moose moves on (apparently, the Angels are his preferred choice), he’ll become the 7th straight Royals hitter to hit 30 or more home runs that wound up on another team the following season.
This’ll be the least interesting final week in a while. Everything is basically wrapped up except for the NL Wild Card and a couple of best records.
Most interesting may be who suits up for Houston and Boston in their series – ending the regular season with 4 in Boston, then likely matching right back up in the ALDS. Depending on the next 3 days Boston could go hard trying to get homefield… or we could see 4 games of AAA lineups to rest some injuries and set rotations.
The Yankees have had good-to-excellent player development for decades. This is not news.
Also: Woo Wild Card! We’ll obviously be significant 'dogs on the road especially after getting swept out (sigh) of Yankee Stadium a week and a half ago, but bugger it all. Whee!