Full disclosure here, I've written and now rewritten this post before. I almost gloated about forecasting the end of the season (see last post) as the team got swept at home by the lowly White Sox on 8/22. However I was lazy and then they had a nice little winning streak just as the Rays and Rangers started their downward spiral. Again, I almost wrote about the inevitable end when James Shields looked like the Anti-Big Game James on 9/6, and then again after both of Nex Yost's well documented managerial disasters. But those posts didn't get written and now, more than a month later, the Royals have 10 games to play and three games to make up in order to get themselves into the two-for-one wild card game. Without getting too deep into the analysis, here is how this thing could go down in descending order from the most likely to the least likely:
Scenario #1 - The College Try: This is where the Royals go 7-3 or 6-5, play well, but miss the playoffs by a game or two. All skeptical Royals fans see it going down this way. They finish something like 86-77, Ned Yost is hailed as a leader of men, the James Shield trade is justified, we spend all offseason talking about who we could get to make the team better: "we have to bring Santana back", "we gotta get a second basemen", "wouldn't Jacoby Ellsbury look good in a Royals uniform", etc. This is by far and away the most likely and palatable scenario. The PBR can't endorse Ned Yost coming back, but then again we also spent the entire year talking about how they were going to blow it and yet they never quite did, so we will default to results. Yes, we will get tired of hearing about how this was a great step forward and how the team is really "ready" to win now, but we'll focus on making outlandish trade and free-agent signing scenarios and hibernate until Spring, criticize Dayton Moore and then wait for them to play about the same next season.
Scenario #2 - The Decisions: This is the inverse of the first. This is where the Royals go no better than 5-5, maybe 3-7, and we fans with short memories can start the fire Ned Yost riots. We could easily go out and get swept in the last homestand of the season this weekend against the Rangers, become out of the race and play apathetic baseball the rest of the way. This is an option we have to broach, even though it is the most difficult to stomach from the fan's perspective. This is where we get to see some intense panic after the season; Ned Yost gets fired and we fork over $120 million to resign Santana and pick-up Hunter Pence. This is just too drastic, nobody wants to see this happen.
Scenario #3 - The Vengeful Royal: The Royals sweep the Rangers this weekend on their way to slipping into wild card. Meanwhile the the Indians choke, but the Rays limp in but finish tied with the Royals and have to cede home field because of the head-to-head match-up. This is where it gets good; James Shields pitches on short rest, throws a shut out against his former team, Wil Myers goes 0-4 with 4Ks, on his fourth K he breaks his hand slamming a bat in the dugout and is injured and humiliated enough to keep him from ever becoming anything more than another failed prospect. They predictably lose in 6 games to the eventual World Series champs, The Oakland A's. However, everyone rejoices and this does become the start of another Golden Age of baseball in KC; they sign Shin-Soo Choo who makes us forget about RF for the next 5 years, Yordono Ventura does become the next Pedro, Billy and Alex age gracefully, Hosmer and Moose become 90% and 75% of what they were supposed to be, Bubba Starling finally becomes the Next George Brett, there is never another negative word written about Dayton Moore and the PBR is picked up by ESPN for exclusive Royals coverage. This is the third most likely scenario because only the first two have above a one percent chance of happening.
Scenario #4 - The Emperors New Clothes: This is where the Royals go 0-10 and fail to even have a .500 season. The Pittsburgh Pirates win the World Series and the Royals are left standing as the most pathetic sports franchise in History. Dayton Moore gets to blame one last manger, Ned Yost is fired and things get even worse. The Royals do nothing in the offseason more than resign Luke Hochevar, Chris Getz and Emilio Bonafacio because Dayton Moore is denied all other financial transactions by the Glass family and officially becomes a lame duck GM. The final nail in the coffin is complete when James Shields gets "shoulder tightness" in spring training, somehow Chris Getz wins the starting 2B job again and then they open the season 10-20. At this point Moore gets fired and is replaced by a former Marlins executive and Royals fans are promised they just need to restock the farm system and then there is a summer fire sale where everything goes for 50 cents on the dollar.
Scenario #5 - The 1980s Throwback Party: The Royals manage to go 9-1 over the next 10 games, beat Cleveland in the wildcard playoff game, then somehow ride their pitching through the rest of the postseason, obviously beating the St. Louis Cardinals in the World Series, and finally parade through the Plaza again. Whether or not they go the next 27 years without another playoff game becomes irrelevant and what comes next is not important because that is what happens when you win a World Series.
There will be no negative commentary by the PBR for the next 10 games as we observe a period of optimism to respect the 2013 Rollercoaster Royals. In my mind, all five of these scenarios are equal based on what we've seen so far this season.
