KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Bobby Witt Jr., Vinnie Pasquantino and Salvador Perez carried the Royals back to the postseason for the first time in nearly a decade, a whirlwind turnaround from 106-loss club to a team playing for a spot in the American League Championship Series.
They fell just shy in large part due to that trio’s collective struggles at the plate against the New York Yankees.
Witt, Pasquantino and Perez were a combined 6-for-49 in their AL Division Series, coming up short when the Royals desperately needed a big hit. That was especially evident in Game 4 on Thursday night, when Perez's popout ended their only real rally in the sixth inning, and Pasquantino and Perez struck out in the ninth as the Yankees finished off their 3-1 victory.
"It's tough. It's not really what you want," Witt said. "It feels like you let a lot of people down when you do things like this, but that's part of the game. It's something that will light a torch in you, and leave a bad taste in your mouth for the future."
New York will play Cleveland or Detroit in the ALCS beginning Monday night at Yankee Stadium.
"Yeah, I've got to be honest with you, the Royals are a damn good ballclub. That was a really tough series," Yankees starter Gerrit Cole said. "In terms of Witt specifically, certainly had a little bit of bad luck, hit some balls on the screws and took some — it took a lot of good pitches to keep him in check. That’s just a testament to how great of a player he is."
Now, the Royals will begin thinking about next season, and what it will take to energize an offense that struggled mightily to score down the stretch. Kansas City lost 6-5 to the Yankees in Game 1, then scored five runs total over the next three games, a big reason why the Royals didn’t win a home game after Sept. 8, losing nine straight including the playoffs.
"They battled their butts off, man. They gave everything they had," Royals manager Matt Quatraro said. "You've got to tip your cap; they beat us. But it wasn't for lack of effort, wasn't for lack of desire or any of that kind of stuff. They put it all out there."
The sudden freeze by the Royals' best hitters was striking given what Witt, Pasquantino and Perez did during the season.
Witt hit .332 to win the AL batting title and had 32 homers to go with a team-best 109 RBIs. Perez hit 27 homers and had 104 RBIs. Pasquantino was on pace to give Kansas City three sluggers with 100 or more RBIs before breaking his thumb on a fluke play late in the season, an injury that healed enough in time to serve as the designated hitter in the playoffs.
Witt went 1-for-4 on Thursday night, his lone hit turning into the Royals' only run on Pasquantino's double in the sixth. But the biggest rival to the Yankees' Aaron Judge for AL MVP, Witt still finished just 2-for-17 at the plate in the series, after he had driven both of the decisive runs in the Royals’ two-game sweep of Baltimore in the wild-card round.
"It's part of baseball," Witt said. "Sometimes you hit right at 'em, sometimes you don’t. It’s just the game."
Pasquantino's run-scoring double? That ended an 0-for-14 stretch over the first three games of the series.
Then there was Perez, whose clutch play in 2014 and '15 helped the Royals win back-to-back AL pennants and capture their first World Series title in three decades. Perez had three hits against New York coming into Thursday night, but he flied out leading off the second, popped out to end the fourth, and popped out again after the Royals finally scored in the sixth inning.
"You know, I tried to help my team win every day. You guys know that," Perez said. "I missed a couple opportunities even today with Pasquantino at second base. That's going to happen. Good things are going to happen, bad things are going to happen."
In the ninth, Pasquantino and Perez both struck out before Yuli Gurriel flied out against Yankees reliever Clay Holmes, who was part of a masterful New York bullpen that has not allowed a run over 15 2/3 innings of the postseason.
"They've got a lot of gamers over there, starting with their leader Salvy, a guy that's won a World Series, been a World Series MVP, comes up clutch so many times for them," Aaron Judge said. "And then the young star for them — Bobby Witt — who had an incredible season and continues just to impress I feel like the baseball world every single day with what he can do.
"You go back to that first game where we had four, five, six lead changes back and forth. There's just no fear in them and just a lot of fight," Judge added. "Definitely going to be a lot of battles with them for years to come."
