PITTSBURGH — Just shy of a month into the regular season, the Kansas City Royals certainly have played better than many predicted or expected.
After all, they entered Thursday’s scheduled day off sitting atop Major League Baseball with a 15-8 record for a .652 winning percentage. They’ll begin the final leg of their three-city road trip on Friday night in Minneapolis against the two-time defending AL Central Division champion Minnesota Twins.
While fewer than 30 games isn’t nearly enough to make sweeping conclusions about this season, it’s enough of a sample to identify a shift in the atmosphere and the collective confidence within the Royals clubhouse.
Whit Merrifield, an All-Star who has led the majors in hits and stolen bases in previous seasons, put into words the contrast between showing up to work this season and in previous years.
“It’s totally different,” Merrifield said. “I’ve come to the field every day expecting to win, feeling like we’re going to win the game. As opposed to coming to the field going, ‘All right. It’s going to be a struggle. What are we going to have to do? They’re going to have to be off. We’re going to have to be on.’ That was years past.
“This year, we come to the field every day expecting to win. It’s a great place to be. It’s a great change of pace. It’s where we hope to be, I hope to be, in that position with this team for many years to come. I think we will be.”
So far through eight series, the Royals have won or split seven. Their lone series loss came to the defending American League champion Tampa Bay Rays.
The Royals have matched the 1989 team for the franchise’s third-best start through 23 games. In 2015, they started 16-7 en route to a World Series championship, and in 2003 they sprinted out of the gates with a 17-6 record and finished the year above .500.
Wednesday night’s win against the Pittsburgh Pirates clinched a winning road trip for the Royals, their first three-city winning trip since July 24 through August 2, 2017, when they went 5-4 against the Detroit Tigers, Boston Red Sox and Baltimore Orioles.
This winter, the Royals added experienced major-league players such as first baseman Carlos Santana, center fielder Michael A. Taylor, left fielder Andrew Benintendi, starting pitcher Mike Minor and relief pitcher Wade Davis as well as re-signing relief pitcher Greg Holland. During spring training, they added veteran outfielder and clubhouse presence Jarrod Dyson.
As much as bolstering the roster, the impact of those additions has been felt in the mental toughness already displayed by the Royals in the early weeks of the season during come-from-behind wins, late-game rallies and walk-off wins.
“We’ve got, I think, nine guys on this team with a World Series ring, and 10 guys that have played in the World Series,” Merrifield said. “When you have that sort of experience with winning baseball, stuff like those comebacks — they seem to happen a little more often that not because guys expect to win, guys have been around winning, they know what to do to win.
“That’s huge for guys like myself and (Hunter) Dozier and Nicky (Lopez), guys that have been in the system but weren’t in the big leagues when we were winning baseball games.”
The Royals last finished a season above .500 in their World Series championship season of 2015. They were exactly .500 at 81-81 in 2016.
They’d had back-to-back 100-loss seasons prior to having gone 26-34 in last year’s pandemic-shortened season.
Now though still very early in the season, the Royals seem to have started the process of winning again.
“I think a lot of it has to do with the belief,” Royals manager Mike Matheny said. “We talk about this a lot, but they walk out there expecting good things to happen. Many of us have been part of teams where the opposite is there, and that’s a tough rut to get out of. But the one that they’re on right now — I want them to continue to think that way, feel that way for as long as we can.”
