Daily Clips
October 2, 2017
LOCAL
Vargas falls short in bid for victory No. 19
Oct. 1, 2017 By Jeffrey Flanagan and Steve Gilbert/MLB.com
Royals 'core four' takes one final bow
Impending free agents depart Sunday's game together
Oct. 1, 2017By Jeffrey Flanagan/MLB.com
End of an era? Royals stars take a bow in season-finale loss
Oct. 1, 2017By Rustin Dodd/KC Star
Mike Moustakas’ favorite thing, and what’s next for all the Royals’ star free agents
Oct. 1, 2017By Sam Mellinger/KC Star
On cusp of free agency, Royals shortstop Alcides Escobar reflects on a decade with Ned Yost
Oct. 1, 2017By Maria Torres/KC Star
NATIONAL
End of an era? Royals send off core players to standing ovation in season finale
Oct. 1, 2017By R.J. Anderson/CBS Sports
MLB TRANSACTIONS
October 2, 2017 •.CBSSports.com
LOCAL
Vargas falls short in bid for victory No. 19
Oct. 1, 2017 By Jeffrey Flanagan and Steve Gilbert/MLB.com
It was perhaps the end of an era for one team, and the beginning of one for the other.
As the Royals played their final game of 2017 and saluted their impending free agents, the D-backs pulled most of their starters early as they prepare for Wednesday's National League Wild Card Game against the Rockies.
The D-backs won Sunday's regular-season finale, 14-2, on the strength of home runs from Chris Iannetta and Jeremy Hazelbaker. That gave Arizona a 93-69 record, a complete turnaround from last year's 69-93 mark.
"I'm very proud of that," D-backs manager Torey Lovullo said. "I'm very proud of the things we did over the course of the year. We checked a lot of boxes. We did some things that I had asked these guys to do from the first game of the season on and I'm proud of these guys for that and I'm proud to be their manager.
"But we still have some boxes to check and everybody knows that the story is untold and that's the message that I've sent to these guys."
But the D-backs' bigger concern was getting their team ready for Wednesday. Left-hander Robbie Ray tuned up with 23 pitches before leaving after 1 2/3 innings as scheduled.
The Royals, meanwhile, may have bid their goodbyes to some of their impending free agents, including a core group of shortstop Alcides Escobar, third baseman Mike Moustakas, center fielder Lorenzo Cain and first baseman Eric Hosmer.
"We don't know what will happen," Moustakas said. "We don't know if all of us or some of us will be back. But we're proud to have played for this city and this team."
Left-hander Jason Vargas, another impending free agent, left after four innings. He gave up six hits and six runs and finished the season with 18 wins, tied for the most in the Major Leagues.
"Kansas City is such an unbelievable place," Vargas said. "My family and I have landed. To say I didn't want to come back would be lying….I made one of the best decisions I made in my life to come here."
MOMENTS THAT MATTERED
The big three-run jack: The D-backs were leading, 3-2, in the fifth when Hazelbaker jumped on the first pitch he saw from Vargas and belted a four-seam fastball into the right-field bullpen. It was Hazelbaker's second home run this season, and the three-run shot put Arizona up, 6-2.
Ovation, then homer: It was a special moment as Hosmer came to the plate in the first inning and received a standing ovation. Three pitches later, Hosmer drove a fastball from Ray into the left-field seats, his 25th home run this season, tying a career high.
"The crowd was so special today," Royals manager Ned Yost said. "So great to celebrate this. [Mike Moustakas] said to [Hosmer], 'You're what legends are made of with that home run.'"
QUOTABLE
"This is something I can carry with me the rest of my life. It's pretty cool." -- Royals second baseman Whit Merrifield, who won the American League stolen base title with 34
AFTER FURTHER REVIEW
The Royals challenged an out call at first base in the fifth inning when it was initially ruled that Melky Cabrera was tagged before reaching the bag after an errant throw. The call was overturned.
WHAT'S NEXT
D-backs: The D-backs play host to the Rockies in the National League Wild Card Game at 5 p.m. MST/8 ET on Wednesday on TBS.
Royals: Kansas City opens the 2018 regular-season schedule at home on March 29 against the White Sox.
Royals 'core four' takes one final bow
Impending free agents depart Sunday's game together
Oct. 1, 2017By Jeffrey Flanagan/MLB.com
Eric Hosmer and Mike Moustakas, the two faces of the Royals' resurgence to relevancy, seemingly held it together for most of the day.
But in what could be their final moments together on the same Royals team, they both wept after the reguar-season finale Sunday at Kauffman Stadium, a 14-2 loss to the D-backs, when a video montage was displayed on the stadium scoreboard. The video recaptured the special moments of a journey that included two World Series appearances and a World Series championship.
Hosmer, Moustakas, Lorenzo Cain and Alcides Escobar represent the core of the group that helped resurrect a franchise. And now they all are impending free agents.
"Just watching all the highlights and seeing the growth of everyone got to me," Hosmer said. "Just reflecting on all the moments got to me. The crazy highlights, the crazy comebacks. You relive the moment in the two minutes of that video.
"For me, when Ace [the late Yordano Ventura] popped up in the video, it was extremely tough. But at the same time, it makes me think how strong our relationship was with all of us as a family."
When the video ended, Moustakas and Hosmer hugged on the infield dirt, teary-eyed.
But Moustakas admitted the entire day was emotional, starting with the ovation Hosmer received in his first at-bat in the first inning which ended in a dramatic home run.
"I had shades on all day for a reason," Moustakas said. "I wasn't holding it together at all. When we hugged, I kind of realized what this all meant.
"When [Hosmer] hit that home run, I had tears in my eyes. Then I was trying to hit with tears in my eyes. That was one of the coolest moments I've ever seen. After the fans of Kansas City gave him that ovation, and then the kid hits a home run, I mean, I'm so happy I could see that and be a part of it."
Royals manager Ned Yost planned to take all four out at the same time, and he did so with one out in the fifth inning. The foursome met behind the pitchers mound and group-hugged as the crowd of 32,277 stood and cheered -- many in tears as well.
This was a core group, after all, that helped pull the franchise out of 29 years of darkness and to a playoff berth in 2014, the team's first since a World Series championship in 1985.
And now, the prospect of losing some, maybe all of the free agents, hit each player hard.
"You talk about it all year long," Cain said. "We don't know where we'll be next year. It got to the point where it's real. The emotions get to you and run through your bodies. You don't know what to expect. You just don't want to get used to new faces."
For now, the group will splinter their separate ways and await the future.
"I've never been in this situation," Escobar said. "I've never been a free agent. Just wait. I don't know where I'll go next year. I want to be here. I just have to wait."
Hosmer, likely the most coveted free agent of the four, will head back to Florida. Whatever happens, he said he will cherish this portion of his life.
"For all of us who came up in the organization, it was instilled in us that we were the group that would turn the city around, the team around," Hosmer said. "It's crazy to see how quick it's all happened.
"We don't know what's going to happen. It's different. I'm used to showing up in the clubhouse and seeing their faces for the last 10 years of my life. I think this weekend was a celebration of that. The reality is we might not all be together as a team again. We don't know who will come back or if nobody will come back."
End of an era? Royals stars take a bow in season-finale loss
Oct. 1, 2017By Rustin Dodd/KC Star
The end came on a beautiful Sunday afternoon, as a fall sun lit the corners of Kauffman Stadium, as a light blue sky hung overhead, as four teammates — friends and brothers and champions — huddled together on the infield grass in the top of the fifth inning.
Eric Hosmer wrapped his left arm around Mike Moustakas, who did the same with Lorenzo Cain. Alcides Escobar clutched Hosmer and Cain by the neck and completed the group hug. Together they had helped revitalize a franchise and change a city, transforming one of the worst teams in sports into a champion, taking a success-starved Midwestern town on two magical rides through the postseason. And now, they stood here again, linked together in the middle of the diamond, doffing their hats as they walked off, one last time, together.
“I don’t think anybody said anything,” Moustakas said. “I think we all just looked at each other.”
Salvador Perez stood at the top of the dugout steps. Fetty Wap’s “Trap Queen”, the anthem of 2015, blared from the PA system. One fan, standing in the bottom section, held up a blue sign with four words: “We Are So Grateful.” This was Sunday afternoon at Kauffman Stadium.
As Hosmer and Moustakas passed the first-base line, they looked up at the crowd and locked arms once more. Cain flashed his megawatt smile. Escobar raised his hat in the air. All around them, teammates and coaches and fans had come to their feet. Moustakas wiped tears from his eyes.
“I had shades on all day for a reason,” he said. “I was a wreck.”
This was Sunday afternoon at Kauffman Stadium, the end of an era coming into focus in a 14-2 loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks, a tearful goodbye on the final day of the baseball season.
A crowd of 32,277 showed up at Kauffman Stadium to pay tribute to a collection of pending free agents, a championship core that brought a trophy to Kansas City. The Royals (80-82) closed out a 2017 season that was both disappointing and compelling, frustrating and bittersweet, an anticlimactic end to one of the finest runs in franchise history.
One season removed from hoisting a World Series championship trophy in New York, the Royals entered this year knowing that Hosmer, Moustakas, Cain and Escobar would be free agents at the end of the season. As the club gathered in Arizona in February, the reality hung over every moment and every decision. In the afterlight of tragedy, in the moments before another 162 games, the front office let it be known: They were prepared to give their core one more chance to make a run.
The hopes of a fairy tale ending were curtailed by woeful start and a late-season fade, the year sabotaged by a confluence of feeble offense in April and a pitching collapse in August. And yet, the stars inside the clubhouse still hurtled toward free agency. The future remained uncertain. So the Royals prepared to say goodbye on Sunday afternoon.
“We’re all celebrating what we accomplished here together,” Hosmer said.
They came to celebrate friendships built over a decade and memories forged across two Octobers. They came knowing this could be their final day in a Royals uniform. They wondered how the emotion would feel.
When Hosmer, the franchise first baseman, walked to the plate in the bottom of the first, they all realized this would not be a normal day. As he approached the box, a deafening sound enveloped the stadium. Hosmer would call it “one of the loudest roars I’ve heard.”
Moments later, Hosmer saw an 0-2 fastball from Robbie Ray and launched a line drive down the left-field line. The baseball tucked inside the foul pole for his 25th home run. Standing near the on-deck circle, Moustakas said his eyes filled with tears.
“That was one of the coolest moments I’ve ever been a part of,” said Moustakas, the franchise third baseman. “Watching the fans of Kansas City give an ovation, and then (the) kid going out there and hitting a home run. That was unbelievable.
“I couldn’t believe that happened.”
On the field, the rest of the day did not match the emotion. Perhaps it could not. Jason Vargas would fail to record his 19th victory — though he still finished in a tie for the major-league lead in wins. The Diamondbacks seized control during a four-run fifth inning and then turned the game into a rout.
By then, Royals manager Ned Yost had already formulated a plan. He wanted Cain to finish the season above .300, which meant he could only allow him two at-bats without a hit. When that happened in the fourth, he prepared to offer his stars their final ovation in the fifth.
“The crowd,” Yost said, “was so special today.”
In the moments after the loss, the focus turned to the future. The four free agents sat together on the bottom floor of Kauffman Stadium, holding a press conference. A common sentiment emerged: Nobody knows what’s going to happen.
All four players will be free agents for the first time. Maybe one or two will be back next season. Maybe it’s zero. But whatever the case, they will not all be playing together next year. The future is coming soon.
“Everybody wants things to work out in the perfect fashion,” said Vargas, a 34-year-old free agent who has been a free agent before. “But they usually don’t. It’s like family getting broken up and having to go make their own way.”
This is the cold, hard truth of free agency. A player must find what is best for him and his family. An organization must look out for itself. As he sat between Escobar and Moustakas, Hosmer pondered what the next few months would feel like.
“I don’t want to say it’s scary,” he said. “It’s just different.”
This was Sunday afternoon at Kauffman Stadium, too. In the moments after the final out, the Royals gathered on the field and watched as a video played on the stadium’s CrownVision beyond center field. This was the same infield on which they had celebrated two American League pennants, the same infield on which Moustakas and Hosmer had worked for the last seven seasons. And now the past flashed before their eyes. They watched the highlights and heard the Moose calls and reflected on the glorious victories and teammates lost.
In the end, there were two words on the screen: Thank You.
“I wasn’t holding it together at all,” Moustakas said.
“I’ll fight with these guys any day,” Cain said.
“We’ve played together for seven years,” Escobar said.
“We’re family,” Hosmer said.
Mike Moustakas’ favorite thing, and what’s next for all the Royals’ star free agents
Oct. 1, 2017By Sam Mellinger/KC Star
Happened again the other night, the high-pitched cries bouncing down the hallway and staircase and into the bedroom where Mike Moustakas and his wife sleep. Their daughter, Mila, is 13 months old and a terrific sleeper, really, the kind that makes other parents a little jealous, but lately she’s been sick.
Nothing serious. Same thing the Royals third baseman has, which for a baby is enough congestion that she couldn’t rest. So Moustakas got out of bed, went up the stairs in the house he’s renting from teammate Alex Gordon, and lifted his baby girl out of her crib. Mila grabbed her daddy’s arm, which wrapped around her as they walked to the couch. There is no sleep like the sleep you get with a baby on your chest.
“My favorite thing in the world to do,” Moustakas said. “I’m the happiest person ever when I get to do that. Nothing can beat what I’m doing.”
Moustakas and the Royals played their last game of the season on Sunday, a 14-2 loss to the Diamondbacks. It was a strange event. We’re taught to believe that nothing matters in professional sports except the result, but here the result was entirely meaningless but the event still somehow felt important.
Moustakas, Eric Hosmer, Lorenzo Cain, and Alcides Escobar are all free agents now. Jason Vargas, too. If you’re an optimist, maybe you believe one or even two will be back. But this team won’t be the same. The Royals won’t be the same. Can’t be.
That’s why this has felt a lot like graduation week. Fans brought goodbye signs. The players packed their stuff into boxes, and made plans for the offseason.