'Extremely grateful': Royals ready for Yankees, ALDS as pitching quartet makes most of chances

In a matchup that’s about as retro as Major League Baseball’s playoffs get, the Kansas City Royals will act the part.

Saturday, they’ll take the field at Yankee Stadium against New York for Game 1 of the American League Division Series, rekindling an October rivalry that simmered for four of five years between 1977 and 1980. And in this first clash in 44 years between the powder blue Midwestern upstarts and the pinstriped Bronx Bombers, the Royals will at least partly reject modern orthodoxy.

Oh, they’ll have the most cutting-edge scouting reports available, and constructed this surprising 86-win team – built from the ashes of a 106-loss debacle in 2023 – with plenty of contemporary analysis.

Yet in an era when the starting pitcher often just a pitching staff’s hood ornament in a playoff game, the Royals are unapologetic that their low-scoring, plucky squad’s backbone is riding their four horses as long as they can go.

In the big picture, that trust has already paid off: Young ace Cole Ragans, emerging talent Brady Singer and trusty veterans Seth Lugo and Michael Wacha all started between 29 and 33 games this season, their 126 starts the most of any playoff quartet.

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In the hyper-scrutinized world of playoff baseball, it’s vaulted them to New York: Ragans and Lugo combined to give up one earned run in their two wild-card series starts against Baltimore, with Ragans’ six overpowering shutout innings in Game 1 setting the tone for the two-game sweep.

And perhaps launch them on a deeper run.

Wacha will get the ball Saturday night in the Bronx, a Game 1 assignment against reigning Cy Young Award winner Gerrit Cole, 13 years after the two rookies announced their presence with sparkling starts for St. Louis and Pittsburgh, respectively, in a National League Division Series.

Now, Wacha is 33, long in the beard and reveling in the dynamics of a Kansas City staff that is leveraging the potency of its youth and the wisdom of its elders.

“I've been in this league for 10, 11, 12 years now, so that comes with some experience,” says Wacha. “Experiencing some of the highest of highs and some of the lowest of lows. I can kind of relate to a lot of different players. I'll always try to be available to the younger guys, the rookies, ready to answer questions, help them out in any situation and give them their belief that they can succeed at this level.

“But as much as I feel like they can learn from me, I can learn just as much from them, as well.”

For now, they are all following Ragans’ lead.

'We got something special'

The 26-year-old was an All-Star this season, and while his 186 ⅓ innings and 135 adjusted ERA could not match Lugo’s 206 and 140, he struck out 223 – second in the AL – and was an easy choice to anoint for Game 1.

His dominance of the Orioles – he struck out eight in six scoreless innings – was merely the next step on a progression that began when the flailing Royals acquired him from Texas for reliever Aroldis Chapman in June 2023.

“He's become more than we thought,” says general manager J.J. Picollo. “When we got him in the trade we certainly thought he would be part of the starting rotation.

“But it was pretty apparent, when we ended the season last year, we got something pretty special.”

It’s a nice sample size: In 44 starts with Kansas City, Ragans has a 3.00 ERA and 312 strikeouts in 258 innings, blossoming with the runway afforded him.

Lugo can relate.

In seven seasons at the big league level for the New York Mets, he toggled between starter and reliever, closer and long man and swing guy. The talent was immense and evident; the role was not consistent.

He finally stretched out for good in 2023, signing a one-year deal with San Diego and pitching to a 3.57 ERA in 26 starts. And then Kansas City called.

After three 100-loss seasons since winning the 2015 World Series, yet with superstar shortstop Bobby Witt Jr., Ragans and other building blocks in place, Picollo sensed the time was right to spend. He viewed Lugo’s San Diego gap year impressively, and signed him to a three-year, $45 million contract.

Lugo merely led the major leagues in innings and will likely finish in the top five of AL Cy Young voting. But appreciation goes both ways.

“All the gratitude for the organization,’ says Lugo. “I know to throw as many innings as I did, you have to execute but you also have to get given the opportunity, and that's what they did for me.

“Extremely grateful.”

'One of the best brains I've been around'

After bouncing through four teams in four seasons, Wacha’s ears perked up when he saw Lugo join the Royals. The two were Mets teammates in the shortened 2020 season, and again in San Diego in 2023.

The Texarkana native always vibed well with the native Louisianan Lugo. Now, opportunity was beckoning again.

“JJ was kind of describing his plan and the team outlook,” says Wacha. “I saw Lugo had signed there probably about a week or two before I did, and pitching with him I knew what he brought to the table.

“He's one of the best brains that I've been around, really, whenever it comes to that kind of stuff.”

Wacha agreed to a two-year, $32 million deal and proceeded to start the most games (29) since 2017 and throw the most innings (166 ⅓) since 2015. Perhaps most notably, he completed a foursome that came together about as well as manager Matt Quatraro could have imagined.

“Knowing Wacha how I knew him,” says Quatraro, the Tampa Bay bench coach during Wacha’s season there in 2021, “it doesn't surprise me at all that he was going to help be that kind of a glue and knowing that Ragans is a sponge for anything baseball. Brady, as we've talked about for a couple years now, is so competitive and loves the environment, and he was on a mission to get back to his accustomed level.

“I did not know Seth at all prior to this year, but as soon as I saw him day one how he approached his bullpen and how much prep he did, and then he stayed out there to watch other guys throw bullpens, it started to look very organic early and that they just gravitated to each other.”

Now, they’re pitted in a classic major market vs. small market clash with the Yankees, whose $310 million payroll easily doubles Kansas City’s $122 million outlay. Yet they’re now on even footing, and by virtue of winning two games in Baltimore, the Royals will host their first playoff games at Kauffman Stadium in nearly a decade.

“I expect it to be electric,” says Lugo, in line to take his vaunted 10-pitch mix to the mound for a Game 3 start Wednesday in Kansas City. “I’m so happy for them.”

An off day after Game 1 would enable Ragans to start Game 2 at Yankee Stadium. He says the club knows that their formula is “good enough,” and now it will be severely tested.

Yet Ragans will bring to the mound not just his heavy 96 mph fastball and a devastating slider, but also the wisdom of those around him, from Lugo and Wacha to reliever Will Smith and the many seasoned vets who fill the roles that remain even as Ragans and Witt steal the headlines.

“When you bring in guys that have been here before, they have pitched in the playoffs, they know what it takes throughout the year to get to this point and continue to go further than this,” says Ragans. “There's so much knowledge in the clubhouse. They have been around for a while. They are unbelievable humans. It's so easy to talk to them about certain things.

“You know, obviously they are unbelievable baseball players. But they are even better human beings.”