Royals clinch AL Central with 10-4 win over Mariners

KANSAS CITY, Mo. The seven flags flap above the left-field stands of Kauffman Stadium, each one marking a playoff appearance by the Kansas City Royals. The first four signify the seasons when the team merely won the American League West; the last three denote when the team reached the World Series. The tallest flag resides at the end of the row, representing 1985, the lone championship won by this club and its last division title.

On Thursday night, after clinching its first American League Central division title in franchise history with a 10-4 victory over the Mariners, the 2015 edition of the Royals ensured another banner will rise next spring. During the next six weeks, the team will determine how high the flag will fly.

Thanks to a loss by the Twins, the Royals, 89-63, secured control of a division where they spent nearly two decades in the basement. A new day dawned for Kansas City baseball last October, and this current group carried the mantle into this season. Unlike last year, when the Royals squeezed into the Wild Card Game in the season’s final week, in 2015 they became the first American League team to clinch a playoff spot.

“It’s a great feeling, you know?” first baseman Eric Hosmer said on the Fox Sports KC postgame broadcast. “Going back to spring training, this is the goal. We’ve got a lot of work left.”

Hosmer was thrilled to have the club’s first AL Central title coming home to KC.

“It’s the first time for Kansas City,” he said, “and we’re glad to bring it here.”

On Oct. 8, almost certainly at this ballpark, the Royals will play their first playoff game since Salvador Perez’s pop-up landed in the glove of Pablo Sandoval in the seventh game of last year’s World Series. Their opponent has not been determined. Kansas City holds a two-game lead over Toronto for home-field advantage, in which they would play the winner of the Wild Card Game.

The core of the Royals powered them through Thursday’s victory. Mike Moustakas and Hosmer provided home runs. Lorenzo Cain snapped a sixth-inning deadlock with a two-run single, which allowed Johnny Cueto to collect a victory after his seven innings of three-run ball.

With their place in October guaranteed, the Royals must decide how to proceed during the next 10 games. Should they reshuffle their rotation to prepare for the playoffs? Or should they press forward, trying to hold off Toronto?

Either way, the team earned a night to celebrate. The organization’s renaissance reached another milestone Thursday.

“So excited, you know?” a breathless Salvador Perez told FSKC broadcaster Joel Goldberg on the field after the final out was recorded. “Let’s do it again!”

Major League Baseball realigned its divisions in 1994 and shifted Kansas City into the Central. The shuffling coincided with the darkest stretch of baseball in franchise history. During their first 17 seasons in the division that weren’t interrupted by strike, the Royals averaged 93 losses per year. The team finished in second place only once, in 1995.

The tide started to turn in 2013, the year James Shields and Wade Davis joined the club, when Kansas City won 86 games. The team added three more victories to their total in 2014, enough to host the Wild Card Game, but still one fewer than the Tigers.

Detroit abdicated its throne this summer, undone by injuries across its decaying roster and the fetid stink of its bullpen. The Royals filled that vacuum with ease, hurtling a series of obstacles along the way. The team jawed and brawled with opponents in April. They lost Alex Gordon, their longest-tenured player, for six weeks in July. Last month, they experienced an outbreak of chickenpox.

Yet through it all, the Royals steamrolled the competition. Because of Kansas City’s sizable advantage over Minnesota, this ticket to October lacked the spiritual uplift from last fall. There was little suspense. This team has spent the past 108 days in first place. The lead bloated all the way to 141/21/2 games on Aug. 19 and 14 games on Aug. 29. The coronation Thursday night felt inevitable.

Manager Ned Yost experienced a similar sensation during 12 consecutive division titles as a coach with the Braves in the 1990s. “It just seems like it drags on and it drags on,” Yost said.

The mood inside the clubhouse before the game was not exactly festive. The team announced Greg Holland, their two-time All-Star closer, would not pitch again this season because of a torn ulnar collateral ligament. He faces the likelihood of Tommy John surgery.

The team has stumbled through this month. They hold a losing record for September, with nine wins and 13 losses. But the players felt restored after a come-from-behind victory Wednesday, when they manufactured runs in the ninth and 10th to pull away.

“Last night was kind of a turning point for us, I think,” Moustakas said before the game. “We came back and got a great win, just like we always did, especially last year in the postseason.”

Moustakas gave his team the lead in the second inning later that night. With the scored tied at one, he roped a solo homer down the right-field line. He set a new personal best with 21 homers and 74 RBIs in one season.

Cueto was making his second start since asking catcher Perez to alter his positioning behind the plate. Cueto sought a lower target and a slower setup form Perez. The results against Detroit last week heartened the Royals, as Cueto gave up only two runs in seven innings.

Through three innings, Cueto looked encouraging once again. He wiggled his backside, delighting the crowd, before striking out designated hitter Nelson Cruz to end the third. But in the fourth, he teetered on the edge of collapse.

The Mariners jumped Cueto with three hits to start the frame. Robinson Cano singled. Seth Smith dropped a double in left field. When Mark Trumbo pulled a two-run double past Moustakas, the Royals trailed for the first time all evening.

The deficit did not last two innings. With one out in the fifth, Mariners reliever Rob Rasmussen flipped a slider over the plate to Hosmer. He nailed his 16th homer of the season to tie the game.

The crowd at Kauffman Stadium erupted as Hosmer’s ball cleared the center-field fence. Out in left, the seven flags swayed in the wind. Another one will join them in 2016. The Royals guaranteed that Thursday.

(c)2015 The Kansas City Star (Kansas City, Mo.)

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