Know Your Enemy: Kansas City Royals

Some people are fans of the Royals. We here at SSHP are not. This is our K.C. series preview — so White Sox fans can know their enemy.

I hate Kansas City as a location. I’ve been on buses cleaner than that airport.

The Royals won a World Series in 2015 and gave their fans a level of arrogance that could only be rivaled by Cubs fans in absurdity. You’re not the Yankees winning 27 World Series titles, calm down over there. The Royals beat the Mets, who are my other team; I love them dearly, but they’re also the Mets. Ned Yost COASTED for years on the goodwill from that win. If he didn’t retire, he was definitely getting the boot from new ownership.

Yes, 2020 brought the Royals new ownership. John Sherman (minority owner of the Cleveland *Mascot to be Named Later*) bought the team for $1 billion. 

Did you think the Royals were worth a billion dollars? I sure didn’t. There’s probably a joke about barbeque to be had. Anyway, it was recently announced that Patrick Mahomes used some of his big new contract money to join the ownership group, my guess for the tax write-off.

The Royals also recently signed Matt Harvey, who has had some …issues since leaving the Mets. He had some issues while ON the Mets, too.

Worst of all, Kansas City isn't just the Fun Police, it's a fucking goon squad of Fun Police. They throw at batters — then get their feelings hurt about bat flips. Hunter Strickland and Madison Bumgarner would feel right at home crying about home runs and other players having fun in Kansas City. 

The Royals hired the perfect manager in the offseason to continue this goon squad culture, so I’m sure they’re proud of themselves.

Enemy manager

Mike Matheny

Y’all. This guy wrote a whole ass book called “The Matheny Manifesto.”

If your book has “manifesto” in the title, there’s a good chance you’re getting a visit from the FBI. He also had a blog that is described as being “for people who want to use youth sports to impact kids and their communities.” 

That’s rich, considering Matheny got FIRED in the middle of the 2018 season after taking St. Louis to four consecutive postseasons. It was the first time the Cards had fired a manager during the season since the 1990s, so you know they meant business.

Highlights of Matheny’s reign in St. Louis include issues between players, most notably reported in The Athletic's exposé on Bud Norris’ old school bullshit treatment of Jordan Hicks that Matheny shrugged off, saying, “..the game has progressively gotten a little softer. Man, it had some teeth not that long ago.” 

Matheny had no previous managerial experience when he replaced Tony La Russa, and he never bothered to figure out the tactical side of things. Dude can’t run a bullpen and never seemed to figure out the double switch, despite managing in the NL for six seasons. You can get away with being bad at the tactical part as long as you can keep a grip on the clubhouse — but boy, did he lose the clubhouse. Remember when the Cards' president of baseball operations trashed Dexter Fowler at the same time Fowler went on paternity leave, and then Fowler wouldn’t speak to Matheny but was too nice to outright call him an asshole? Players don’t like being called soft or treated like shit by their boss … kind of like people at regular jobs.

This prize is in Kansas City now, folks. He’s also giving advice to people in youth sports, which I would not recommend you take.

Your Enemy’s 2019 record

59-103. They were in a race to the bottom with the Tigers, and 42 games back from the Twins.

I’m gonna just leave some things here that sum up the 2019 Royals

And then this dumb shit where Ned Yost almost has a stroke on the field because his guy “only threw a changeup.”

Brad Keller is still mad as hell about the whole bat flip. Maybe if he hadn’t been such a big baby at the time, we wouldn't still be talking about it. I don’t know what he’s actually mad about at this point: the bat flip, being called a “punk ass n-word,” or because he’s a big dumb asshole. My best guess is that it's some combination of all three.

Tim Anderson doesn’t GAF and is getting some laughs out of the whole thing:

Enemy pitchers

Anyone who hasn’t tested positive for COVID. Seriously, it’s like the Royals went and licked all the of the Marlins. Wear your masks and wash your hands, people.

Danny Duffy and Brady Singer made appearances in the recent series vs. the Tigers. Mike Montgomery could get a start, but he’s been on the 10-day IL. Looks like probable pitchers could be Ronald Bolaños, Kyle Zimmer, and Duffy. Harvey was just signed to a minor-league deal, so he may be called up at some point during the regular season because why not.

Sox probables are Dallas Keuchel, Gio González, and Dylan Cease. Keuchel was the only one in the rotation who had a strong start the first run through this season, and has a 3.79 lifetime ERA in Kauffman. González is going to make a long-awaited start for the Sox after bouncing in and out of the org and filling in for Reynaldo López last Sunday, and hopefully Cease’s start goes better in Kansas City than it did in Cleveland.

What sucks for the Sox

The Sox are off to a ROUGH start this season. Granted, the South Siders started off the season against the top two teams in the ALC, but first-inning problems coupled with quiet bats does not a good start make. You can either have middle-of-the-road pitching or weak offense, but you cannot have both and think fans aren’t going to lose their collective minds.

Sox fans have held out hope for 2020 to be The Year where the Sox are Contenders for Something Other Than a Competition for Third Place. The additions of Yasmani Grandal and Keuchel in the offseason was touted as huge gets and everyone was still excited, even with a COVID-shortened season. And then the season actually started.

So yeah, Sox fans are a bit angry on Twitter right now.

What might not suck for the Sox

The hate for the Royals may propel the team forward and give them enough motivation to bring some strong all-around play. The big fat question mark over the Royals bullpen can work in our favor, as Kansas City is having to dip into pitching that isn’t exactly tried-and-true at the major league level. Plus, one thing Matheny has working against him is he's not exactly being a brilliant tactician, so we can’t expect him to get bogged down in such creativity as lefty/righty lineups and managing for a shift.

The Royals are only slightly ahead of the Sox in the standings, so as long we turn it around and start playing baseball like professionals there’s no reason not to take the series.

Hear it from Sox fans

Husband: They’re fucking goons. Maybe they should be a hockey team instead, with how they try to start fights.

Everyone at SSHP: They hate fun.