Kansas City Royals Displaying Offensive Strengths and Flaws in ALCS

By Doug LaCerte @DLaC on October 12, 2014

Mike Moustakas and Lorenzo Cain are now household names for baseball fans all across the country, if not the globe. Who could have dreamed that up in either of the two moments in the regular season when the Kansas City Royals were down seven games in the AL Central?

Cain had a four-hit night, stole a bag off the strong-armed Baltimore Orioles catcher Caleb Joseph, and continued to play some of the greatest defense this sport has ever put on display. Moose tied the game with his fourth long ball of the 2014 postseason, and then perfectly exemplified this strange-but-effective Royals offense by bunting the go-ahead run into scoring position in the ninth inning.

Both of them, in unique and thrilling style, are building their legends as true October heroes.

A win is a win, especially one that brings the Royals home to Kauffman Stadium as an unbeaten playoff team with an unblemished spirit. Still, it wasn’t all good news in Baltimore, especially on Saturday. The abrupt exit of Game 2 starter Yordano Ventura stands out as the most frightening of KC’s current concerns, but skipper Ned Yost told the press after the game that Ventura is expected to be ready for his next start.

The two glaring holes in KC’s lineup right now should be more worrisome for Royals fans, and could come into play in this series far more immediately than Venture’s next start.

Omar Infante is .167 in 24 playoff at-bats, and Salvador Perez is hitting and .148 in 27 at-bats this postseason. Sure, Alex Gordon struck out four times in Game 2, but his four RBIs in Game 1 remind us that he won’t be ineffective for long. Perez and Infante haven’t been effective at all in the postseason, except of course for Salvy’s one poke down the left field line to win KC that legendary Wild Card game.

In a sea of sudden optimism, watching Perez hack wildly at pitches a foot out of the zone in key moments of the game is one of very few causes of consternation in Kansas City right now. It would only make sense in this thrillingly nonsensical playoff run for him to then be the next Royal to step up big. Starting on Monday, both he and Infante will get their chance to do just that in front of a roaring Kauffman crowd.

Will it be the 23 year-old heart of the team who turns it around, or the understated, underperforming veteran in Infante who gets it done in the next big-time playoff moment for Kansas City?

Doug LaCerte is a writer for www.RantSports.com. Follow him on Twitter @DLaC67, “like” him on Facebook and add him to your network on Google.