BALTIMORE — Adley Rutschman and Bobby Witt Jr. were the top two picks of baseball’s 2019 amateur draft, back when the Baltimore Orioles and Kansas City Royals were among the worst teams in the sport.
“It’s pretty crazy,” Witt said Monday. “Now we’re matching up in the postseason.”
Rutschman and the Orioles host Witt and the Royals in an AL Wild Card Series of two teams with 100-loss seasons not far back in the rearview mirror. For Kansas City, it was last season, and their 30-win improvement ranks as one of the most impressive turnarounds over the past half-century.
Game 1 is Tuesday at Camden Yards. The winner of the best-of-three series faces the New York Yankees in the Division Series.
“This is something I’ve dreamed about since I was a kid,” said Witt, who hit .332 to win the AL batting title. “Going into the last offseason, this was the goal and we’re here now. We just got to keep working.”
The Royals went from 56-106 to 86-76, enough for the second wild card. Only five teams made a bigger leap from one season to the next, a group that includes Baltimore from 2021 to ’22.
That was after the Orioles lost more than 100 games in three consecutive full seasons. But with Rutschman, Gunnar Henderson and other prospects resulting from those dark days, they won the AL East a year ago and got a taste of the playoffs - a Division Series defeat to the eventual champion Texas.
Henderson hopes he and his teammates are more “battle-tested” this time around.
“Last year’s experience of what that felt like at the end when we did have this kind of fairytale season and the quick exit, I’m hoping that these guys still have that taste in their mouth going into this postseason,” manager Brandon Hyde said. “I think they do.”
Late-season struggles
The parallels are not just historic. The Royals and Orioles at times this season were dominant, but each had second-half struggles that endangered reaching October.
Kansas City had two separate seven-game skids over the past five weeks. Baltimore lost 11 of 16 games from Sept. 4-22.
“There’s very rarely a team that goes through a season without some sort of a rough patch,” Royals manager Matt Quatraro said. “But whether that’s two games, four games, seven games - whatever your losing streaks are - these guys in this clubhouse are so resilient. They bounce back. They really do the best job I’ve ever seen of turning the page from one day to the next.”
The Royals join NL East champion Philadelphia as the only teams to go into this year’s playoffs under .500 over their prior 10 games. The Orioles were at least able to finish 4-2 to recapture some swagger.
“I think we fought ourselves a lot the second half of playing good baseball and then kind of struggling for a little bit,” Game 1 starter Corbin Burnes said. “To see how we played this last week was good. We got the offense swinging the bats, pitching we threw the ball well. It’s a good momentum builder going into the postseason.”
Aces on the mound
The 4:08 p.m. start time and the markets involved do not make this a marquee series, but the pitching matchup in the opener is certainly popcorn-worthy with a couple of All-Stars getting the nod: Burnes and Cole Ragans. The Orioles have not decided on starters for later games but going with Burnes in the opener was a no-brainer after the 2021 NL Cy Young Award winner had a 1.20 ERA in five September starts.
“He’s a guy that can beat anybody on any night,” Hyde said. “If Corbin Burnes is pitching, you expect to win that night and that’s how our guys feel.”
The Royals feel the same way about Ragans, the ace of their strong rotation. Seth Lugo is expected to take the mound for Game 2 on Wednesday.
“They trust me, so you just put in the work behind the scenes, prepare the best I can prepare and give our team the best chance I can to win a ballgame,” Ragans said. “That’s all my goal’s been all year is just to win. Nothing changes just because it’s the playoffs. Same routine, same mindset going in and go from there.”
Injury questions
Baltimore got three key players back late in the regular season: first baseman Ryan Mountcastle, third baseman Ramón Urías and infielder Jordan Westburg. Kansas City is still hoping first baseman Vinnie Pasquantino can return soon after breaking his right thumb Aug. 29.
“He’s been pushing it pretty hard since the surgery,” Quatraro said before pumping the brakes about how limited Pasquantino might be. “He will not be able to play first base if he is cleared at all.”
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