Nine Games Wonder

Let’s start with the obligatory:

How many times have the Royals won in a row?

Okay, now that we have that out of the way, let’s talk about just how the Royals won their ninth straight game. The fact that I’m even writing that sentence is still blowing my mind, but here we are, and the Royals haven’t lost since Saturday, August 15. Even that day, they could have won, but Reid Detmers was outstanding, and they lost 1-0. We could easily be talking about 11 in a row instead of nine, but we’ll have to settle for what we’ve got and talk about winning 10 of 11. Last night was interesting, though, because it certainly wasn’t clean, but some unlikely heroes stepped up.

For example, I’m not sure they would have won that game without Tyler Tolbert, who entered the game in the bottom of the fifth inning when Michael Massey hurt himself while making an excellent play to get the second out against Nathan Lukes. He was falling backward as he threw, and his head hit the turf hard and bounced up. The Royals say he was feeling okay after the game, but with all the precautions around head injuries, I don’t think there was any chance he'd stay in the game. We obviously are hoping for the best, but it is interesting how Tolbert stepped up. It wasn’t quite like John Rave the other day when he came in for Jac Caglianone, but Tolbert played a huge role.