What a strange trip it’s been for the Royals and their fans

The Royals flew home late in the night with a chance to clinch a spot in the World Series at home this week and, after 29 years, are you ready for that? Is baseball ready for that?

The sport’s best story keeps getting better, one late-inning win at a time, in a way that somehow makes it feel both more and less real with every wild night. They are supposed to be nervous here, on this stage, the little upstart not used to playing with the baseball world’s full attention but instead they’re treating it like a bachelor party.

The anxiety of the moment is there, of course. Has to be. But the Royals are burying it by having the time of their lives. Before games, the clubhouse becomes something like a night club, except with Red Bull instead of whiskey. Jarrod Dyson is in charge of the music, which usually gets cranked to 12, and darned if the coaches don’t sometimes wonder if the team is ready to play but who can argue with these results?

The Royals beat the Orioles with another late-inning rally, this time 6-4 on Saturday. They lead the American League Championship Series two games to none, and of the 24 teams to win the first two games since the LCS went to best-of-seven in 1985, only three have lost the series. None that won the first two on the road have lost the series.

“It’d be foolish to say I’ve ever had more fun than this,” says Billy Butler, who has been in this organization longer than any other player.

The Royals won their sixth straight game of this postseason, and the details are basically the same as the others — excellent defense and baserunning, a lockdown performance by the back of the bullpen, and someone new coming up with the big hit.

This time it was Alcides Escobar doubling down the right-field line, scoring the miniature track star Terrance Gore. Escobar scored another run on a single by Lorenzo Cain, who is taking a star turn of his own in this series and postseason but, really, couldn’t you have just switched around those names and been describing one of these other wins?

“This is what you dream of when you’re a kid,” says Greg Holland, the former college walk-on turned All-Star closer.

This Royals season has always been like a movie. The characters are all there, from the backup outfielder who shaved ZOOM into the side of his head to the faux-hawked first baseman who invited fans to drink on what ended up a $15,000 bar tab.

The drama has been there, too. Bad enough in May to fire the hitting coach, good enough in August to be the hottest team in baseball, and now the group that ended the longest playoff drought in North American sports and captivating the baseball world with six of the wildest playoff wins you’ll ever see. So this has always had the parts of some kind of movie, but now this is less an underdog story and more like the kind of movie with nothing but explosions and chase scenes.

Some of this stuff looks like CGI, too, and not just Butler’s stolen base the other night. So much of it makes so very little sense. The Royals have scored 12 runs in the ninth inning or later in these six playoff wins. They scored eight runs or more just three times in their last 92 regular-season games, and have done it three times in the postseason.

Mike Moustakas — demoted, you remember, in May — never hit four home runs in any six-game stretch in the big leagues but has now done it in the playoffs. No Royals player has ever hit more home runs in one postseason, and now more than ever it’s entirely possible Moustakas has another series and a half to go.

There are practical reasons you can use to explain some of this, and around the game you can find people to try. The Royals never scored a lot of runs, so they were used to close games and having to win with execution and imagination. Maybe that gets at why they’ve been so good in the postseason.

They are, generally, a team made up of free-swingers who are much more comfortable against power fastballs than off-speed stuff. Most bullpens have a lot of mid-90s fastballs in them, so maybe that gets at why the Royals have been good late in these games.

This is a group that’s mostly on the rising side of the career arc with the comfort of knowing they’ve already rewritten their franchise’s proud history, so maybe that gets at why they’re able to play so loose in a postseason after appearing tight at certain points in the regular season.

But that all sounds like nonsense, like made-up explanations to answer questions we never thought we’d answer to interpret results we never thought we’d see. Part of the draw with following a team is being paid back with moments like this, and it makes a lot more sense to enjoy the ride than try to push some flimsy explanation.

After all, this is a playoff run to within smelling distance of the World Series that’s included Butler stealing a base, Moustakas laying down a bunt single, the tying run in extra-innings scoring on a 40-foot chopper, and a 21-year-old who pitched against Dartmouth this spring getting key outs.

A team that struggled so hard to score runs and hit homers has now swept the American League’s top scoring team, and beaten the league’s best home-run team with four home runs in two games.

If you count the Wild Card Game, the Royals are now into their third postseason series and still haven’t lost. They would clinch a spot in the World Series with two wins in five games, including the next three at home. The team that was left for dead at least a few times in the regular season is now two good nights from the sport’s biggest stage.

Even inside the clubhouse, there are guys shaking their heads at everything that’s happened. Sometimes, you can’t explain it. Sometimes, you should just enjoy it.

This story was originally published October 11, 2014 at 9:39 PM with the headline "What a strange trip it’s been for the Royals and their fans."