Royals were devastated, then motivated, by 2014 World Series loss

With Alex Gordon tantalizingly on third base and Sal Perez at the plate with two outs in the ninth inning of Game 7 of the World Series last year, Mike Moustakas stood in the on-deck circle.

He felt the beauty of a moment he’d rehearsed for and anticipated much of his life, the sort of thing he’d announce to himself just like thousands of other kids do but few ever realize.

“ ‘I’m about to have a chance to win Game 7 of the World Series,’ ” he thought to himself. “Kind of a dream come true.”

Then San Francisco’s Madison Bumgarner put an exclamation point on his superhuman postseason by inducing Perez to foul out and and strand Gordon, who had been stopped by third- base coach Mike Jirschele despite what manager Ned Yost correctly called “ludicrous” suggestions otherwise.

With Gordon marooned there the Royals’ magical, mystical revival season ended in a 3-2 loss.

Instantly, fans at Kauffman Stadium were chanting, “Let’s Go, Royals” and about any observer could appreciate anew the redemptive wonder of sports.

Gordon, drafted into the organization when it was losing 100 games a year, said he felt bummed out but walked off the field looking around and appreciating all that had happened to make this a special ride.

“Don’t hang your heads,” he urged teammates amid hugs in the clubhouse.

But there was no stopping that.

To the Royals, this was no conciliatory tale of how far the cute little underdog had climbed back after 28-plus excruciating years without a playoff appearance.

To many, it was devastating to have scrapped and scraped to the pinnacle only to tumble back to Earth with no way to know if they’d ever breathe that same rarefied air again — as they will be starting Tuesday against the New York Mets.

This wasn’t like the 4-minute-mile barrier being broken, assuring more would be ushered in, or that pathway to the leak in your basement that just opens up more and more.

Maybe it was a transformative season that would take and have some lasting traction.

Maybe it wasn’t and a precious, fleeting chance had been squandered.

“You’re trying to climb Mount Everest, all right, and it’s a long haul,” Yost said. “It’s a grueling haul, six weeks of spring training, 162 games.

“And then you get into the playoffs, and you take that next step. And then you win, and you take that next step, and teams are getting knocked off and they’re rolling all the way back to the bottom of the hill and then they’ve got to start again.

“And you get to the … World Series, four steps from getting to the top of that mountain, and you get knocked all the way back to the bottom.”

“All that work,” he added, “really comes down to nothing.”

So in the “horrible” days afterward, Yost “moped.”

He went back to Georgia, locked the gate to his farm and worked the land and hunted and figured it would get better before long.

“It never got better,” he said.

That state of grieving could be traced throughout the organization.

A drained Moustakas remembers feeling as if he just didn’t have any life in him for days.

First baseman Eric Hosmer tried to withdraw, not wanting to hear or see anything about it.

Pitcher Danny Duffy said he was left with one of the most empty feelings he’s ever had.

Hitting coach Dale Sveum said he didn’t know what he was supposed to feel other than that the Royals didn’t win, but he conveyed his contempt for being runner-up.

“You’re proud of the American League pennant ring,” he said, “but I have a hard time wearing it because it just reminds me that we lost.”

Pitching coach Dave Eiland said he was in the throes of “borderline depression” and then suggested that was a little strong … only to add, “I drove back to Florida the next day. It took me two days to drive back, and it was miserable. … It stung all winter. It left a mark for a long time.”

After the last out, outfielder Jarrod Dyson dawdled in the dugout to watch the Giants celebrate and thought, “That’s supposed to be us.”

He wondered briefly why they had to get there if it was just to lose.

Then he went into a hushed clubhouse and started angrily throwing stuff in his bag and slamming doors.

“I felt like a guy who went out on a date and got dumped by his girl,” he said. “Heartbroken, like, ‘What am I going to do next?’ ”

In his emotional gridlock, he settled on … nothing.

“I stayed in my bed; I couldn’t move,” he said. “Like, I really couldn’t move if I wanted to.”

Pitcher Luke Hochevar, who missed last postseason because of an arm injury but was enmeshed with the team, anyway, said he still feels “the burn.”

“I mean, the world’s watching,” he said. “This is the big stage that everybody dreams of. …

“I don’t think you ever get over that. I don’t think you do.”

Maybe it’s true that even beating the Mets wouldn’t make that singular anguish vanish.

But the inverse might be true, too:

The Royals wouldn’t be back here without the infusion of experience and motivation they derived from the way last season ended.

In the end, the albatross actually helped them soar.

The loss assured that contentment or complacency weren’t going to be factors in The Season After, and it brewed a sense of purpose that took hold among players after their initial shutdowns.

Hosmer went home to Florida a day or so later and mostly was trying to sulk. But as he found himself doing nothing, it turned out, his thoughts constantly defaulted to Game 7.

It occurred to him that he might as well get busy getting on with things, so less than a week after the World Series, he was into his training routine.

“For me, that was the best way to flush that out,” he said.

Moustakas went from not not being fired up about anything and sitting around watching TV a lot “just because” to obsessing over unfinished business.

The only way to fix the feeling, or at least soothe it, he determined, was to go win the World Series.

That became a generally unspoken but evident theme in spring training, where Moustakas arrived customarily a few weeks early only to find he was one of the last there with all “champing at the bit.”

Infielder Christian Colon remembers seeing in everybody’s eyes how eager they were to get started and follow up on the really true belief in themselves they had come to know.

Duffy recalled having the sense that their “sorrows” had been put aside, that general manager Dayton Moore had addressed all offseason needs and that his brothers were ready to accentuate the considerable positives again.

Sveum, meanwhile, wasn’t thinking about anything so touch-feely but had a sense something crucial had to be done to reset.

“We needed to come out and send a message right away that we’re here to win this thing this year,” he said, “and it wasn’t a fluke last year.”

So the Royals started 7-0 on their way to building a double-digit divisional lead by Aug. 8, a lead that essentially held up the rest of the way even as they dipped and retooled for the postseason.

They’d finish the regularseason with the most wins (95) since 1980 and get back to the World Series for a second year in a row after making it just twice before in the first 45 years of their existence.

Which is nice and all.

But ultimately hollow without finishing the dream, as the Royals learned last year.

Kids, after all, don’t broadcast their lives with scenarios of themselves playing in the ninth inning of Game 7 of the World Series and losing.

This story was originally published October 26, 2015 at 6:54 PM with the headline "Royals were devastated, then motivated, by 2014 World Series loss."