Royals 'Tragic Number' For Playoff Elimination Leaves No Room For Error
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The Kansas City Royals certainly were hoping for a more dramatic final two weeks of the 2025 season.
For the last month, this week's series with the Seattle Mariners was billed as a chance for the Royals to seize control of the American League Wild Card race. Instead, Kansas City is hoping for a sweep and a ton of help to even remain on the periphery of the playoff picture.
The Royals sit at 75-75, 6 1/2 games back of the Houston Astros for the third and final wild card spot. With 12 games to play, the odds of back-to-back playoff berths in Kansas City have fallen to about 0.1%, according to any projections site you check. But how much more needs to happen to officially sink the ship>
Royals' "tragic number" is six with 12 games to play
More fortunate teams have "magic numbers" at this time of year, but the Royals have a "tragic number" of six. Any combination of six Astros wins and Royals losses would officially eliminate Kansas City from postseason contention.
Even if the Astros were to go in the tank, Kansas City's odds would still be extremely low. The Texas Rangers and Cleveland Guardians are also each 3 1/2 games ahead of the Royals in the standings. Kansas City owns the tiebreaker with Texas, but not with Cleveland.
In addition to sweeping the Mariners, the Royals would either need the Astros to either lose the rest of their games this week, or win all of them, as they play five more against the Rangers and Mariners. Houston took a 6-3 win in the series opener against Texas on Monday night.
Then, as the Royals move on to finish the schedule against the Toronto Blue Jays, Los Angeles Angels, and Athletics, they would need the Detroit Tigers to beat up on the Guardians, and one of those top two AL West teams would have to keep cratering.
In other words, it's not looking even the slightest bit promising. But until the final horn sounds, Kansas City must keep fighting.
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Jackson Roberts is a former Division III All-Region DH who now writes and talks about sports for a living. A Bay Area native and a graduate of Swarthmore College and the Newhouse School at Syracuse University, Jackson makes his home in North Jersey. He grew up rooting for the Red Sox, Patriots, and Warriors, and he recently added the Devils to his sports fandom mosaic. For all business/marketing inquiries regarding "Kansas City Royals On SI," please reach out to Scott Neville: scott@wtfsports.org
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