The Kansas City Royals (89-63) have been the best team in the American League for most of the 2015 MLB season, but on Thursday night they officially achieved their ultimate goal.
Kansas City secured its first division title since 1985 with a 10-4 victory over the Seattle Mariners. The achievement ended the MLB's longest drought between division titles and also gave the Royals their first AL Central title (they were in the AL West back in 1985).
This is the second consecutive year this Royals team has ended some sort of longstanding dry spell. In 2014 they made the postseason (as a wild-card team) and reached the World Series for the first time since 1985 after 18 consecutive seasons of never finishing better than third in their division.
The Royals are currently 11 games ahead of the second-place Minnesota Twins and 13.5 games in front of the third-place Cleveland Indians. If they can maintain consistency in their final 10 games, they'll be the No. 1 seed in the AL barring a big run from the Toronto Blue Jays, who sit two games behind Kansas City.
Nonetheless, it was a big night for the Royals. Johnny Cueto, who has been struggling mightily since being acquired before the trade deadline, earned his first victory since August 15 after surrendering three earned runs on seven hits and two walks over seven innings of work.
On the offensive side of the ball, there was a balanced effort among the team's bats. Lorenzo Cain scored one run and drove in two; Ben Zobrist scored three runs; Eric Hosmer hit a solo homer and scored two runs; Mike Moustakas added three RBIs (one solo homer) and scored three runs; Alex Rios batted in two runs; Alcides Escobar had an RBI; and Alex Gordon scored a run.
"I've felt all along we would win this division," manager Ned Yost said, via The Associated Press. "I've got my eyes on a much bigger prize. This is the first step of it."
Every time the Royals won their division ('76, '77, '78, '80, '84 and '85) they at least made it to the ALCS. We'll see if they can make another deep postseason run in 2015.
