To examine the data, skim over the analytics and listen to the brains that have firmly entrenched themselves in every single major league front office, clutch does not exist.
It is not tangible. It is not readily quantifiable. Players do not perform better, over time, in certain situations. Other players do not fold, over time, in the same ones.
"Clutch" does not exist.
But then there are the Kansas City Royals, a team that has come from behind to win seven postseason games this October, and over the last two postseasons one that has used that improbable and usually ineffective strategy to earn 10 of their 21 total playoff victories. The Royals have a patent on late-inning heroics lately, from their dominant bullpen throwing up zero after zero to their defense saving hides to the offense finding ways to take extra bases and plate winning runs.
That was the formula they again used Halloween night to come back from a two-run deficit, taking Game 4 of the World Series 5-3 over the New York Mets at Citi Field. The win gave the Royals a 3-1 lead in the best-of-seven series, with all three victories being pulled out after they had fallen behind.
Comeback Kids did it again! Royals' 7th come-from-behind postseason win. #TakeTheCrown #Royals pic.twitter.com/tEbQqJdl65
— Jason Lamb (@jasonlambkc) November 1, 2015
"That's just what our team does. We feel like if we can keep the game close, we're going to find a way to win it," Royals manager Ned Yost told reporters in his postgame press conference. "Our bullpen is so dynamic, they give us a chance to win those type of games.
"It's a team that just looks for a little crack. If we find a little crack, they're going to make something happen. It's amazing how they do that. And they do that in a number of ways."
That they do.
Years of living at or near the bottom of the major league standings earned the Royals a flood of high draft picks. And because they had little to play for when they did find themselves with a bona fide major league star, they were able to trade him for young players they deemed future stars.
Now, many of those players are the core of this dynamic Royals roster. While it might not be consistently capable of shutting down opponents with starting pitching or thumping them with overwhelming power, it plays the best defense of any team in the sport while not striking out and pitching with uncanny deft out of the bullpen.
The bullpen is the highlight of the list. Often a mistakenly overlooked part of many clubs, the Royals paid special attention to their group and built it to throw hard and with an ability to strand runners. Over the last two seasons combined, only the Pittsburgh Pirates have a better bullpen ERA and left-on-base rate than Kansas City, according to Fangraphs.
And now, a year after posting a 2.74 ERA and 70 strikeouts in 62.1 playoff innings, Kansas City's relievers have a 2.76 ERA with 83 strikeouts in 58.2 innings while the only soft spot has been them allowing nine home runs, though they have gone through the Houston Astros and Toronto Blue Jays, the two top power-hitting teams in the majors based on home runs.
On Saturday, the relievers gave the Royals five innings of one-run production. And closer Wade Davis, arguably the best reliever in the sport with his major league-leading 0.97 ERA over the last two seasons, threw two innings to close out the Mets and put the Royals on the brink of the World Series title that escaped them last fall.
"He's the best," Royals left fielder Alex Gordon told MLB Network after the game. "He's been doing it for two years, and he just steps up in big situations and gets it done. He did it again tonight."
But a team needs to score to come from behind to win, and in the fateful three-run eighth inning that led them to the victory, the Royals drew two walks and did not strike out once. They capitalized on a fielding error and got a couple of singles to plate their runs before handing the ball to Davis for a second inning.
During the regular season, the Royals were the only major league team not to strike out 1,000 times, and they also had the second-fewest walks in the majors. And with the game on the line, they continued to do what they typically do well and they stepped up a part of their game they typically do not rely on.
"But the most important thing is they put the ball in play," Yost told reporters. "They make things happen by putting the ball in play, and it's just a phenomenal group."
Most of what the Royals do can be measured, quantified. It has a number that correlates to their success. We know why and how they win. We know where they succeed and fail.
But what they seem to do during the postseason, that is a little less certain. They win when you do not expect them to win. They force you to never give up on them because recent history tells us we'd be stupid to do such a thing, and time after time they prove the faith to be justified.
They show that maybe "clutch" actually does exist.
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