Good morning.

Here are several links from the past week that will make your Monday at the office a bit more bearable:

  • The division series matchups are set: In the American League, the Angels, who have the No. 1 seed, will play the victor of the wild-card game featuring the A’s and the Royals, while the Orioles (2) and Tigers (3) will hook up. In the Senior Circuit, the top-seeded Nationals will play the winner of the Giants–Pirates wild-card game, while the Dodgers (2) and Cardinals (3) will duke it out. The ALDS begins play on Thursday and the NLDS commences on Friday.
  • On his blog, former Kansas City Star columnist Joe Posnanski toasts the Royals, who have earned their first postseason berth in 29 years:
The drought wasn’t the thing. Yes, it had been 29 years since the Royals last reached the postseason — and baseball has completely turned upside down in those 29 years. The game has made the divisions smaller, added wildcards, rearranged the schedule, made it all but impossible for a team to NOT go to the postseason at least every now and again. The Royals would not go. But the drought wasn’t the thing — it was the hopelessness surrounding the drought. The Royals did not come close to the postseason. The Royals did things so mind boggling that the postseason seemed as far away as flying cars and trips to another galaxy. …
I think a player named Ken Harvey, a 6-foot-2, 240 pound bopper from Beverly Hills (via the University of Nebraska) who went to high school, at least briefly, with Angelina Jolie. Harvey had this odd batting style where he would slide his right hand over his left during the swing and then employ a massive upper cut, but he hit well enough one year to be the Royals lone All Star representative. Still, it was his penchant for being in the wrong place at the wrong time that marked his career. He was hit in the back with an outfield throw. He threw the ball into a pitcher’s face from point-blank range. He got tangled up in the tarp trying to do something or other. Harvey was not a comic figure, though, he was a proud young man who just kept having bad things happen to him, not unlike Royals fans themselves.
The Royals, those Royals, are going to the playoffs.
I think of a time when the Royals decided to buy Johnny Damon a house in order, I suppose, to instill loyalty and make him want to stay in Kansas City when he became too expensive. Damon ran kicking and screaming from Kansas City at first opportunity anyway, probably when he realized that for a few million dollars extra he could buy his own house.
The Royals, those Royals, are going to the playoffs.
Nothing was easy about this season. These Royals are not a great team. They are often not a good team. They will not hit even 100 home runs this season — the first American League team in 20 years to fail to reach triple digits. They are ninth in the league in runs scored, just thirty or so runs ahead of last place. The calling card is pitching but they don’t have one starter who you could yet call a great pitcher.
But, dammit, that team never stopped plodding, never stopped toiling — run scoring for them is like manual labor, but they dribbled their singles and yanked their doubles and stole some bases and found a way to dig enough runs out of the dirt. Their starters, young and old, pitched to contact and relied on a frisky defense and somehow managed to give the bullpen enough leads. And that bullpen, that amazing three-man bullpen of Kelvin Herrera, Wade Davis and Greg Holland, shut the games down.
  • Do you need further evidence that Mike Trout could leap tall buildings in a single bound . . . provided the FAA first gave him flight clearance? On Friday evening, the 23-year-old superstar showed off to Safeco Park attendees a no-look, leaping catch:

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  • Now let me know what’s more fun to watch in this video: Brandon Barnes’ running leap above the Petco Park fence to rob Rene Rivera of a home run or his reaction afterward, taunting Padres fans who had been razzing him moments earlier:

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  • For those who didn’t excel in their high-school physics course, imagine if your teacher had been considerate enough to incorporate baseball into the learning process? Here’s an example from the Hardball Times’ David Kagan:
A spinning baseball does amazing things, as every good pitcher and frustrated hitter knows. The force exerted on the ball when it spins through the air is called the Magnus force. The topspin on a curveball creates a downward Magnus force, causing the ball to drop compared to the trajectory of a non-spinning ball. Similarly, the backspin on a fastball creates an upward Magnus force, causing the ball to drop less than a non-spinning ball.
  • Via the Chicago Tribune’s Colleen Kane: The White Sox honored its longtime first baseman and fan favorite Paul “Paulie” Konerko in a ceremony at U.S. Cellular Field on Saturday evening that included the unveiling of a statue featuring the 16-year veteran in a fist-pumping pose copied from his reaction after hitting a grand slam in the 2005 World Series.

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That’s it. Have a walk-off week!