Garcia was back in the Royals lineup on Tuesday for the first time in almost a month, and his words after the game showed how much the wait had worn on him.
For the first time since August, third baseman Maikel Garcia was in the Kansas City Royals lineup on Tuesday night in Houston, and the team did not ease him back in at all.
Garcia batted cleanup in a 4-2 loss to the Astros after being activated from the 10-day injured list earlier in the day, and while the result went the wrong way, getting him on the field again might have been the best thing Kansas City got out of the night.
The playoff race left town a while ago, but nights like this one still tell the team something about itself.
A Quiet Night
The game itself belonged to Houston.
Shortstop Jeremy Peña hit solo home runs in the first and third innings, and designated hitter Yordan Alvarez added a two-run shot in the fifth that made it 4-1.
Starter Michael Wacha gave the Royals six innings and allowed four runs, while Houston starter Hunter Brown struck out 10 Kansas City hitters in just five innings of work.
The Royals scored when catcher Carter Jensen doubled home left fielder Isaac Collins in the fifth and first baseman Vinnie Pasquantino lifted his 12th home run of the season in the sixth, but the bats went silent from there.
Reliever Lucas Erceg, back with the club this week, threw a perfect seventh in his return.
A Hard Year
Garcia went 0-for-3 with a walk in his first game back, but the box score was never going to be the story.
A left hand injury cost him 46 games from late June to the middle of August, and a left hamstring strain sent him right back to the injured list four days after he returned, so he has played in just 74 games while hitting .266 in a season that began with much higher hopes.
None of it followed the plan, and almost none of it was within his control.
He did not hide from any of it after the game.
"It's been a hard year for me. I like to play baseball every single day," Garcia said.
He added that he feels great even if he is not certain he is all the way back, and manager Matt Quatraro said he was proud of how Garcia worked to return from an injury that once looked season-ending.
What the Last Two Weeks Are For
The Royals are long out of the division race and are on the brink of wild-card elimination, so these final days are about 2027.
Jensen keeps building a case for a long-term commitment behind the plate, shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. keeps representing the franchise well on and off the field, and now Garcia gets two healthy weeks to remind the front office what a settled third base spot looks like.
Kansas City plays in Houston again on Wednesday and Thursday before finishing the road trip in Pittsburgh, and every Garcia at-bat down the stretch counts for more than the standings suggest.
A lost season can still end well, and in Kansas City it would look exactly like this, with the third baseman moving the way he used to and the young core taking its final reps together.
