​MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA – JULY 30: Matt Strahm #25 of the Kansas City Royals reacts to giving up a walk-off, grand slam to Kody Clemens #2 of the Minnesota Twins (not pictured) in the ninth inning at Target Field on July 30, 2026 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The Twins defeated the Royals 4-3. (Photo by David Berding/Getty Images) | Getty Images I remember when the internet wasn’t everywhere. When I was in high school in the aughts, you had to go to a computer to log onto Myspace or Facebook or to browse ESPN. In my freshman year of college at the tail end of the decade, my school didn’t even have WiFi in the dorms—you had to physically plug into the ethernet ports. Connecting while traveling abroad meant buying a physical, temporary SIM card or a burner phone. And airplanes? Forget about it. That’s what the seatback screen is for. Nowadays, that’s not the case. On our most recent trip abroad, we had fast and reliable 5G service via a digital eSIM card. On the flight back, the plane had satellite internet via Starlink that I measured at a ludicrous-for-30,000-feet-in-the-air 138 megabits per second. Two weeks ago, we set off on a family vacation: an Alaskan cruise. Internet was, naturally, available for purchase on a per device basis. But I didn’t buy the internet package. For the first time in over a decade, I didn’t have access to any Royals information whatsoever. No scores. No news. No social media posts. And let me tell you: it was bliss. Make no mistake; I still love the Royals. I love baseball. I enjoy writing for a passionate audience. However, this season, and really the last few years, has worn me down. And the core reason, I’ve come to realize, is just how many Royals games just haven’t mattered in the standings for over the past decade. Ever since the Golden Age Royals peaked in 2015 by winning a World Series, baseball in Kansas City has been a struggle. Teams have been bad early, and they’ve been bad often. And with the huge number of games every year, the deluge of meaningless contests has grated against my psyche like the relentless river smoothing out the rock. I wanted to quantify just how bad it’s been over these last 11 years. While games played mathematically eliminated from contention might be technically correct, it doesn’t cover those games in June and July and August whose outcomes don’t change the trajectory of the team whatsoever, and it doesn’t cover those games in September where a decent team is just far enough out of realistic hope for wins to really make an impact. So I chose a big round number: 10 games behind first place in the American League Central. I took a look at when each team first got there, how many they played in a given season, and the percentage of games played 10 games behind. The results are harrowing. The Kansas City Royals have fallen to 10 or more games behind first place every yearin the last 11 seasons at least once. In total, they’ve played 1,626 games over that time