Royals complete remarkable turnaround, making playoffs coming off 106-loss season

ATLANTA (AP) — The Kansas City Royals completed one of the most remarkable turnarounds in major league history Friday night, clinching an American League wild card despite a 3-0 loss to the Atlanta Braves.

A year ago, the Royals matched a franchise record with 106 losses. Now, they are headed to the postseason for the first time since winning the 2015 World Series.

“We’re just so proud of everyone,” said shortstop Bobby Witt Jr., the face of the revitalized franchise. “This is just the beginning of something special.”

The celebration was delayed by a masterful performance from Atlanta pitcher Max Fried. But the Royals finally popped the champagne corks in the visitors' clubhouse at Truist Park when the Minnesota Twins were eliminated with a 7-2 loss to the Baltimore Orioles.

“This isn’t how we ideally wanted it,” Witt said. “But we’re here. We did it. We’re so proud of each other. We can’t let one game control our season.”

Led by second-year manager Matt Quatraro, Kansas City is the first team in baseball history to make the playoffs after posting such a dismal mark the previous season.

In fact, since the start of the expansion era in 1961, the Royals are just the third team to advance to the postseason after losing at least 100 games the previous year.

The Twins earned a wild card in 2017 after going 59-103 a year earlier, and the 2020 Florida Marlins qualified for a wild card during the pandemic-shortened 2020 campaign coming off a 57-105 debacle.

The Royals quickly fell on hard times after claiming back-to-back AL pennants in 2014 and ’15 and their first World Series title in 30 years. They had not recorded a winning season since their championship run, losing at least 100 games in three of the past six, and were a total laughingstock just a year ago.

That all changed this season with a team led by Witt, who became the first shortstop in major league history with multiple seasons of at least 30 homers and 30 steals.

“You can’t help but be proud,” general manager J.J. Picollo said. “It was a battle all year long. We overcame a lot of odds.”

The Royals have struggled down the stretch, enduring a pair of seven-game losing streaks.

It didn't stop them in the end.

“We had some adversity here the last month of the season,” Picollo said. “But this is a tough, resilient group and we got through and here we are celebrating this moment.”

Witt tops the majors with 210 hits and a .332 batting average, to go along with 32 homers, 109 RBIs and 31 stolen bases.

Veteran catcher Salvador Perez also is having a huge offensive season with 27 homers and 104 RBIs. The Royals made the playoffs even after losing first baseman Vinnie Pasquantino, who had 97 RBIs before breaking his right thumb and undergoing surgery.

There is a chance Pasquantino could return during the playoffs if the Royals make an extended run.

Amazingly, Picollo didn’t have to break the bank to build a small-market winner.

The players that have led Kansas City to heights not seen in nearly a decade were either on the team last year and just needed a little more time to grow, or were free-agent signings and trade acquisitions that underscored Picollo’s baseball savvy.

Just check out the rotation.

Seth Lugo, who is 16-9 with a 3.03 ERA, signed a modest three-year, $45 million free-agent deal. Michael Wacha signed a similar two-year, $32 million deal and is 13-8 with a 3.35 ERA.

Cole Ragans has contributed 11 wins with 223 strikeouts after being acquired from the Texas Rangers in a trade last season. Brady Singer bounced back from a disappointing 2023, and Michael Lorenzen is 2-0 with a 1.69 ERA in six starts since his arrival just before the trade deadline.

The bullpen has been entirely rebuilt, too, with Lucas Erceg earning 11 saves since the Royals landed him in a trade with Milwaukee.

Owner John Sherman said he was thrilled the fans of Kansas City have a winning team to cheer for again.

“I remember we talked about this a lot, maybe in spring training, that all we want to do is play meaningful baseball in August and September and have a chance to play in October,” Sherman said. “Here we are.”

Nobody seems to be having more fun than Witt, who has put together a historic season after signing an 11-year deal worth $288.7 million to serve as the cornerstone of the franchise.

The son of longtime big league pitcher Bobby Witt is the first player in major league history with multiple 30-30 seasons in his first three years in the majors. Advanced metrics grade him as not only one of baseball’s best defenders but also one of its fastest players.

“He’s the best player in baseball,” Ragans said recently. “A special talent, a special human being."

While fans in Kansas City have seen Witt’s stardom blossoming for several seasons, his coming-out party may have come this summer during the Home Run Derby at Globe Life Field in Arlington, not far from where he grew up in Colleyville, Texas.

Witt reached the finals before losing 14-13 to Teoscar Hernández of the Dodgers in a dramatic showdown that came down to the final swings.

Now, Witt can look forward to an even bigger stage.

The postseason.

AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb

Kansas City Royals pitcher Carlos Hernández throws in the eighth inning of a baseball game against the Atlanta Braves, Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Jason Allen)

Kansas City Royals' Bobby Witt Jr. swings and hits a ball foul in the seventh inning of a baseball game against the Kansas City Royals, Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Jason Allen)

Kansas City Royals shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. speaks with a reporter during a celebration in the locker room after a baseball game against the Atlanta Braves, Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Jason Allen)

Kansas City Royals' Kyle Isbel swings for a called strike in the sixth inning of a baseball game against the Atlanta Braves, Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Jason Allen)

Hall of Fame Kansas City Royals infielder George Brett, left, congratulates pitcher Michael Lorenzen, right, during a celebration in the locker room after a baseball game against the Atlanta Braves, Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Jason Allen)

Kansas City Royals' Bobby Witt Jr. waits for a baseball game against the Atlanta Braves to begin Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Jason Allen)

Kansas City Royals outfielder Dairon Blanco (44) celebrates in the locker room after a baseball game against the Atlanta Braves, Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Jason Allen)

Kansas City Royals' Bobby Witt Jr., lfront eft, and Michael Massey, right, await for their turns at bat in the first inning of a baseball game against the Atlanta Braves, Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Jason Allen)

Hall of Fame Kansas City Royals' infielder George Brett, left, celebrates with pitcher Michael Lorenzen, right, in the locker room after a baseball game against the Atlanta Braves, Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Jason Allen)

Kansas City Royals shortstop Bobby Witt Jr., center has champagne poured on him by teammates during the celebration in the locker room after a baseball game against the Atlanta Braves, Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Jason Allen)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Becky Pepper-Jackson finished third in the discus throw in West Virginia last year though she was in just her first year of high school. Now a 15-year-old sophomore, Pepper-Jackson is aware that her upcoming season could be her last.

West Virginia has banned transgender girls like Pepper-Jackson from competing in girls and women's sports, and is among the more than two dozen states with similar laws. Though the West Virginia law has been blocked by lower courts, the outcome could be different at the conservative-dominated Supreme Court, which has allowed multiple restrictions on transgender people to be enforced in the past year.

The justices are hearing arguments Tuesday in two cases over whether the sports bans violate the Constitution or the landmark federal law known as Title IX that prohibits sex discrimination in education. The second case comes from Idaho, where college student Lindsay Hecox challenged that state's law.

Decisions are expected by early summer.

President Donald Trump's Republican administration has targeted transgender Americans from the first day of his second term, including ousting transgender people from the military and declaring that gender is immutable and determined at birth.

Pepper-Jackson has become the face of the nationwide battle over the participation of transgender girls in athletics that has played out at both the state and federal levels as Republicans have leveraged the issue as a fight for athletic fairness for women and girls.

“I think it’s something that needs to be done,” Pepper-Jackson said in an interview with The Associated Press that was conducted over Zoom. “It’s something I’m here to do because ... this is important to me. I know it’s important to other people. So, like, I’m here for it.”

She sat alongside her mother, Heather Jackson, on a sofa in their home just outside Bridgeport, a rural West Virginia community about 40 miles southwest of Morgantown, to talk about a legal fight that began when she was a middle schooler who finished near the back of the pack in cross-country races.

Pepper-Jackson has grown into a competitive discus and shot put thrower. In addition to the bronze medal in the discus, she finished eighth among shot putters.

She attributes her success to hard work, practicing at school and in her backyard, and lifting weights. Pepper-Jackson has been taking puberty-blocking medication and has publicly identified as a girl since she was in the third grade, though the Supreme Court's decision in June upholding state bans on gender-affirming medical treatment for minors has forced her to go out of state for care.

Her very improvement as an athlete has been cited as a reason she should not be allowed to compete against girls.

“There are immutable physical and biological characteristic differences between men and women that make men bigger, stronger, and faster than women. And if we allow biological males to play sports against biological females, those differences will erode the ability and the places for women in these sports which we have fought so hard for over the last 50 years,” West Virginia's attorney general, JB McCuskey, said in an AP interview. McCuskey said he is not aware of any other transgender athlete in the state who has competed or is trying to compete in girls or women’s sports.

Despite the small numbers of transgender athletes, the issue has taken on outsize importance. The NCAA and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committees banned transgender women from women's sports after Trump signed an executive order aimed at barring their participation.

The public generally is supportive of the limits. An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll conducted in October 2025 found that about 6 in 10 U.S. adults “strongly” or “somewhat” favored requiring transgender children and teenagers to only compete on sports teams that match the sex they were assigned at birth, not the gender they identify with, while about 2 in 10 were “strongly” or “somewhat” opposed and about one-quarter did not have an opinion.

About 2.1 million adults, or 0.8%, and 724,000 people age 13 to 17, or 3.3%, identify as transgender in the U.S., according to the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law.

Those allied with the administration on the issue paint it in broader terms than just sports, pointing to state laws, Trump administration policies and court rulings against transgender people.

"I think there are cultural, political, legal headwinds all supporting this notion that it’s just a lie that a man can be a woman," said John Bursch, a lawyer with the conservative Christian law firm Alliance Defending Freedom that has led the legal campaign against transgender people. “And if we want a society that respects women and girls, then we need to come to terms with that truth. And the sooner that we do that, the better it will be for women everywhere, whether that be in high school sports teams, high school locker rooms and showers, abused women’s shelters, women’s prisons.”

But Heather Jackson offered different terms to describe the effort to keep her daughter off West Virginia's playing fields.

“Hatred. It’s nothing but hatred,” she said. "This community is the community du jour. We have a long history of isolating marginalized parts of the community.”

Pepper-Jackson has seen some of the uglier side of the debate on display, including when a competitor wore a T-shirt at the championship meet that said, “Men Don't Belong in Women's Sports.”

“I wish these people would educate themselves. Just so they would know that I’m just there to have a good time. That’s it. But it just, it hurts sometimes, like, it gets to me sometimes, but I try to brush it off,” she said.

One schoolmate, identified as A.C. in court papers, said Pepper-Jackson has herself used graphic language in sexually bullying her teammates.

Asked whether she said any of what is alleged, Pepper-Jackson said, “I did not. And the school ruled that there was no evidence to prove that it was true.”

The legal fight will turn on whether the Constitution's equal protection clause or the Title IX anti-discrimination law protects transgender people.

The court ruled in 2020 that workplace discrimination against transgender people is sex discrimination, but refused to extend the logic of that decision to the case over health care for transgender minors.

The court has been deluged by dueling legal briefs from Republican- and Democratic-led states, members of Congress, athletes, doctors, scientists and scholars.

The outcome also could influence separate legal efforts seeking to bar transgender athletes in states that have continued to allow them to compete.

If Pepper-Jackson is forced to stop competing, she said she will still be able to lift weights and continue playing trumpet in the school concert and jazz bands.

“It will hurt a lot, and I know it will, but that’s what I’ll have to do,” she said.

Heather Jackson, left, and Becky Pepper-Jackson pose for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Heather Jackson, left, and Becky Pepper-Jackson pose for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Becky Pepper-Jackson poses for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

The Supreme Court stands is Washington, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

FILE - Protestors hold signs during a rally at the state capitol in Charleston, W.Va., on March 9, 2023. (AP Photo/Chris Jackson, file)