Royals hitting coach shares inspirational message on social media following loss

Alec Zumwalt follows a pretty strict routine when driving home from a Royals game, putting on one of his favorite bands as he decompresses.

But rather than play Explosions In The Sky on Friday night, Zumwalt picked a radio station.

“For whatever reason, last night I screwed up and turned Vern on,” Zumwalt said Saturday of Josh Vernier, who is host of the Royals postgame show on 96.5 The Fan. “I turned it off immediately. And when I got home I checked my Twitter.”

That was mistake No. 2.

Many Royals fans had expressed their displeasure with Zumwalt, the Royals hitting coach.

The Royals have scored four runs in their last three games and are batting .186 (8 for 43) during their five-game losing streak. In their last 27 games, the Royals average with runners in scoring position is just .194 (40 for 206).

That’s led to fan criticism of Zumwalt and the Royals, who have a two-game lead in the wild-card race.

And it spurred Zumwalt to share a message on X for the first time since April. He typed these two quotes:

• “If you are going through hell, keep going.”

• “Success is not final; failure is not final: It is the courage to continue that counts.”

Zumwalt attributed both to former United Kingdom Prime Minister Winston Churchill, although there are questions about whether the World War II leader said them.

“My goal as the hitting coach is to stay as positive as possible all the time, because this game beats you up so much,” Zumwalt said at Kauffman Stadium before Saturday’s game against the Giants.

“I know fans are frustrated, but nobody’s more frustrated than the players on this team. One thing I’ve been adamant about with them since the beginning is this is a resilient group. They’ve gone through a lot already. We’ve been through much worse than what we’re going through right now. But again, we just have to stay positive and keep going. This game’s too fricking hard to fall into the trap of thinking that it’s easy to just make things right.”

The Royals entered Saturday’s game having scored 58 runs in September. That’s tied with the Rays for the second-fewest in Major League Baseball, behind only the White Sox (55).

But Zumwalt said the batters have taken manager Matt Quatraro’s “Today” mantra to heart. They’re still working hard and eager to play.

The quotes Zumwalt shared on X were not for the team.

“These are grown men. These are Major League baseball players,” he said. “They have all the motivation they need. The quote is not going to inspire them to change. That’s not that. I think that’s a Disney movie. This is not a Disney movie. This is reality. It wasn’t meant for the players. It’s more of that’s my personality. That’s for what I believe about this team.

“And like I said, You got two choices. You can quit or keep going. We’re just gonna keep going and battle.”