Royals, after two ugly losses, must begin to consider selling at trade deadline

The Royals’ season drove through a ditch and crashed into a bridge embankment.

The wreckage happened on a muggy afternoon in the third game of a home stand that everyone from the owner to minor leaguers understand to be crucial in the Royals’ attempt to salvage their World Series championship defense.

The carnage included five home runs given up totaling 2,022 feet in an 11-4 loss to the division-leading Cleveland Indians. This was supposed to be the jumpstart, the beginning of the run, the Royals back at home where they’ve been so good and the teams they most need to beat lined up on the schedule.

Instead, the team’s playoff hopes are now in critical condition, and those words will be read as wildly optimistic by fans disgusted at such an ugly showing.

Hopefully they can smile for the president on Thursday.

“We’ve put ourselves in holes,” said Ian Kennedy, who gave up the first four homers.

This home stand — which includes six more games against the Texas Rangers and Los Angeles Angels — is about more than just an advancement in the standings before the Aug. 1 non-waiver trade deadline.

De facto clubhouse spokesman Eric Hosmer said the other day the players understood they were playing to keep the team together, because at some point the front office has to make decisions about whether to invest further in the final two months or pursue ways to improve for 2017.

“It just didn’t happen,” he said, summing up losing two of three against the Indians.

The Royals front office is made up of men who are naturally aggressive, whose default setting is set to add, but this is also a group that believes strongly in what only the eyes can measure. Part of their willingness to trade away four top pitching prospects last year was the breathtaking way the Royals attacked every game of a famously brutal grind.

Even for a group of scouts and executives who want to believe, that case is becoming harder and harder to make this year.

Baseball is wildly unpredictable, and the 2014 Royals were below .500 heading into their 100th game and ended their season in the World Series, so the most optimistic can continue to believe this group has that kind of turnaround in them.

But the real world can be an unforgiving place.

The Royals have compared the importance of this home stand to one in late September, in the middle of a playoff race. On Tuesday, manager Ned Yost said it was “go time.” Since then, the Royals have lost two games by a combined score of 18-7.

On Wednesday, Kennedy gave up four home runs, which pushed his season total to 26, tying him with teammate Chris Young for the most of any pitcher in baseball. This is like Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris back in 1961.

The Royals have hit one home run since the All-Star break, but watched the Indians hit three in the fifth inning. That inning began with the Indians going homer, strikeout, hit by pitch, homer, walk, single, single, homer. There was a pitching change between the second homer and the walk. When the Indians made their second out of the inning, the fans here — some of the most loyal in baseball — went Bronx Cheer.

“That’s OK,” backup catcher Drew Butera said. “Nothing wrong with that. We believe in ourselves.”

Back in the fourth, before the Royals went all 2005, they had a chance to score when Cheslor Cuthbert hit a one-out double to left. That hope died quickly, when Hosmer and Kendrys Morales each struck out on a balls that bounced before the plate.

Been that kind of season.

The Royals are playing without third baseman Mike Moustakas and center fielder Lorenzo Cain. One embodies the comebacks and passion for which the Royals believe they are about, and the other is their most talented player. Alex Gordon is having the worst season of his career, even worse than back when he was a third baseman, with shaggy hair, and everyone called him a bust after he was demoted.

Alcides Escobar has a chance to break the record for outs in a season, and the shine of Whit Merrifield’s hot start has worn off. The pitching rotation is a shambles, and the bridge to Kelvin Herrera and Wade Davis is unreliable.

If anything, the Royals have done well to win half their games. They began the day sixth among 15 American League teams in ERA, and 14th in runs scored. They were dead last in homers hit, and fourth in homers surrendered.

It is pointless to say the Royals need to sell at the trade deadline, because these words are being written on July 20. These decisions are typically not made for another week or so.

But we are very much on the runway to a decision, either way, and the winds are beginning to blow strongly toward the side of sell.

The Royals don’t have enough in their system to make a major deal like Ben Zobrist or Johnny Cueto last year, and even if they did, does anyone believe that would be enough to jump a handful of teams for a wild-card spot or make up nine games on the Indians?

Brett Eibner assesses the state of the Royals midway through the season 

It would go against their nature, but if Royals executives could bring themselves to sell, they could be rewarded. Officials across baseball have described this as an extreme seller’s market, which was proven with the haul the San Diego Padres got from Boston for Drew Pomeranz.

Into this environment, the Royals could offer Morales, Edinson Volquez, and Luke Hochevar. Each of them are likely to be free agents after the season, and if the Royals could bring back pieces to help in 2017 and beyond, they would have to think about it. The Seattle Mariners are neighbors to the Royals in the standings, and they just made a sellers’ trade.

The Royals front office wants to believe. The players will continue to say they believe, and they will point to that glorious finishing kick from two years ago.

But that was the sports equivalent of a miracle. Waiting on a miracle is not a plan.

This story was originally published July 20, 2016 at 6:08 PM with the headline "Royals, after two ugly losses, must begin to consider selling at trade deadline."