Why, even in mid-April, this feels like an important stretch for Kansas City Royals
The Royals have played four of 162. Completed all of 2.5% of their schedule. Faced only one more opponent than you or I have faced.
There’s a lot baseball left on the schedule, in other words. And with the Royals are sitting at .500, it might be a bit early to make conclusions about where they’re headed.
But if we acknowledge that, we can also say this: There are an important few days — or several days — ahead this month, even if it’s mid-April.
Like, soon.
Let me explain. In three straight seasons, the Royals have been undone by extended losing streaks in the initial few weeks of the year. Undone by their inability to keep a losing streak short — or to prevent it from becoming a streak at all.
In 2021, they lost 11 straight games as soon as the calendar hit May.
In 2020, they lost six straight over the second week of the season.
In 2019, a 10-game skid covered the first and second weeks.
That’s a pattern, more than simple coincidence — and it’s especially unsettling for a team that found a groove at some point after the All-Star break, only for it to be all for naught. They have not had the true proverbial “stopper” in the starting rotation, and they possess something at least closer to that now, after signing Zack Greinke to a one-year deal at the onset of spring training.
But it’s more than that piece atop the rotation. This has developed into a mindset for a team that’s endured more than one of these now.
Enough of a mindset that it’s becoming a point of emphasis inside the clubhouse.
“When you have a team full of guys that are fighting for jobs, trying to prove themselves — we have a lot of them on this team — it’s easy to really harp on things when they go bad or to worry about your job. And in this game, at this level, that’s hard to do,” Whit Merrifield said. “So we’re really trying to focus on what’s in the past is in the past, and all we can do is move forward and try to get better the next day.”
So what’s caused it to snowball in the past?
“I feel like we treated a lot of games like it was Game 7 of the World Series,” Merrifield said, “which is hard to do for 162 games, so we’re trying to do a better job of that this year.”
You can only push the accelerator for so long before you run out of gas. There’s a pace to a season, and the Royals have found themselves behind the pace too early.
And then it’s too late.
They think they’re capable of sticking around a playoff race that will now invite six teams from each league to its finale — an aspiration that, granted, will require some better outings from the younger arms. But they’re not yet good enough to endure a skid that stretches into multiple weeks — even if that skid arrives in April.
Which brings us to the present.
The Royals lost back-to-back games to Cleveland to close out their initial series of the regular season before heading to St. Louis for the quickest of road trips. It seems innocent enough, and for now, it is. But that’s all the more reason to make this point now — before history repeats itself once more.
The snowball effect, as Merrifield explained, is a real thing. The response will need to change this year.
That’s not encouraging anyone to trivialize a loss. It’s not encouraging them to ignore it, either. There are, of course, things to learn from a loss, same as can be said from any win. But in the grand scheme of it — get over it. Move on.
To borrow the analogy from Merrifield — no, you didn’t just lose Game 7 of the World Series. You’ve lost 2 of 162.
But 2 of 162 can’t become 12 of 162.
This story was originally published April 12, 2022 at 9:31 AM.