This Kansas City Royals season is on the brink. And a major number is looming
Between intermittent interviews in a somber Royals clubhouse on Wednesday night at Kauffman Stadium, the lone prevailing noise was the whir of a refreshment refrigerator.
That was a fine symbolic soundtrack for the numbing atmosphere after a game that epitomized a wretched stretch for the Royals — one that is threatening to define and derail a seemingly promising season.
It wasn’t just that Tampa Bay’s 3-0 win spoiled another would-be winning start, in this case by Michael Wacha.
Or that it hinged entirely on three second-inning runs conjured by two infield singles, a ground single through the infield and what Wacha called “a couple of the most perfect bunts I’ve ever seen.”
It was that anyone watching had every reason to figure that modestly manufactured lead would be insurmountable for a team that has become astonishingly unable to score or rally from any substantial deficit.
Seriously: As they’ve settled into owning the puniest offense in Major League Baseball, the Royals (38-43) have mustered four or more runs only 30 times in 81 games.
For that matter, as of Thursday they are 4-32 when trailing after six innings, 2-33 when behind after seven and 1-37 lagging after eight.
So when they get behind by more than a run or two now, it’s basically over.
And so is the season, really, if that doesn’t somehow change soon … and they’re left staring at the demoralizing prospect of being sellers rather than buyers at the July 31 trade deadline.
While Wacha admirably said he had a “full belief” that the lineup would pick him up in that kind of situation, the evidence is overwhelmingly otherwise at the halfway mark of the season after being freshly amplified on Thursday.
Their 4-0 loss to the Rays marked their fifth in a row overall, 27th in the last 41 games and, perhaps most jarringly, their 10th straight at home — a streak underscored by their grand total of 12 runs in that span.
Every baseball season is a marathon, of course, and typically full of pendulum swings.
Heck, remember back in April and early May when this very team won 16 of 18 — the franchise’s best such stretch since 1978,
But at some point, what might be dismissed as a blip grows into a trend and morphs into an identity.
By now, all of this isn’t a mere sample size; it’s a DNA extraction — a revealing characteristic that only figures to be reaffirmed this weekend when the defending World Series champ Los Angeles Dodgers (51-31) visit Kauffman Stadium.
So … now what?
There’s no one answer, manager Matt Quatraro has been saying.
And, well, he’s largely right.
It’s just that it all comes back to the one same bummer that’s been obvious for weeks and even hovered during that 16-2 burst.
Despite Cy Young finalist Cole Ragans remaining sidelined at least into July with a rotator cuff injury, the Royals are fourth in MLB with a 3.41 staff ERA.
Their starting pitching has remained staunch, and closer Carlos Estévez through Thursday was tied for the MLB lead in saves with 22.
Theoretically, that means they’ll always have a chance.
Except it’s all teetering on being squandered because, bottom line, the Royals are last in baseball in runs scored.
In fact, their 263 puts them on trajectory to shatter the franchise record for the most measly production in a season, 586, held by, oof, the inaugural 1969 expansion team.
And they come by that deflating point honestly: They’re 28th in batting with runners in scoring position (.222), 29th in home runs (56), 28th in slugging percentage (.364) and last in walks (192).
While it bears mention that three years ago then-first year general manager J.J. Picollo fired hitting coach Terry Bradshaw in mid-May, I’m not sure what a fresh voice or change for change’s sake would accomplish.
Because from the outside looking in, at least from this view, it’s hard to diagnose where the precise breakdown in the supply chain is beyond the players themselves.
Blame the manager or coaches all you want, and not unreasonably.
But the players should be better than this.
For starters, if the nucleus of Bobby Witt Jr., Vinnie Pasquantino and Sal Perez was producing now as it was last year at this time, the Royals would have around 40 more RBIs:
Witt has 14 fewer than the 54 he had by the end of June in 2024, Perez is down 11 from his 52 and Pasquantino has 13 fewer than the 55 he had.
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That difference wouldn’t quite have lifted the Royals to the apparently magic scoring average of four runs a game, the evasive summit that has furnished them with a 24-6 record.
But at least it would be about a half-run closer than their current 3.25 runs a game, and who knows how many scenarios those extra runs would have changed?
That’s just one example among many, including Jonathan India not furnishing the spark the Royals hoped he would and, most glaringly, scant offensive pop from the outfield even since calling up Jac Caglianone hoping he’d provide a power surge.
Given what this team accomplished last season, given the track records of the core three and the development of Maikel Garcia and the promise of Caglianone, it’s really not irrational to expect more from what they have right here, right now.
But ... where is it?
As Quatraro told reporters at Kauffman after the game Thursday, “we are not playing a blame game asking for a new roster. This is our team that we believe in, that won a lot of games for us last year.”
Still, there’s a fine line between faith and wishful thinking, and it sure looks like the Royals need serious help.
It feels like a “just do something” time, doesn’t it?
But there’s also a fine line between being restless and being reckless, especially as their own record and the ups and downs of others clarify the landscape.
No doubt the front office is scouring the market. Picollo has demonstrated his inclination to be transactional and John Sherman and his ownership group haven’t hesitated to spend.
No doubt they’re exasperated by what’s going on and eager to find solutions.
So they’ll “read the room as we go,” as Picollo put it earlier this week, while they ask themselves serious questions.
Those include their “tolerance level” to part with minor-league prospects toward the evident boost they need.
Unless and until they create or find that, though, the tolerance level of fans is being challenged by a team that seems stranded in the same scenario virtually every day — a recurring torment that looms over the direction of the rest of the season in more ways than one.