Early or not, the Royals face inflection point as the ‘worst team in baseball’
Bad enough that a fiasco of a road trip left the Royals looking like they were in freefall mode.
By the time they returned home to Kauffman Stadium on Monday, they had tumbled to 7-15 overall after a seven-game losing streak featuring four straight one-run losses and being clobbered 24-6 in three games at Yankee Stadium.
Think of all the exasperating ways you don’t want to lose, from some slapstick stuff to the bitter ends. And, oof, you could pretty well find it in the span all-too-reminiscent of how the Royals launched last season (8-14) … among numerous largely incapacitating Aprils over the last decade.
The cruelest month, indeed.
Somehow, though, the Royals outdid themselves Monday night with a nauseating defeat — one that conjured the immortal wisdom of former Royals manager Buddy Bell.
Following a 10th straight loss in 2006, he alertly said, “I never say it can’t get worse.”
At least that losing streak ended after one more L.
These Royals should only be so fortunate after the 7-5 loss in 12 innings against Baltimore extended the losing streak to eight — their longest since a 10-game string in 2023 on the way to a 56-106 season.
Instead of being the fresh start they desperately need, this game was somewhere between a microcosm and fusion of all that’s been going awry all season:
Again with the stupefying inability to produce with runners in scoring position, underscored by leaving 16 men on base.
Fresh evidence that the bullpen that was such an asset last season no longer is slamming the door but … a trap door; in this case, it squandered Seth Lugo’s seven innings of one-hit, scoreless work into the eighth loss of the season by relievers after Alex Lange gave up five runs in the 12th.
For good measure, they added yet more to their season-long parade of erasures on base (Maikel Garcia caught stealing and Lane Thomas thrown out at third on the ol’ 8-5-6 double play in the 10th). That’s an especially infuriating tendency since fixing the issue was a point of emphasis after being such a problem in 2025.
No wonder Bobby Witt Jr. heard some boos from the crowd of 13,589 as the Royals dropped into sole possession of the worst record in baseball at 7-16 — a half-game behind the 7-15 Mets after they were idle Monday.
While the booing stinks, Witt said, he was quick to add “the worst team in baseball might deserve to get booed every once in a while. It should motivate us to get better.”
To be clear, Witt might as well have put air quotes around that “worst team in baseball term” that he used twice in a few minutes after the game.
Because here’s what he insists:
“We’re a great team. We’re an amazing team,” he said, comparing what he considers an inevitable breakthrough to a “ticking time bomb.”
From the outside looking in, anyway, it looks like they’re imploding.
So much so that it’s tempting to go from concerned about this team to downright catastrophizing.
Entering the game Monday, after all, no team in baseball had scored fewer runs (71) in 22 games, and only six MLB teams had a worse ERA than their 4.61.
And then came this flattening loss.
About eight days ago as the Royals were about to hit the road with a blah 7-9 record after a 6-5 loss to the White Sox, I wrote about how “absolutely nothing defining has happened yet” for this team.
Hey, it seemed like a good idea at the time. True when I wrote it and all. A work in progress.
Ever since, though, it’s been a work in regress. And the best you can say is it’s maybe perhaps kind of possibly almost still early-ish in the season, though my colleague Sam McDowell broke down some distressing data about how steep and improbably a climb back they already face.
But most of all you’re left to wonder just how they’re going to change the narrative they’ve begun.
It’s all well and good that this start somewhat mirrors last year’s 8-14 start that was followed by a 16-2 rebound. But those Royals still fell short of the postseason, and it’s unclear from where this group could summon such a run based on what we’ve seen so far.
So it might seem some sort of a staff shakeup is in order, or at least on-deck, even if just for the sake of it.
Scapegoating is the coin of the realm in rough times, and you can attribute the numbers to anything from coaching philosophies to strategy to motivation.
But at some point, isn’t this mostly about the men who’ve been productive, at times prolific, big-league players for a while now to get themselves right?
Certainly, the Royals rather reasonably seem more inclined to see it that way than to make any imminent coaching changes.
Speaking before the game Monday, general manager J.J. Picollo reiterated his faith in manager Matt Quatraro and said he saw no issues with any of the coaching processes in place.
Beyond that, he said he believes the staff has “put the hitters in a really good spot (and) the pitchers in a really good spot to go compete.
“In the end, I think the players will tell you they’re the ones who have to go out and execute.”
While Witt delivered the game-tying RBI in the bottom of the 11th and Garcia and Salvador Perez each had three hits on Monday, it remains glaring how much the core four that includes Vinnie Pasquantino is underperforming from last season.
Through Monday, Witt has yet to hit a home run, Pasquantino is hitting .149 and Perez .176. A year after the three combined for 301 RBIs, they’ve amassed all of 25 through 14% of the season.
Unlike the financial investment disclaimer, the Royals firmly believe past performance does assure future results — or at least more current ones — among this group.
Until (and unless, really) that starts to happen, though, there’s little doubt that players are pressing and compounding the struggles.
Reliever Lucas Erceg, who gave up three walks in the ninth on the way to allowing the Orioles to tie it, allowed as how “maybe I was trying to do too much. … That doesn’t work in this league, trying too hard.”
As Witt put it, “I know for a fact everyone wants to be the guy” to get the big hit. If they’re squeezing the bat too hard, well, it’s time to remember “pressure is a privilege.”
All despite the fact that around the clubhouse and dugout before the game on Monday the prevailing message was perspective and patience.
As we spoke at his locker before the game, Jac Caglianone reminded me of one of my favorite sayings, something I shared with him in a sprawling spring conversation in 2025:
“It will all be OK in the end,” said Caglianone, who would later blast his first home run of the season. “And if it’s not (OK), it’s not the end,”
He wasn’t speaking in platitudes but of attitude — of embracing the work and the need to keep improving while also believing.
That’s good counsel in the marathon of a baseball season, which for most teams tends to have fluctuation as they settle into who they really are.
So, no, nothing is yet defined.
And Picollo was right when he said before the game that with one win “the energy changes, the excitement changes. That may lead into the next night, and now all of a sudden the mentality changes.
“And that’s something that we need to have happen.”
Just the same, the Royals are at an inflection point.
And, alas, you can’t assume it won’t get worse until it actually gets better and they become the team they seemed they should be after the last few years.
This story was originally published April 21, 2026 at 10:59 AM.