Despite late loss, Royals seem to be returning to form heading into key series with White Sox

Royals paranoia ran rampant, worst-case scenarios spread as virtual facts, and there was no way that could change.

If you dared to consider the inherent ups-and-downs of any given season, including the sort in which a team loses 12 of 16 games, you were in denial of the demise of the Royals.

That was eons ago, otherwise known as last week, before the Royals sprung from their deathbed to win four out of five games and back-to-back series against the Braves and Red Sox.

If they’re not necessarily “back,” they’ve served notice at the quarter turn (40 games) of the season that assumptions of their doom were premature.

Royals win one, lose one in doubleheader with Red Sox 

Just in time for a benchmark series against the division frontrunner White Sox, they look less like a chalk outline of themselves than the real deal again.

Before their 5-2 loss in the late game of a day-night doubleheader against Boston on Wednesday at Kauffman Stadium, the Royals had clinched a second straight series victory by beating the Red Sox 3-2 in the first game.

This was a long way from the doldrums of just a few days ago, leaving manager Ned Yost with what he called a “much better” feeling about the big picture even after the night loss.

Royals’ Mike Moustakas goes 2 for 4 in first of two rehab games 

And it’s justified after this jumpstart … at least until Friday.

The Red Sox, remember, came to Kansas City as one of the hottest teams in the American League with a prolific lineup that leads the AL in run differential.

But the Royals took two out of three with a resurgence of timely hitting, sterling defense and dominating bullpen work (no runs in 6 2/3 innings in the wins and one overall in 9 2/3 in the series).

In other words, what they’ve come to be known for.

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Now, none of this is to say all issues are solved or even that the Royals have made a full about-face.

Just as nothing was defined by their slump, to assume the state of things now will be the signature of this team would just be another form of what they call “recency bias.”

And even dispassionately you can’t say there wasn’t ample cause for concern through a slump delivered with enough examples of uncharacteristic defensive lapses and punchless offense to suggest an absence of focus or intensity.

Comparing the stats against 2015: Is Royals’ bullpen better than a season ago? 

That in turn was interpreted by some as complacency, which never was the case … though maybe it could appear so by comparison to a team that played with a purposeful fury all last season after falling short in Game 7 of the 2014 World Series.

Such has been the state of anxiety that the distress actually gained traction when the Royals recovered some to win two of three from Atlanta last weekend.

The wretched Braves were 8-25 when they came here, after all, and the victory in the rubber game of the series was made unsettling by the unbreakable Wade Davis blowing a save even though the Royals won in dramatic fashion on Kendrys Morales’ 13th-inning home run.

But the complexion of this has changed in the last few days, and the promise of this modest uptick isn’t just that the Royals have strung together a few victories now.

It’s about the reassuring way they’ve played:

With the resourceful and resilient offense, stellar bullpen, defensive brilliance and stout starting pitching that was their trademark in the last two breakthrough seasons.

That was on particularly vivid display in the first game on Wednesday.

Lorenzo Cain talks after win over Boston 

The win was forged by crucial defensive plays, including rightfielder Jarrod Dyson’s fifth assist of the season to throw out Xander Bogaerts at third base in the eighth inning.

That, though, was, secondary to shortstop Alcides Escobar sprawling to his backhand side to nab a hard grounder by Bogaerts’ … and then throwing him out from his knees.

Then there was the run manufacturing: Lorenzo Cain driving in Dyson on a sacrifice fly in the sixth for what proved the game-winning run as the bullpen straitjacketed the Red Sox to punctuate a gritty effort by Ian Kennedy.

Jarrod Dyson helps Royals in 3-2 win over Red Sox in game one of doubleheader 

“When you’re going through a bit of a struggle, you don’t capitalize on those situations,” Yost said. “You just find a way to pop the ball up (or) strike out and you don’t get those runs in.

“That’s a good sign for us.”

The signs, naturally, are no guarantee.

And the Royals in many ways remain a curiosity.

The ultimate makeup of the back end of the starting rotation remains a mystery and a concern.

So does the hitting of the pivotal Morales from the left side of the plate. Beyond Eric Hosmer, the overall offense is too prone to basically slumping all at once … and produced just five runs in two games Wednesday.

(That should get a boost when Mike Moustakas returned from a thumb injury in the next few days).

Moreover, talented as the Royals were and are, they also were a team that achieved what it did the last two seasons with an intangible force that made it more than the sum of its parts.

Who’s to say that part can be recreated over the long haul?

But even if they’ve been all too sporadic through the first 40 games of the season, what the last few days do say is this:

Dormant as they’ve been for whatever reasons, the energy and resolve of the teams of last two seasons still are there to be tapped loose.

“It’s good to see us starting to turn that corner a little bit,” Yost said after the first game of the day.

And if it hasn’t been what you want through 40 games, remember that through all the ups-and-downs behind and ahead the only sample size that counts is what it looks like after 162.

This story was originally published May 18, 2016 at 10:25 PM with the headline "Despite late loss, Royals seem to be returning to form heading into key series with White Sox."