For an exhilarating 18-game swing in April and May, you may recall through the fog of what’s happened since, the Royals were conjuring visions of a prosperous season ahead.
Their 16-2 record in that span was the best in Major League Baseball, an apt reflection of some of the best pitching in the game — both in terms of their irresistible starting rotation and immovable back of the bullpen.
Looming over that, though, was a sobering caveat: No team was doing more with less offensively than the Royals, who scored three runs or fewer in seven of those 16 victories.
So that trait was at best a mixed blessing, at least a point of concern and at worst a harbinger of regression ahead for a team that could scarcely wring runs out of its lineup then … and is producing at about the same meager pace now.
Despite making significant changes, including releasing Hunter Renfroe, demoting MJ Melendez and calling up promising slugger Jac Caglianone last week, the Royals ranked last in the American League in runs scored through Wednesday night, with 230 in 68 games (3.38 runs a game).
All of a sudden, they haven’t so much as won back-to-back outings in nearly a month (May 18-May 19) and are 10-18 since that surge short-circuited.
And those points were sharply punctuated in a 6-3 loss to the New York Yankees on Thursday at Kauffman Stadium that rendered the Royals a .500 team (34-34) for the first time since late April.
Compounded by the Yankees’ 10-2 clobbering of the Royals the day before, the contrast to the team with which the Royals gamely jousted last postseason was jarring.
The brawny Yankees lead the American League in runs scored, with 135 more than the Royals, and are pacing the majors in home runs, with 108 — more than double the MLB-low 46 mustered by the Royals.
The Yankees, KC pitcher Kris Bubic said, are a “team you want to stack up against.”
And the Royals did anything but in the first two games of the series, not to mention during a three-game sweep by the Yankees in New York, a series in which the Royals managed all of six runs.
In a sense, it sure seems a long way from the Royals’ 3-1 loss to the Yankees in a 2024 American League Division Series underscored by tight games: Those three defeats were by a total of four runs.
In another sense, though, it’s not so disconnected.
Because the Royals came out of that season and that series knowing they had a vital need for more power and pop.
And, alas, it’s something they’re still seeking despite a concerted offseason effort.
“It’s a little disappointing, but we can’t force teams to make trades they don’t want to make,” general manager J.J. Picollo said during the Royals Rally at Kauffman Stadium just before spring training. “We were active in the freeagent market; we just weren’t able to land the guys.”
The issue wasn’t as anguishing, of course, when they were concocting victories through superb pitching and somehow-just-enough offense.
But now it’s revealed itself entirely, both through how much of the season has been played — we’re 13 games to the halfway mark — and by way of the ultimate truth serum: How would it all hold up when they faced seemingly inevitable pitching injuries (recently including Cole Ragans, Seth Lugo and Lucas Erceg, to name a few), and when gravity summoned Noah Cameron and Kris Bubic back to earth, as it did the last two days?
Answer: Ruh-roh. With the pitching staff in some recent flux, the Royals through Wednesday had allowed five runs or more in six of their last eight games after yielding such numbers in just 17 of their first 60 games.
But at least this much is clear now: As much as the Royals can continue to hope for more from this nucleus and anticipate that any day now Caglianone will add some substantial power, there’s a void that has to be filled with more juice.
Juice that’s likely only obtainable by trade. While it’s encouraging that the Royals typically generate hits (their .253 average entering Wednesday was fifth in the AL), that’s been offset by a .226 average with runners in scoring position.
As manager Matt Quatraro understatedly put it Tuesday night, “we need to have a three-run double or three-run homer at some point to take some pressure off” needing to manufacture runs with multiple hits.
When I asked him Wednesday what the single biggest mental impediment might be to converting opportunities into runs, surely the umpteenth time he’s been asked some version of that question over the last few months, he put it this way.
“If there was one thing, we would have hit that button a long time ago …” he said. “I think every guy has to understand what goes through their mind when they go to the plate … and what is their process goal, and are they sticking to it.”
He’s right, but it’s also hard to know how and when that will lead to a real change in tone.
But, look, none of this is necessarily dire. For one thing, it’s amazing how often the shape of things tends to shift during the marathon of a baseball season.
