Four, 4, Fore, For

I missed most of the Royals’ games the past week as I was traveling. As a result, there have been several things that I need to catch up on.

First, the Royals current record sits at 12-12. In their past 10 games they have gone 5-5. This includes series wins against Minnesota and Baltimore, and a rough outing in Cleveland, who are currently the bottom-feeders of the AL Central.

I don’t know about you, but this angers me. Against the AL Central, the Royals are 5-10. That is abysmal. That is awful. That is not going to get the Royals into the playoffs. Every game that the Royals win against their division is half a game they can distance themselves closer to a pennant (and the playoffs). And every half game swing is huge right now, especially since the AL Central is the tightest division in baseball, with the last place Indians only 3 games out of first. Another bad series to the stupid Twins or Indians and the Royals will be back in last place. 

The next 4 teams the Royals play will tell us a lot about how the season may go. The Royals play the Blue Jays, the Tigers, the Padres and the Mariners. None of those teams are extremely bad, and only the Tigers have a winning record. If the Royals can win their home series against the Blue Jays and Tigers (which they should), take 2 from the Padres on the road, and split with the Mariners to go 8-5 in the next 13 games, they can have a 20-17 record in mid-May. In that same span, the Twins play the Dodgers, Orioles, Indians and Tigers; the Tigers play the Twins, Astros, Royals and Orioles; and the White Sox play the Tigers, Indians, Cubs and Diamondbacks. The White Sox clearly have the easiest schedule and the Royals cannot afford to lose ground to the White Sox, Twins or Tigers during this stretch. 

Interestingly, the Royals magic number is still 4. As in, they are 12-0 when scoring 4 or more runs, and 0-12 when scoring 3 or less. This is completely ridiculous and I want to find out historically how such a reliance on runs has played out for other teams. If I have time to do the research, I will find this out. It scares me a little bit because until the Royals start hitting with runners in scoring position and blasting some more home runs, I do not feel comfortable with the offense carrying the burden of winning. Currently, the Royals have no hitters in the top offensive categories in the AL, although Omar Infante leads all second basemen with 17 RBI’s (he was a BEAST yesterday with 6 RBI’s). However, the Royals have THREE OF THE TOP 10 ERA’s IN THE AL!!! Jason Vargas is #2, followed by Yordano Ace Ventura at #6 and James Shields at #7. With that kind of starting pitching, the Royals should not need to score 4 runs every game to win. The bullpen has been blowing some games, and although they have started to settle down, there are still some gray areas (Danny Duffy). I guess losing Luke Hochevar hurt more than anyone ever thought it might. I really hope the Royals make a move to obtain a power bat before the trade deadline in July. They can easily dump some relievers or pitching prospects (maybe even Bubba Starling) to obtain someone that can produce some runs more consistently. 

Which by the way, Mike Moustakas leads the team with 4 home runs. Although that is nice, his batting average is basically the worst on the team. Salvador Perez, who has 21 hits and 9 walks, has only scored 4 runs. That means out of at least 30 times Salvy has been on base, Moose has only been able to get him home 13% of the time. Even though Moose is third on the team with 12 RBI’s, he needs to start driving more in, which could alleviate some of the burden on the starting pitching and the bullpen. 

Hopefully, the Royals start a nice winning streak to build some ground in the AL Central race. It is at least entertaining for now…