(Lack of) Silver Lining for these Royals

Yesterday’s loss to the White Sox was incredibly frustrating. It was a typical display of wasting a great game by one of our starting pitchers, a sight that has become way too common for the Royals. It makes me wonder if there is a silver lining for this year’s team. Should we continue to hold out hope for the playoffs? Do we need to give them more time before we cast judgments?

You could argue that after having only played 5 games (with one game rained out), the Royals deserve to get more games under their belts before we give up watching and shift our attention to the Chiefs. Which is a valid point, but having watched all of those games, I see very few differences between this year’s team and the Royals of the past decade. I know that I am not in the clubhouse, and that other sportswriters have discussed a change in attitude and team chemistry since the team signed Shields. And Ned Yost likes to give his players at least 100 at bats before making any changes to their playing time. I will admit that these Royals (and last year’s club) are more competitive than in the past, but they need to be more than competitive to beat out Detroit and Cleveland. And beating the Chicago White Sox twice is not much of an accomplishment.

Consider this: the Royals have not hit a single home run this year. Every other team has at least one. They also have only batted in 15 runs, which is better than only two teams, and their slugging percentage is also the third worst in baseball. This is not encouraging. In addition, while the starting pitchers are keeping earned runs to a minimum, their bullpen is allowing teams to stay in the game. Facts like these (and the one below) are why the Royals have missed the playoffs for almost 3 decades.

Do you remember in 2009 and 2010 when Zack Greinke was the only bright spot on otherwise forgettable Royals teams? Games that he pitched, even on cold Tuesday nights, would bring 30,000 fans to Kauffman Stadium, whereas Saturday night marquee games against the Yankees would maybe bring in 20,000. The sad thing is that those Royals teams could never muster much run support for him, and he left Kansas City with an overall losing record. No wonder he left. And no wonder Ervin Santana declined the Royals’ qualifying offer this offseason and signed for essentially the same amount of money with the Atlanta Braves (ironically, the Braves are hitting as bad as the Royals this year). And there is no question that James Shields will be leaving Kansas City, probably the day after the World Series, which the Royals will not be playing in.

I don’t know about you, but I have seen enough this year to feel that there are no silver linings for this year’s Royals. Shields and Nori Aoki will be gone next year. If Butler doesn’t find his bat soon, I can see the Royals declining his option and releasing him. Mike Moustakas is still hitless, Alcides Escobar finally got his first hit yesterday, and it feels like the Royals could go the entire year without hitting a home run. Wil Myers is coming to town tonight and will probably hit 5 home runs in the next 3 games. 

I know that I am being pessimistic, but it is hard not to be. Hopefully, this is a minor slump to start the year. To try and end on a positive note, I will point out that the Royals have the fewest strike outs in the MLB. Which is despite facing 3 of the toughest pitchers in the American League (Verlander, Scherzer, and Sale). Royals FTW!