A Very Royals Win
The Royals scored very little, but gave up even less. Stop me if you've heard this one before.
Is it actually a good trait to have as a team to be adept at avoiding a sweep? As a rule, yes, being able to win games is good, but to be able to say that you’re good at not getting swept means that you are on the verge of getting swept enough that it’s something you notice. The Royals have been in a spot where they could be swept in a series six times now and they’ve won the series finale in five of those, including three of their last four series played. Look, I’ll take it. The Royals are not playing good baseball but are doing what I always say good teams do and they’re not letting it turn into an excessive losing streak.
Last night was another familiar story too because they had to avoid this sweep while facing the ace of the Reds, Hunter Greene. It’s not always an ace they’re facing, but they have had to do it against some good pitching. But with the win last night, the Royals, who can’t score runs, have now won games started by Pablo Lopez, Tarik Skubal, Framber Valdez, Drew Rasmussen (look at the numbers, he’s good), Matthew Liberatore, Robbie Ray, Logan Webb and Greene. That’s eight of their now 30 wins on the season. They’ve also been shut down by some guys who will be “name a random player” candidates in 10 years, but we can talk about that another day.
I’ll get to the offense, but the story for the fourth time in as many starts is Noah Cameron. He was outstanding again. You can make an argument that last night was his worst start in the big leagues and here was his line:
6.1 IP
6 H
1 R
2 BB
2 K