Looking Back, Looking Forward and Maybe a Bit of Perspective

It’s been a pretty brutal stretch, but it’s a long, long season.

On the bright side, the Royals didn’t carry a lead in the middle innings or later and lose it. Look, I’m all about the positives here. Or something. In some ways it’s better to just lose without a heartbreaking lead being lost or whatever, but the loss counts the same either way, so it doesn’t really change anything but I do talk about those 54 game snippets and at least yesterday’s game is in the 54 they were always going to lose. Unfortunately the first three games were in the middle 54, which isn’t what you want.

And now a lost series to the Twins has turned into a five-game losing streak. It feels like we’ve seen this story before from the Royals, just usually in April. They started a stretch of 10 straight games against the Twins, Indians and White Sox a week ago today and you had the feeling that if they could go something like 5-5, you’d leave that stretch feeling pretty good about things. At 4-6, they were likely to still hold on to first place at least. 

So far they’re 1-6 after getting swept by the Indians at home in a four-game stretch. 

So what happened? 

We know in the Twins series that it was just three non-competitive games, and honestly those happen. The games that are just sort of duds from the start are the ones that you can get over quickly. But man, this Indians series was a series of gut punches that seemed to get harder and harder and closer and closer to knocking the wind out of you. Each of the first three games, as I said, were winnable games, but a combination of not keeping the offensive foot on the gas and a bullpen pouring gasoline on a fire cost them the games. Oh, and some work from Angel Hernandez, but that’s another story entirely. 

Yesterday’s game was concerning to me because they were just flat. The reality is that teams always look flat when they can’t get anything going offensively, but this just felt flat in general. It’s not that they weren’t trying hard, though some will likely start to talk about that. The hope is that it was just one of those games. Danny Duffy looked like he had good stuff from the stands. Every pitch was working and the numbers back that up. 

I talk about Duffy’s fastball velocity a lot and yesterday’s continued to impress me. He averaged 93.6 MPH on it, which is right in line with his 93.8 MPH season average. But he maxed out at 96 and didn’t really allow any hard contact on it. His slider was really good too with six swings and misses on 12 total swings. I could go on about Duffy, but he looked good; he just got sequenced poorly. After the game he talked about his changeup to Amed Rosario that was hit for a triple to left-center and he probably needed to get it a couple more inches outside, but even that ball wasn’t hit that hard, which is probably why it was a triple. 

His ERA “ballooned” to 1.26, which is still obviously amazing. He was done in by a 68.4 MPH bloop single off the bat of Rosario in the second on a really good pitch and a relatively soft hit single by Jordan Luplow on a slider that was really placed well. 

I guess maybe it could have been a touch lower or a touch farther inside, but a slider dropping out of the zone is a pitch I really don’t mind in just about any situation. A ground ball single that found a hole is just one of those things. Just like it’s one of those things that the Royals couldn’t find a hole all day long. I’m not saying they were hitting well or looking good offensively by any stretch of the imagination, but they were 4 for 12 on hard hit balls and that includes two double plays. 

So what’s next?

Yes, they’re 1-6 over the first seven games of this 10-game stretch, but it’s really more than just 10 games. They have four more against the White Sox next weekend. Then they welcome in the Brewers, who are in the midst of a slump right now but have some serious pitching and some serious potential in the lineup. And then it’s six more against the Rays and Twins with some games against the Tigers in between. Are the Royals really contenders?

It’s really hard to say right now. I hate to play the “if I had told you before the season…” game here, but I think it’s at least worth considering with this team. I predicted they’d go 76-86 when the season started. 16-14 is a much better pace than that, but if they’re not careful they’re going to fall back to that pace. Over the next two road trips and next two homestands (plus the rest of this one), they play 27 games. Of those, 12 are against teams currently over .500 and seven are against the Twins who clearly have their issues but also clearly have talent.

There’s not a number of games the team has to win, but they do have to show something over the next few to have a chance to make these next 27 matter. OF those 27, eight of them are against the Tigers and Pirates, who I think the Royals are pretty clearly better than. In my opinion, if they handle the teams below in this way...

White Sox: 3-4
Tigers: 4-2
Brewers: 1-1
Rays: 1-2
Twins: 4-3
Pirates: 2-0

...they’ll get out of a tough stretch in very good shape at 31-26. They probably won’t be at the top of the division, but they’ll be more than one-third of the way into the season with a chance. That’s 15-12 over those 27 games. It’d be great if they could be better. It’d be fine if they even go 12-15. I think getting out of that stretch at just a game under .500 wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, though it doesn’t get especially easier for awhile. But I think it kind of depends on what you think this team can do. 

If you think they can contend, the 15-12 might be a minimum. If you just think they can be competitive and hover around .500, maybe even 11-16 would be fine enough. The month of April made us think they could contend. So far in May, it doesn’t look good for that. But there’s time to turn that around.

And here’s the tiny bit of perspective.

Good teams go through bad stretches. I mentioned the Dodgers the other day. They started off 13-2 and are now 17-15. That’s a 4-13 stretch, which you might know is not good. Now, they still have a +37 run differential, which is the best in baseball. The Royals are at -14, which is the fourth best in their own division. I’m not saying the Royals are the Dodgers, but good teams do struggle. 

I think Whit Merrifield said it best yesterday when he asked if we thought it would be peaches and roses all year. The answer should be no. I asked a few weeks ago if the Royals are good or if they were lucky to be good. I still don’t honestly know the answer. Were they somehow winning while playing below their best or was that their best? I don’t know and neither do you. 

But we’re going to find out soon. I’m a little afraid of the answer, but I’m also very curious to get it over the next few weeks.