Rock(ed by the) Bottom

Letting the bottom of an order has become a very Royals trait, and it happened again.

The Washington Nationals have a legitimately excellent offense. They’ve scored 14 more runs than anyone else. And that becomes even more impressive when you realize they’re often doing it with a bottom of the order featuring three below-average to downright bad hitters. When Keibert Ruiz plays, there’s a reprieve, but when Drew Millas catches, a bottom third of Jacob Young, Millas and Nasim Nuñez is often a free trio for pitchers. But not the Royals, at least not last night (or Monday either when it comes to Nuñez).

Here are the lines of those three coming into last night:

Young - .234/.286/.396, 89 wRC+
Millas - .175/.261/.262, 50 wRC+
Nuñez - .209/.295/.234, 55 wRC+

Here’s what they did last night:

Young - 1 for 4 (okay, this one is fine)
Millas - 2 for 4, 2B, 1 R
Nuñez - 2 for 2, 2 3B, 2 BB, 3 R, 1 RBI

Michael Wacha really didn’t have a bad game necessarily, but he and Daniel Lynch IV both did an exceptionally poor job of getting out the part of the Nationals lineup that they needed to get out, and it ultimately cost the team a win.