Palate Cleanser
The Royals haven't provided many stress-free wins this season, but it was much needed.
The Royals have finally reached the 30-win mark, only 17 games behind last year and 26 behind 2024. Of those 30 wins, I count maybe 10 that didn't cause much stress. Of course, that’s all relative with the state of the bullpen because you never know when a big lead could evaporate, but the point is that we need to celebrate games like yesterday that saw the Royals take a lead early, add more runs and then continue to add some runs all while getting a nice starting pitching performance in a big-time bounceback effort from Luinder Avila and mostly good relief work (keep that head down in shame, Matt Strahm).
It was the long ball that fueled the offense, for the most part, in this one, which was a welcome sight for a team that hadn’t hit many home runs lately. The Royals hit four solo home runs in the first three innings, with those four matching a season-high set in that crazy game against the Angels in late April that ended with a Lane Thomas walkoff. It was amazingly just the 20th multi-homer game of the season for this team. For whatever it’s worth, they’re now 13-7 when they hit more than one home run (23-20 when they hit at least one), so when John Rave’s home run cleared the wall in the top of the second, they had to feel good.
Rave is a good topic, but the story of this game was absolutely Avila, who was coming off one of the worst starts of the year by, well, anyone. By Game Score, he was tied for 6th-worst, but among the 14 starts this year that ended with a Game Score of 10 or lower, he was the only one not to complete his first inning, and he gave up 8 runs in the process. He was also one of two (including Garrett Crochet) to not record a strikeout in his dismal game. While the game probably is unimportant for the Royals in 2026, it was a pretty important one for him to get back on track against an offense that we’ve talked about being one of the best in baseball.