The Royals are Lava Hot
A four-game sweep of the White Sox gives the Royals 15 wins in their last 17 games, which is one of the best stretches in franchise history.
It’s hard to sweep a four-game series, no matter who you’re facing, but the Royals put the finishing touches on a four-game sweep of the White Sox yesterday. It was their sixth win in a row and gave them 15 wins in 17 games for just the fifth time in franchise history. The previous times, starting with the most recent were:
2013 (final record of 86-76)
1989 (final record of 92-70)
1978 (final record of 92-70)
1977 (final record of 102-60)
The teams from the 70s did make the playoffs. The 1989 team would have made the playoffs under the current structure. And the 2013 team didn’t make it, but had a fantastic season. The point is that runs like this don’t come often for the Royals, so my advice is to savor this because it’s not easy to go 15-2 in a 17-game stretch.
As always, here’s yesterday’s Kauffman Corner featuring Soren Petro, Les Norman and me. We went a little long, but it was a great look at where the Royals are with some trade talk getting mixed in already.
As was the case in every game this series, the Royals entered with the advantage on the mound. And as was the case in every game this series, the Royals took advantage of that advantage. I know it’s very easy to place blame on the Royals, but I was surprisingly impressed by the White Sox pitching. I know that I had mentioned coming in that they were better than last year on the mound, but the starters Monday through Wednesday were better than I expected. The Royals offensive struggles almost assuredly helped them out, but that doesn’t mean the pitchers weren’t also solid.
The Royals offense did not give them a fourth straight game to look good. Given the struggles, it’s hard to start with anything but the bats even on a day that Kris Bubic gave the Royals seven shutout innings. It was the type of day we saw from them quite a bit during the 2024 season and something we haven’t seen a ton of this year, though maybe we’re starting to see it a little more and more. They ended the Rays series with an offensive outburst. Then they ended the Orioles series with an offensive outburst. And now they ended this one with an offensive outburst.
They had 10 runs on 17 hits with four doubles and a triple. If you look up and down the lineup, everyone had a multi-hit game except for two players. One was Hunter Renfroe, and if I’m being honest, this felt like a “this is your last game in the big leagues” type game for him. And the other was Freddy Fermin, who has hit recently and did at least get one hit. Everyone else had at least two. In fact, everyone but Bobby Witt Jr. had exactly two. He, ornery as always, had four. Maybe he was covering for Renfroe.