Out of gas

The Royals offense once again fails to string together any kind of production in falling to the Detroit Tigers.

The Royals offense has become woefully predictable. They can put a few runners on base. Not many. A few. And then they can’t do a damn thing to bring them around to touch the plate. Starter Michael Lorenzen wasn’t sharp—he allowed four runs over 4.2 innings on Thursday—and he needed to be damn near perfect. The Royals drop the first game of a four-game series to the Tigers by the score of 6-1.

In scoring just a solitary run on Thursday, the offense is now producing just 2.95 runs per game. Only Colorado is worse. As a team they are hitting .207/.277/.304. Only the Chicago White Sox are worse across the board.

I don’t need to tell you any time I’m writing about the Royals offense and invoking the Colorado Rockies and Chicago White Sox to illustrate where this team ranks, that’s a very, very bad thing. For a team that was harboring playoff hopes a few weeks ago, to be this dreadful, this early in the season threatens to undermine everything.

The Royals lost their fourth consecutive game. They are 1-6 on this road trip.

Will Harris posted this on Bluesky on Thursday. It tells you just about everything you need to know about the Royals’ offensive woes to this point.

That’s four Royals on the lowest OPS by batting order position. Four! Out of nine! That has to be impossible. Yet it’s true.

The Royals’ third, fifth, sixth and eighth spots in the batting order have been the least productive in the majors so far in 2025. Their sixth-place hitters have collectively been the worst of any team at any spot in the lineup. So…congrats?

Considering the table above, it wasn’t a surprise how the offensive side of Thursday’s game played out.

In the first inning, the Royals put their first two runners on when Jonathan India led off with a single and was followed by a Bobby Witt Jr. walk. Vinnie Pasquantino was up next, went fishing for a changeup down and out of the zone and lofted a harmless fly ball. After Salvador Perez likewise flew out, Michael Massey was their last chance to cash in at least one run. He went down swinging, chasing two changeups well out of zone.

In the fourth, the Royals loaded the bases with one out. Up came the eighth-place hitter, Drew Waters. His mission: Get the ball in the air. He struck out on three pitches. Kyle Isbel then flew out to end the frame.

In the fifth, Witt hit a one-out double. It wasn’t the Royals’ best chance of the night, but it was still an opportunity. Pasquantino softly grounded out. Perez then flew out.

In the sixth, the Royals had runners on first and second with one out. Waters flew out and Isbel struck out on three pitches. At this point, I’m looking for something white to wave from my couch.

Eighth inning and the best chance for the Royals to put together something resembling a big inning. Perez walks, Massey singles and Maikel Garcia drives one back up the middle for a run-scoring single. Hey! There’s a little bit of production from the fifth and sixth spots of the batting order. That’s nice to see.

The inning quickly turned sour as Hunter Renfroe (batting seventh here after pinch-hitting for Cavan Biggio earlier in the game) grounded into a double play. (More on that in a moment.) Waters then grounded out to end the inning and what passes for a threat these days.

The point of this deflating recap is to underscore how damn near impossible it is going to be for this team to generate any kind of offense if their third, fifth, sixth and eighth spots in the lineup can’t contribute. That’s especially true for Pasquantino hitting third. If he can’t consistently drive Witt (and India) home this offense is going to lag.

The only time the offense did a damn thing on Thursday was when Massey and Garcia were able to string together hits after a Perez walk. That illustrates the importance of the middle of the order coming through. It’s so basic, yet we’re here discussing this because the Royals cannot execute.

So about that Renfroe double play…Replays showed he was clearly safe, beating the throw by about half a step. It’s kind of a shocking miss from the first base umpire, crew chief Adrian Johnson.

The Royals would’ve challenged, but they already burned their challenge back in the sixth on a Detroit double steal. So they needed to rely on a crew chief challenge that comes into effect in the eighth inning or later. That’s basically a moment where a manager can request that the umpires look at a play, so it’s really a free challenge. These requests are generally granted. In this case, it was not.

After the game, Matt Quatraro confirmed that he did not place a “hold” on the play. A hold is that moment when the manager places his hand in the air. That’s a signal that the team is considering issuing a challenge. You would think that would be applicable only when a team is challenging, not asking for a crew chief review, but that’s apparently not the case. Quatraro was supposed to raise his hand to “hold” while requesting a crew chief review. Weird, but the rules are the rules. Because Quatraro didn’t “hold,” he technically didn’t properly ask for the review. So the review was not granted.

I’ve been driving the “replay sucks” bandwagon for over a decade at this point. We are sold a bill of goods again and again that replay is in place to make sure the correct calls are made. Yet, replay fails again and again. On Thursday in Detroit, it was on a technicality. Yes, it is incumbent upon Quatraro to know the protocol when asking for such a review, but come on…why the need to place a “hold” for what amounts as a freebie?

Replay continues to suck.

Royals hitting coach Alec Zumwalt was ejected in the ninth inning after a called strike to Witt. The Royals were frustrated by the zone for the entire game. It was, let’s say, generous.

I hate even posting that chart because I’m never very interested in complaining about the umpring. Yet I cannot ignore the fact that Witt in particular had his offensive game significantly altered at points due to this zone. Nobody other than Witt is hitting in this offense at the moment and when you take the bat out of his hands, it’s like double jeopardy.

Some credit for tying up the bats also has to go to Detroit starter Reece Olson who had his changeup working. He generated eight whiffs on 16 swings. On the occasions when the Royals did make contact against the change, it was predictably soft.

Central Issues

Athletics 8, White Sox 0

The Sacramento A’s complete a three-game sweep against the woeful Sox. The A’s clubbed four home runs, with Tyler Soderstrom hitting his league-leading ninth. (The Royals as a team have 10 home runs this year.) A striking statistic from this one: Sacramento had 32 total bases while the South Siders had just four.

Guardians 2, Orioles 6

Daniel Schneemann and Austin Hedges led off the third with home runs to give the Guardians an early advantage. It was erased in the bottom of the frame when Ryan O’Hearn clubbed a big fly of a three-run variety. From there, Tomoyuki Sugano held Cleveland in check, going seven and striking out three. The Orioles take two of three.

Time for our weekly playoff odds check.

About the only thing to say at this point is, it’s a long season. If the bats don’t start finding a way to produce, it’s going to be a very long season.