Surrender

Another lackluster performance from the Royals is all too familiar. It's May and the season is on the brink. Again.

The game started brightly enough. Bobby Witt Jr. singled. After a couple of lineouts, he swiped second, his fifth steal of the season. He scored when Ryan O’Hearn laced a single to right. The Royals scored their sixth first inning run and grabbed an early 1-0 lead.

They would not score again.

It’s a familiar refrain. One we’ve seen time and time again in Kansas City. After a series where the Royals plated nine runs in winning one of two from the Baltimore Orioles, they are still scoring just slightly above three runs per game. It’s 3.04 R/G if you want to be exact. That ranks 29th out of the 30 major league teams. Only Detroit at 2.79 R/G scores with less frequency than the Royals.

I chronicled some of this at the end of last week. Three games in Baltimore does not make a season, but for a club that is seemingly in a rebuild, it’s a decent enough yardstick. I write “seemingly in a rebuild” because it’s not really clear what the Royals are doing. Besides treading water in their own dreadfulness.

Monday felt different. It felt like a white flag was being waved. Cornwallis at Yorktown style of surrender.

For the first four innings on Monday, Carlos Hernández was very good. He allowed one hit the first time through the order and that was erased on a double play. Kind of typical Hernández for what we’ve seen thus far in 2022, he struck out just one batter.

I was struck by his location in the early innings. Especially the first.

That’s just pretty. Fastballs on the edge…curves down and out of reach. If anyone is going to get the bat on one of those offerings, nothing is going to happen. Indeed, aside from the strikeout of Anthony Santander, Hernández retired Cedric Mullins on a 74 MPH ground ball and Trey Mancini on a 69 MPH lineout.

When the lineup turned over for the second time, Hernández started catching more of the plate. He was lucky to get out of the fourth, when three Orioles hit the ball with an exit velocity greater than 95 MPH. Two of those went for a single and a double, but there was no damage.

And then the fifth inning happened.

Those are some meaty fastballs. When they were actually in the zone. Two walks. A hit batter. A throwing error. A wild pitch…Three singles, a double and six runs. Just like that it was over.

From that point the Royals’ offense, never to be described as “high octane,” simply went through the motions for the rest of the afternoon. Sure, Salvador Perez collected two more hits after the fifth inning, but he’s now apparently scorching hot after enduring a brutal stretch where he managed two hits in 38 at bats. He collected two hits in each of the three games in Baltimore. Amazing what an off day and a pair of rainouts can do when a player needs a break.

The Royals had opportunities. In the eighth they loaded the bases with a hit by pitch, a Perez single and a walk. Hunter Dozier rolled one over for the third out in the inning.

In the ninth Orioles closer Jorge Lopez (yes, that Jorge Lopez) walked two before getting back to back ground outs to secure the victory.

Despite the opportunity to at least chip away, the offense once again fell flat. Except this time, the vibe was simply of a lineup playing out the string, knowing that 27th out and another “L” was just around the corner. It felt like a game that happens just before some important staffing changes are made.

Alec Lewis has another great article up at The Athletic this morning, detailing the shortcomings of this current staff in “unlocking” players who are scuffling and how some of those players have only seen improvement once they’ve moved out of the organization. I found this sentence ominous.

Notably, current Royals big leaguers are not ignorant of the strides others have made elsewhere.

If the clubhouse is finally waking up, trouble is on the horizon. It’s another May in another rebuilding season and another year where contention is just a distant thought. It’s not reality or anywhere close. Not that contention was a realistic goal in 2022…It wasn’t, despite the messaging from the front office. However, respectability and improvement was a realistic goal. With the organization gouging fans to make some money back lost during the pandemic ($20-$30 to park your car in the vast pavement wasteland of the Truman Sports Complex, really?)…With a brutal broadcast partnership with Bally Sports where too many fans can’t even watch the games…With a product on the field that is uninspiring and, even worse, boring…

Woof.

It’s May and as Lewis notes, the apathy, which is always bubbling under the surface with a fanbase that had been let down far too many times in the past, is here. If you can watch, why? If you have the disposable income to plop down over $100 to bring your family to The K, why? If you chose to spend three hours watching this uninspired style of baseball, why?

As is usual for this organization in May, the Royals have reached a critical stage as they drift toward 90+ losses. Will they do something to regain your interest? Can they regain your trust? Is it possible for them to unlock something to be better? To be interesting?

The Royals are on the clock.