Royals ready to turn the calendar from May after sixth straight loss

ARLINGTON -- May is mercifully over.

Will June be any better?

The Royals started the month of May well, winning each of the first five games and seven of their first nine. Since then? Not so good. Sunday’s 6-3 loss to the Rangers at Globe Life Field marked their sixth consecutive loss and 16th in their last 19 games.

They were swept four times this month, all since May 12, including in their last two series and three of their last four series. They went 10-18 overall.

It’s a spiral they can’t seem to break.

“Nothing’s really going our way,” shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. said. “We’re not playing the game. Just have to go back to playing baseball. Be ourselves. Sometimes you get unlucky. That’s part of baseball. You just have to keep chugging along. You’ve got to take it one day at a time, but also, we have to know, things have to change. We’ve got to get better. We’ve got to play better.”

Witt, who was 2-for-5 on Sunday and saw his OPS rise to .824 this year, has been consistent in that messaging as the Royals’ struggles have continued this year. When asked what needs to change, he emphasized the way they’re playing.

“Just get back to playing our style of baseball,” Witt said. “I just feel like we’re not ourselves out there. We’re trying to maybe do too much, the little things, and not getting the whole big picture of being ourselves.”

Trying to do too much seems to be a major issue plaguing the Royals’ offense. That mindset is inevitable when things are going like this and hitters want to save the day with one swing. But that’s not how the Royals are constructed, and it’s not how they’ll hit their way out of this mess.

They struck out 10 times in 5 2/3 innings against Rangers starter Jack Leiter on Sunday and didn’t record their first hit until Jac Caglianone’s single with two outs in the fourth. That put two runners on base, with Witt on third after reaching on a strikeout wild pitch.

Isaac Collins struck out on three pitches, including a called strike on the edge that he challenged but saw confirmed.

“I know what the messaging is, and it’s not one guy that we’re waiting on to carry the load,” manager Matt Quatraro said. “It’s everybody doing their part. That’s the messaging. In the innings we do well, that tends to be what we do.”

The Royals left 10 on base Sunday. Their lone hit with a runner in scoring position came on Lane Thomas’ pinch-hit single in the seventh, after Nick Loftin’s sacrifice bunt had moved Michael Massey to second base.

“Trying harder is not always the answer,” said Massey, who also homered in the eighth. “Trying to grind more and trying to do more is not the answer. Just trying to understand, taking a look at our process: What can we fix, what can we get better at today? And go out there and play baseball. When you try harder, you grip the bat tighter, you throw the ball harder. You’re carrying yesterday’s game with you.”

Even after Saturday’s brutal loss, the Royals felt good about sending Michael Wacha to the mound Sunday, as Wacha has been their most consistent and best pitcher this season.

Sunday’s start marked the 300th of Wacha’s career, and with it, he became the 10th active pitcher to reach that milestone. That list is full of dependable veterans in the game: Justin Verlander (556), Max Scherzer (479), Jose Quintana (366), Patrick Corbin (364), Sonny Gray (340), Kevin Gausman (334), Chris Sale (323), Gerrit Cole (319) and Nathan Eovaldi (308).

But as Wacha and all the other pitchers on that list he now joins will tell you, when you make that many starts, you’re bound to have a few that go awry.

The Rangers tagged Wacha for four runs in the first inning, all with two outs. He allowed six runs in five innings Sunday, tying his season-high (April 22 vs. the Orioles) for runs and snapping a streak of five consecutive quality starts dating back to May 4.

“Definitely a frustrating one on my end,” Wacha said. “Looking back at that first inning, you get two outs, you’re one pitch away, and then there’s four runs on the board. Those can be frustrating to the pitcher whenever you’re one pitch away from getting back in the dugout with nothing across. Didn’t execute that pitch [a slider] to [Ezequiel] Duran off the wall, and then falling behind guys pretty much all day today, not in advantage counts. Not normally how I like to go about it.”