Royals end disappointing 1st half with questions left to be answered 

BALTIMORE -- The Royals limped into the All-Star break with a bullpen implosion in their 8-2 loss to the Orioles on Sunday, capping a 1-5 road trip by getting swept at Camden Yards.

That’s pretty much how this first half has gone for this team, trying to gain any sort of momentum but ultimately falling flat. They head into the break with a record of 38-59, tied for the worst mark in baseball with the Angels. From a record standpoint, there’s been no bigger disappointment in the American League with the expectations the Royals had coming into 2026.

“I think we can be honest about where we’re at and the way things have gone, and we got to get better,” second baseman Michael Massey said. “We [have] to figure out what we need to address, and how we’re going to do it. Half a season is not a small sample size. There are some things we can take from that, and certainly adjust and get better, and try to implement it here in the second half.”

Sunday succinctly summed up the Royals’ 2026 frustrations in one game. Starter Seth Lugo only threw four innings and allowed two runs, marking the Royals’ ninth consecutive game since their last quality start. They have just 10 quality starts in their last 43 games since May 26 after they began the season with 29 quality starts in their first 54 games of the year.

The offense, while better since June, managed just two runs despite notching nine hits and having 10 opportunities with runners in scoring position (and going 1-for-10).

But the unit that has hurt the Royals more than anything this year has been the bullpen, and that was the case again in the first-half finale. After Steven Cruz needed just six pitches to handle a scoreless fifth inning, the Royals turned to reliever Matt Strahm in the sixth in a tie game. Strahm gave up the game-winning home run Friday and has a 7.18 ERA this season, but manager Matt Quatraro said that the sixth on Sunday was a good spot for the lefty against the bottom half of the O’s order.

Strahm was charged with five runs and another loss, the inning spiraling after Jac Caglianone lost a ball in the sun in right field. He allowed four hits, walked a batter and balked home a run.

Strahm and Lucas Erceg, who allowed a run in a chaotic seventh inning, were two of the main high-leverage relievers the Royals entered the year knowing they were going to rely on -- only for their struggles to be magnified and the bullpen’s ERA to now be the worst in baseball at 5.33.

“It’s been a struggle for quite a few of us down there,” Strahm said. “Finding some structure and hopefully working ourselves into some more solidified roles kind of helps iron everything out. But unfortunately, a few of us haven’t done that to put [Quatraro] in that position. We’re all kind of searching for answers. For three days, it looks like we have them, and then something like this happens.”

As the baseball world descends on Philadelphia for All-Star festivities, the Royals will get four needed days off. And for what they hope is a reset, too, as they prepare to take on the final 65 games of the season.

“You got to take it as a fresh start,” Bobby Witt Jr. said. “Put it all in the past. It wasn’t what we wanted. It wasn’t what we thought we were capable of doing. And for me, for guys in this clubhouse, it sucked because of what we did [previously] and the team in Spring Training that we thought we had. We showed up, and we didn’t play the way we thought we were going to. It’s frustrating.”

Inside the clubhouse, those 65 games will be about trying to win as many as they can. Outside the clubhouse, the attention turns to the Aug. 3 Trade Deadline. The Royals have plenty of questions to answer ahead of it, mainly how far they’re willing to go to retool this team for 2027 and what that means for the players they have under control.

And on the field, the Royals need to be in evaluation mode the rest of the way. Who can they rely on beyond ‘26? Can they see stronger second halves from the key players that have struggled so far, like Vinnie Pasquantino and Salvador Perez? Can they get injured players Maikel Garcia back on the field?

“A lot of it’s in our hands,” Quatraro said. “We have to play better. We have to win games. We can look at the standings all you want, you can look at how many games back you are. We have put ourselves in a bad spot to have to jump over a lot of teams. But you’re not 40 games out, right? You have to go and put together good streaks of baseball, and we have to do it one day at a time.”