KANSAS CITY -- The Royals returned home this week trying to dig themselves out of an early-season hole they’ve put themselves in. Monday night didn’t make it any easier with a 7-5 loss in 12 innings to the Orioles at Kauffman Stadium that saw a slim one-run lead evaporate and frustrations pile up.
The Royals left 15 runners on base. They went 5-for-21 with runners in scoring position. After another excellent start from a starter -- this time Seth Lugo’s seven scoreless innings -- their beleaguered bullpen was pushed to the brink.
The result? An eight-game losing streak and a Majors-worst 7-16 record.
“You look back two months ago, month ago, no one in here would believe we’re technically the worst team in baseball,” Bobby Witt Jr. said. “We believe in each and every one in here. And that’s how we got to go about it. We got to get better every day and try to just improve.”
This is the answer the Royals continue to state no matter how bad things look on the field. General manager J.J. Picollo expressed outward confidence in his club Monday afternoon in his usual homestand-opening scrum with local media, acknowledging that the group is pressing some but that the only way out of it is to keep moving forward and trust the process just 23 games into the year.
“We all know how long the season is,” Picollo said. “If you break the season up in bunches, short bunches, it doesn’t take much to turn something around. But if we get too focused and caught up in what’s happened over the last couple of weeks, we’re not going to be able to move forward. You get one big hit, the energy changes. The excitement changes. That may lead into the next night, and now all of a sudden the mentality changes. That’s something that we need to have happen.”
And preferably soon. While the bullpen is a major problem with its Majors-worst 6.37 ERA, the No. 1 issue remains the offense. The Royals rank near the bottom of the league in runs (76, t-27th), wRC+ (79, 29th, entering Monday) and OPS (.644, 28th).
While the Royals feel optimistic about their 89.5 mph exit velocity ranking eighth in MLB, their 28.9% chase and 24.6% whiff rates being slightly better than league average (29.5% and 25.9%, respectively) entering Monday and their 9.2% walk rate being up from last year’s 7.2% rate, those areas haven’t translated to results. And the Royals are batting .200 with runners in scoring position this season, which ranks 29th. Those problems are magnified when the middle of the lineup has struggled to produce like the Royals know they can, particularly Vinnie Pasquantino and Salvador Perez.
“They’re clearly pressing,” Picollo said. “They’re humans. That’s one thing, as good as they are as players, they understand where they hit in the lineup and their role on the team. Just trying to get them back into the processes.”
Kansas City’s faith hasn’t wavered in those two, nor in Maikel Garcia or Witt, who has been inconsistent so far and is still looking for his first home run, saying Monday that he has “to take better at-bats.” This offense runs through those four.
“They have a baseball card that says something,” Picollo said. “We know that they’re going to hit. We know they’re going to play well. I think the bottom part of the lineup has done some good things that’s maybe getting a little bit overshadowed because the big four in our lineup are going through some ups and downs. It does give us confidence that we’ll be able to get the offense rolling because the guys that are the most proven are the ones that are going to do it again at some point.”
Picollo also stated his confidence in manager Matt Quatraro and the coaching staff, as well as the group of players the Royals have on their roster. The team won’t be rushing to make changes in April.
“I think [Quatraro’s] steadiness is what allows us to do things well and right the ship,” Picollo said.
And of coaches, Picollo said the Royals have a lot of “belief and confidence in their planning, their preparation.”
“I think they put the hitters in a really good spot, the pitchers in a really good spot to go compete,” Picollo said. “In the end, I think the players will tell you, they’re the ones that have to go out and execute. I don’t see any problems with our processes. I think there’s some signs that our processes are good, we just haven’t gotten the results yet.”
The Royals need results to reach the expectations put on them this year internally and externally after two winning seasons and enough talent on the roster that should have this club contending in 2026.
They also need to make sure those expectations don’t turn into any more pressure than there already is to meet them.
“Managing expectations is part of what we need to do,” Picollo said. “I’d rather have the expectations than no expectations. I’m proud that we’ve worked to the point where this team is expected to win. … Part of growing up and maturity as a team is managing those expectations. We’d much rather have it. We put them on ourselves, too. It’s not just what the outside might think, but we have high expectations of the club as well. We just have to learn to manage it a little bit better. When you go through some tough stretches, figure out ways to cut it short rather than extend it.”