KANSAS CITY -- The seven-game homestand the Royals kicked off on Monday night is as important as a homestand in early May can be with four games against the Guardians and three against the Tigers. Not to mention heading on the road next week to face the White Sox in Chicago.
Those are the clubs the Royals are chasing in the division, with the Guardians (18-18) and Tigers (18-18) tied atop the American League Central.
That means the Royals have a chance to rewrite the division over the next 10 days, and they couldn’t have gotten off to a better start with Monday’s 6-2 win over the Guardians at Kauffman Stadium, their fourth consecutive win and eighth of their last 10.
Kansas City is still 16-19 but just 1 1/2 games out of the division lead and a half-game behind the White Sox (16-18), who are in action in Anaheim, for third place.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. The Royals aren’t.
“It’s a good opportunity to win today,” manager Matt Quatraro said pregame. “And see what happens after that. We can’t play seven of them tonight.”
“This is one of those where you look at 10 games, like, ‘Man, we could really gain some ground,’” general manager J.J. Picollo added. “But it’s one at a time. It’s one at a time. We’ve got to start tonight with Cleveland. We just want to play good baseball. If we play good baseball, we’ve got the talent to compete and be in a position to win every night.”
There was plenty of good baseball for the Royals on Monday, and that’s really been the key to the roll they’ve been on lately. The vibes are high and the confidence is palpable.
Take the fourth inning Monday. The Royals were quiet the first time through the order against Tanner Bibee, who needed just 38 pitches through three innings. By the end of the fourth inning, Bibee had thrown 77 pitches and the Guardians' bullpen was warming.
It started with Bobby Witt Jr.’s Statcast-projected 422-foot home run, his third of the year. Vinnie Pasquantino followed with a double off the right-field wall. Salvador Perez tied the game, 2-2, with a single up the middle that skipped on top of second base and went under the glove of Guardians second baseman Travis Bazzana.
The line kept moving: Carter Jensen singled and Lane Thomas walked. After two strikeouts, Nick Loftin lined a base hit through the left side of the infield, scoring two runs with the help of Royals replay specialist Bill Duplissea, who successfully challenged the out call at home -- it didn’t take too long to determine that Carter Jensen’s toe beat Bo Naylor’s glove to home plate. That improved Duplissea to 11-for-12 on challenges this season.
“I think it’s kind of just making it as simple as that: It’s not about getting 10 hits in a row with runners in scoring position,” Pasquantino said. “It’s about just having quality at-bats, making the pitcher work. Being able to get Tanner Bibee out after four, I mean, that’s huge.”
The four-run fourth gave the Royals a lead they added onto in the sixth on Jac Caglianone’s home run -- on his Blazin’ Bat Bobblehead night, of course -- and in the seventh when Pasquantino lined an RBI base hit into shallow right field over the heads of a drawn-in infield.
“It’s just quality at-bat after quality at-bat right now, and we just got to keep that going,” Pasquantino said.
Starter Michael Wacha spun seven innings of two-run ball, needing just 79 pitches to cruise through the Guardians’ lineup. David Fry’s two-run home run in the second didn’t phase Wacha, who settled in and gave the Royals a chance to come back. Matt Strahm and Alex Lange finished it out with scoreless eighth and ninth innings.
“I fell behind on Fry, missed with a cutter in the middle of the plate,” Wacha said. “Just kind of a reminder, ‘Hey, you get ahead, good things usually happen.’ Just tried to stay on the attack after that. Throw that next strike and get back in the zone.”
The Royals still have work to do to pull them out of the hole they found themselves in with their play in April. But in the last 10 games, they’ve gone from being nine games under .500 to three games under .500.
After Monday’s win, who knows what these next nine games will bring?
“You can’t get too forward-thinking in May, but they are big games,” Pasquantino said. “Every game is big, but especially against your division. It’s good to start the series like this. But we got three more against a really good team. We can’t let up.”