NEW YORK – Every game the Royals had played dating back to April 9 – nine days ago entering Saturday – had been close, decided by two runs or fewer. In some ways that made the six losses in that span even more frustrating, the allure of being right there but falling short again and again.
Saturday’s game? Not close. Frustration? Still there.
A 13-4 rout by the Yankees at Yankee Stadium handed the Royals their sixth consecutive loss and a 7-14 record through the first 21 games of the season. Kansas City has lost nine consecutive games to the Yankees dating back to Sept. 11, 2024, and it hasn’t won a series at Yankee Stadium since September 2014.
Without a win in Sunday’s series finale, the Royals are in danger of going 0-6 on this road trip through Detroit and New York.
Perhaps more importantly, the Royals are in danger of seeing a season with high expectations slip away from them. The season is only 13 percent complete, but in MLB history, only six teams have lost at least 14 of the first 21 games in a non-shortened season and made it to the playoffs. The last occurrence was just two years ago, when the Astros started 7-14 and won their division. It’s happened before, and the Royals could make it happen again – no one is exactly running away with the American League Central to begin the year.
But the more losses stack up, the harder it becomes to crawl themselves out of the hole being dug right now.
“We have to figure out how to win games,” Maikel Garcia said. “That’s all I say.”
That’s really all that needs to be said. This is not the way the season was supposed to start for a team with stars like Garcia, Bobby Witt Jr., Vinnie Pasquantino and Salvador Perez in its lineup and with a rotation that has been one of the best in the league for the past two seasons.
“Obviously it’s been a frustrating start,” Pasquantino said before Saturday’s game. “As much as I want to say it’s April, I don’t know if that’s the best mindset. You got to attack it. I know people don’t want to hear, ‘We’ll get through it,’ either. I think we’d all like to get through it quicker.”
There are a plethora of reasons why the Royals are in the slump they’re in, offensive woes at the top of the list. The middle of their lineup – Witt (.673 OPS), Pasquantino (.522) and Perez (.517) – has struggled immensely to start the year, making it hard for this offense to click.
Kansas City entered Saturday having scored 3.35 runs per game, second-worst in MLB. The four runs scored Saturday were actually a bit of a breakout thanks to Carter Jensen’s two-run homer and Michael Massey’s two-run double, as the Royals have scored two runs or fewer in 12 of 21 games and eight of their last 11 games.
But they also struck out 12 times Saturday, including 11 against Yankees starter Will Warren, who also recorded 21 called strikes – five of them resulting in strikeouts.
“He did something different, because we had a plan against him,” Garcia said. “He threw me four-seams. Sometimes he pitched different to every hitter.”
Not helping matters was the Royals’ pitching staff allowing a season-high 13 runs, seven (five earned) against starter Noah Cameron. The lefty was cruising through the first two innings, but a misplay in right-center field in the third on a fly ball altered the course of his start and this game. Jac Caglianone and Kyle Isbel collided on a ball that should have been an easy catch for Isbel.
Instead, J.C. Escarra ended up on third, and the Yankees followed with three home runs in a five-run third inning.
“I don’t know if I lost focus or they just started putting the bat on the ball and started making some mistake pitches there,” Cameron said. “Especially after something like that happens, just got to get back in the zone and attack and try to get us out of there.”
Mistakes are magnified in slumps like these, like the defensive error and Witt’s pickoff in the top of the fourth inning, when the Royals are trying to get anything going offensively.
“This is the big leagues, so you’re playing to win every night,” manager Matt Quatraro said. “When you don’t, you have to be better. We know this is a good team. We know we should be a good team. We haven’t played that way yet. Things like we talk about, they get very exaggerated when it’s April. We’ll do our best to turn it around tomorrow.”