In the just completed six game homestand against the Rays and Yankees, the Royals held the lead just once. On Friday, they jumped out to a 1-0 lead in their half of the first and held it all the way through nine. In four of the six games, they trailed before they even came to the plate in their half of the first.

We are now 46 games into the season, meaning we are well past the quarter point and beyond the 40 or so games Dayton Moore likes to have in hand before he renders judgment on his squad. What have we learned in the first quarter of the 2018 season?

The Royals are dreadful.

None of this should be a surprise. Well, maybe the .304 winning percentage. That translates to 49 wins. Forty nine! At least they’re interesting. Except when they’re not.

Maybe this is how things play out when the “contenders” meet the “tankers.*” The competitive imbalance is so real in the American League that when the Royals face teams such as the Yankees, Red Sox and Astros, it’s bound to result in a bloodletting of tiresome proportions. There was nothing remotely interesting in these weekend games, unless you are a fan of counting down to the inevitable. The only drama on Sunday was whether Sonny Gray, he of the 71 ERA+ entering the game, could finish off a perfect game. Or a shutout. (The answer to both questions was a tepid, “No.”)

*Except the Royals aren’t trying to tank!

Duffy “leads” Royals starters in H/9 (11.1), BB/9 (4.4) and HR/9 (2.5). Taken alone, any one of those numbers would be cause for some concern. Taken together and you have a five alarm fire. 

The Royals need to make a decision on Duffy. He can go on the disabled list with a sore shoulder or a stiff elbow or a jammed eyelid. That buys him a mental break it sure seems like he could use. Shut things down for a bit, gather your thoughts and come back hopefully a little refreshed in an attempt to get your season back on track.

The other option is moving him to the bullpen. It worked before, so why not try it again? The Royals are smart enough to frame it not as a demotion, rather the opportunity to get things right. Duffy is too valuable to this team to flounder in the rotation. And he’s too valuable to pitch just one or two innings at a time in relief. 

So the Royals and Duffy have to come to some sort of agreement on a plan to put things on a more positive track. Apparently, Ned Yost is against sending Duffy to the pen. “That’s not happening,” Yost said after Saturday’s game. “He’s a major league starter.” At this point, that statement seems to stretch the boundaries of reality.

Yost teases he has some ideas on how to help Duffy, but he’s not going to let anyone know, lest opposing teams take advanatge. Kind of like they’re doing right now.

The point is, the Royals need to take action to try to solve the Duffy enigma. We’ve seen enough to know doing nothing is not an option.

(Recall I am pessimistic on Duffy’s future. He’s not the Royals ace. Not anymore. And it’s highly unlikely he will ever pitch good enough again to reclaim his position. Still, Duffy needs to find his mojo and settle in as a hopefully competent middle to back of the rotation starter. The kind of guy who gives you five innings and allows four runs and you feel good about that. In other words, a recalibration of expectations are in order.)

Meanwhile, you surely saw Clay Buchholz throw five innings of two hit ball for the Diamondbacks on Sunday. The Diamondbacks hold the top spot of the NL West and are slumping, yet have playoff aspirations. Buchholz, as you recall, was signed by the Royals prior to the season to a minor league contract. He had an opt-out in his contract that would allow him to be released on May 1 if he wasn’t on the major league roster. The opt-out was exercised and he was snapped up by Arizona.

While Royals starting pitchers are the accelerant to the American League spark, it beggars the question as to why, exactly, was Buchholz even signed in the first place. He threw 16 innings for the Royals between Double and Triple-A before his opt-out came into play. They had to know, given the date of his initial signing, that Buchholz would have close to that number of innings under his belt at that point in the season. Look, I get letting Junis and Skogland get their innings at the major league level. It would be disingenuous of me to argue for Buchholz ahead of either, given I’m wholly in the corner of Team Tank. Yet at the same time, inexpensive veterans like Buchholz are exactly the type of player a team like the Royals should be exploring. It’s unlikely such a player would return anything on the trade market, but as long as there’s a chance they could spin a little thread into even the tiniest piece of gold, doesn’t it make sense for the Royals to give him a big league look? Alas, Buchholz isn’t going to jump ahead of the overpriced and underperforming triumvirate of Danny Duffy, Ian Kennedy and Jason Hammel. Maybe Buchholz was brought on board to hedge against the injury bet. 

At any rate, l’affaire Buchholz is typical Royals. Sometimes, it just seems like they don’t have much of an idea of what they want to do. Don’t misunderstand, Buchholz is a fringe starter at this point and would have made minimal impact in the Royals rotation. But what, exactly, is the plan? Do the Royals themselves have any idea what they’re doing in these early stages of their rebuild? (They’re not tanking!) 

The same question could be raised about how they handle Duffy at this point going forward. They say they have some ideas, they indicate they have a plan to move forward. But do they really? And should we believe them when they say they do?

Along with the return of the losses, distrust is making a comeback as well.

Tigers Vitals

Tigers vs. Royals

Offense

Pitching

Tigers Projected Lineup

The Matchups

Monday

I thought Daniel Norris was going to break out in a big way this season, and so far, that just hasn’t been the case. His control has taken a step backward and the strikeout rate he showed last season has dropped a bit, which has made the strikeout to walk ratio less than desired.

Norris is a fastball-slider pitcher for the most part. He throws the fastball about 56 percent of the time and averages nearly 94 MPH. It has some good movement, so when it’s on, it’s trouble. He throws the slider nearly one-quarter of the time at 87-88 MPH, so it’s a pretty hard slider. He also mixes in the occasional changeup and curve. The issue he’s had is that the two pitches he throws the most have been hit for extra bases quite a bit more than you’d like. In fact, he’s allowed 18 XBH in 167 at bats this year on those pitches. Norris has had an interesting platoon split this year with a .263/.356/.500 average allowed to lefties and .294/.367/.413 to righties. So righties have gotten more hits, but lefties have hit the ball with more authority, which could bode well for the Royals with their left-handed power. The key against Norris is to not fall behind in the count. He’s allowed a .194/.194/.258 line when ahead and a .443/.574/.729 line when behind in the count. Plate discipline will be the Royals friend.

Jason Hammel looked about as good as I’ve seen him this year in his last start against the Yankees even if the results weren’t that great. The 14 swinging strikes he elicited were a season high, as were his seven strikeouts over six innings. If he can carry that into this matchup with the Tigers, he should fare quite well. However, he also has had only two really good starts this season, so I’m not exactly optimistic.

Tuesday

The former Cy Young winner looked like he might be turning his career back around last season with a 3.04 ERA in 34 starts. It was his best year since 2012 and he seemed primed to have another big season. So far, he hasn’t, as you can see from the 4.87 ERA. Like Norris, his control has taken a step backwards while his strikeout rate has dropped from last season. Between that and giving up a few more hits, he’s posted a 1.41 WHIP this year, which is less than good.

His fastball velocity is up this season, to an average of 95-96 MPH, and he’s still throwing it around 59 percent of the time. His slider comes in hard, at 90-91 MPH, and he throws that around 19 percent of the time. He rounds out his repertoire mostly with curves, but he does throw the occasional changeup. It’s really been the walks that have killed him, but he’s allowed a .391 average and .609 SLG on the changeup. It’s a little bit weird, but the big issue for Verlander has been the second time through the order. He’s allowed a .578 OPS the first time through and the .672 OPS the third time through. The second time, though, he’s allowed a .301/.356/.578 line. If you’re looking for an explanation for that, well, I don’t have one.

It looks like Eric Skoglund will make his big league debut Tuesday after he was scratched from his start in Omaha on Sunday. He hasn’t been great in Triple-A with a higher ERA, but his peripherals are quite good. He’s in his fourth professional season, so the stage shouldn’t be too big for him. He throws a little harder than your typical finesse lefty, but that’s basically what he is. He’s the type who could have some success his first time through the league. If Skoglund isn’t the guy, we’ll update.

Wednesday

Like Norris, Boyd was one I thought was going to make some great strides this season, but he’s been way worse than Norris. This is a running theme, but his walk rate is up from last year and his strikeout rate has dropped. He’s also allowing 11.7 H/9 this season, which has led to an awful lot of base runners. This may be breaking news, but allowing base runners is not great for a pitcher.

Boyd has used his fastball a bit less this season and incorporated his changeup a lot more. His four-seamer comes in around 92 MPH, and his sinker is just a bit slower than that. What’s interesting is that even though he’s struggled this season and you’d think his changeup has been the problem, it really hasn’t. He’s allowed a .386 average and a .682 SLG on his four-seamer and a .333 average and .567 SLG on his sinker. Those two pitches just haven’t worked at all this season. His slider has also been a disaster, but he throws that a lot less. While Boyd hasn’t been good in any situation, he’s been especially brutal with runners in scoring position, allowing a .349/.483/.558 line, and he’s had plenty of opportunities with runners in scoring position with all those runners he’s allowed.

Kennedy has looked like a guy who needed some rehab starts before coming back to the big league roster, but he did settle down against Cleveland after struggling early. He hasn’t gotten many swinging strikes his last two starts, but he strangely got 19 strikes looking against the Indians. Hopefully his last couple innings can carry over in this one.

I don’t think the Tigers are especially good, but I do wonder if they aren’t a terrible matchup for the Royals. A couple of lefty starters could be trouble for them, and Verlander is always tough no matter how he’s pitching. I think the Royals pick up one win this series, but that’s it.

HR Roll Call Hunter Dozier (14), Chad Johnson (2), Travis Maezes (7), Samir Duenez (5), Jecksson Flores (2)

BP KC Hitter of the Day – Wander Franco 4-5 RBI

BP KC Pitcher of the Day – Erik Skoglund 6.2 IP 5 H 2 ER 1 BB 3 K 5-5 GO-FO 98p/65k

New Orleans Zephyrs 7 Omaha Storm Chasers 4

The Chasers struggling offense kicked in a little bit on Sunday collecting 11 hits and two walks but left some scoring opportunities on the board before the bullpen gave up the lead and the eventual win. Three different Chasers hitters had three hits on the day while Hunter Dozier knocked out his sixth Triple-A home run but it was good for just four runs with a 2 for 8 team performance with runners in scoring position. Relievers Matt Murray (3 ER) and Malcom Culver (1 ER) gave up four runs between the 6th and 7th innings to give up the lead and the win.

Boxscore Link

Hunter Dozier 1-4 HR, BB
Jorge Bonifacio 3-5 R
Jonathan Dziedzic 5 IP 6 H 3 ER 3 BB 2 K 2-6 GO-FO 90p/52k

Arkansas Travelers 2 NW Arkansas Naturals 0

Starter Erik Skoglund pitched well enough to win, giving up just two runs over 6.2 innings but his offense couldn’t back him as the Naturals were blanked on just three hits and a pair of walks. Outfielder Bubba Starling’s struggles have hit a new low after another 0 for 3 that sent his average to just .188. The player that he showed last year just isn’t there, attempting to pull everything while striking out 32% of the time coming into Sunday’s game. In the middle of his second abysmal slump which currently running 0 for his last 17, the second this season that has stretched that long (May 15-19 0 for 18).

Boxscore Link

Ryan O’Hearn 1-3
Frank Schwindel 1-3 2b
Kyle Bartsch 1.1 IP 1 H 0 R 0 BB 2 K 0-1 GO-FO 18p/14k 0.64 ERA in 8 App. since rejoining KC

Salem Red Sox 6 Wilmington Blue Rocks 5

The Wilmington Blue Rocks fell behind 5-0 early on Sunday, unable to mount their comeback until Red Sox prospect Trey Ball left the game. The lefty kept Wilmington scoreless for 5.1 innings while scattering five hits and two walks in that time. Wilmington’s starter Matt Tenuta was unable to match the Salem starter, giving up four runs in his 5.2 innings. Trailing 5-0 and 6-1 the Rocks scored four runs in the final two innings to get within striking distance and getting the tying run to 3rd with two down. The former Dominican bonus baby, Elier Hernandez, couldn’t get the job done though, flying out to centerfield to end the game.

Boxscore Link

Chad Johnson 2-4 HR
Alfredo Escalera 2-4 2b, BB, RBI, E (3)
Elier Hernandez 2-5 RBI

Hagerstown Nationals 7 Lexington Legends 5

The Legends knocked out three home runs but it was not enough as their South Atlantic League All Star struggled on the mound. Lefty Emilio Ogando gave up seven runs over 4.2 innings on nine hits in that time. The big inning for the Nationals was the 4th when they used two home runs of their own to cross the dish four times and stretch a 1-1 game to 5-1. A pair of runs in the next inning pushed the advantage to six until the Legends offense finally awoke. First baseman got things rolling in the 7th with a solo home run which was followed by a Ben Johnson double that scored Anderson Miller. Designated hitter Travis Maezes closed the gap further with a two run home run. Trailing 7-5 the Legends would put the tying runs on the bases in the 8th but were unable to push them across, dropping the game in the process.

Boxscore Link

Anderson Miller 1-3 R, BB
Travis Maezes 1-4 HR, 2 RBI
DJ Burt 1-3 BB