Not only did the Royals stock up on college arms via the draft, they executed what figures to be the first of several trades, sending Jon Jay to Arizona in exchange for a couple more arms. Clint Scoles did an excellent job on the breakdown of who the Royals received.

It was absolutely the correct thing for the Royals to do. Jay was at the height of his value, hitting .307/.363/.374 with a .256 TAv and 0.7 WARP. It’s not an especially sexy set of numbers, but Jay is the epitome of a league average outfielder. There’s value in that, but not usually much in the way of return. For the Royals to nab two arms, one with some good looking upside, qualifies as a nifty piece of business. Exactly what a general manager of a rebuilding team should be looking to accomplish.

But in the short term, the departure of Jay leaves a void in the Royals offense. The lineup was already struggling to score runs, even with Jay and his .363 OBP at the top of the order. They score 3.95 runs per game (and that’s prior to Thursday’s one-run effort in Oakland), which ranks them a half run worse than league average. Jay was a guy who could set the table for the two through five hitters. He scored on a Mike Moustakas hit 10 times. When you discount the 12 RBI Moustakas is credited for thanks to his home runs, Jay accounts for 35 percent of his total RBI production.

Or look at it this way. Moustakas has 40 RBI this season and has driven in 16 percent of the runners on base when he comes to the plate. The average major leaguer with the same number of plate appearances as Moustakas has brought home 29 runners. Whit Merrifield, sandwiched between Jay and Moustakas hitting second for most of the season, has scored seven times on a Moustakas batted ball. It’s been a decent top third of the order for the most part. With splits available to us from Baseball Reference, we can see the Royals top two in the batting order has largely been league average. They have scored 32 runs (average is 29 runs scored) and their OPS+ is 98. It’s acceptable. Assuming Merrifield will remain in the top two, probably hitting leadoff, the Royals are going to need to find someone to move to the second spot in the order. In the first two post-Jay lineups, that’s been Alcides Escobar and Paulo Orlando. 

Yikes.

The absence of Jay from the top of the order will impact Moustakas more than any other Royal. It shouldn’t hurt his value going forward as one of the more attractive bats on the trade market, but given what we saw transpire over the winter with his free agency, who knows what to believe anymore. 

So who fills the gap in the short term with Jay departed? The idea the Royals would like to get a look at Paulo Orlando and/or Abraham Almonte is laughable and I don’t buy that for a second. I can’t buy that. Not if the Royals are asking me to trust The Process again. Orlando is 32 years old, has accumulated nearly 900 major league plate appearances and owns a career .244 TAv. Even if you legitimately, for some strange reason, thought there was some upside left in that tank, whatever would you be thinking to assume Orlando would still be a productive player once the Royals were ready to win again? That question is moot anyway. Orlando is surplus and could be jettisoned anytime the Royals decide they need a spot for the 40-man roster.

It’s a similar scenario for Almonte. He’s younger than Orlando by a couple of years, but has over 1,000 plate appearances in a major league career spanning six seasons and has a .237 TAv. Factor in the defense (where Orlando is overrated, just check the highlights from Thursday in Oakland) and you have a player who is worse than Orlando. The only reason to have both on the 25-man roster is if you’re actively trying to tank. (They’re not tanking, damnit!) Otherwise, why bother?

One or both will get the boot by the time Jorge Bonifacio returns from his PED exile. Then, we should be looking at a combination of Bonifacio, Merrifield, Jorge Soler, and Alex Gordon rotating among the outfield and DH spots. It’s not ideal from a defensive standpoint, fielding a lineup without a true center fielder, but between Gordon and Merrifield, it’s workable. The added benefit here is it opens a spot for Adalberto Mondesi at second. If you’re rebuilding, play the kids. (Who are we kidding here? Alcides Escobar isn’t going anywhere as he continues his assault on Cal Ripken’s consecutive game streak. Ryan Goins serves absolutely no purpose, but the Royals seem to be unable to kick their bad middle infielder infatuation habit.)

The veterans like Jay serve a purpose early in the season. They fulfill that when they can be dealt to a contender for real, live prospects, which in turn is supposed to open space for a younger player to get his reps. That’s the rebuilding blueprint. The Royals won’t say they’re tanking (they’re still not tanking, damnit!), but they are aware of what needs to be done. The Jay move is simply the first domino to fall.

With Moustakas and Kelvin Herrera poised to go next, the stakes will increase. The good news is, it looks like Dayton Moore and the Royals are ready to push The Process 2.0 into overdrive.

The prospect that we are more likely to see the soonest is left-handed reliever Speier, currently at Double-A Jackson.

Via 2080 Baseball – Not a guy with real big stuff, Speier has a pitch-to-contact profile who will get some swing and miss, but more relies on efficiency and high ground ball rates. As he has climbed, he has done a very good job adjusting to the level and maintaining the production, a 2.18 GO:AO ratio across four levels in 2016.

Despite that report, it seems Speier has started to take the next step in his development, creating groundballs at a higher rate than before (60.5%); while he hasn’t fixed the walk rate yet, he’s started to get more strikeouts. The upside here is a groundball inducing LOOGY.

The prospect that made this deal happen is right along the lines of what the Royals have signed on their own in the past in international signee Luciano. Signed for just $85k in 2016, this 18-year-old is already exhibiting a feel for multiple pitches from his lean 6’2 184 lbs frame. The right-hander is up to 95 mph with his fastball, while getting downward movement with the pitch that settles in the mid-90’s. In addition to the fastball, he has a feel for the changeup and curveball with the change ahead at the current time. The body looks strong in the upper half and should be able to add some muscle in the lower half, meaning it’s very likely he’ll be able to stick as a starter should he refine the breaking ball further.

There is some upside here reminiscent of recently acquired Yefri Del Rosario, the prospect the Royals acquired after the Braves were forced to let him become a free agent, but Luciano may have a better feel for pitching. His thicker frame likely means he has a better opportunity to stay in the rotation longterm in comparison to Del Rosario. This right-hander could be ready to show his stuff at Low-A Lexington rather soon with the ceiling of a middle of the rotation starter.

Analysis – This is a nice return for the Royals in exchange for Jay, a limited player with limited upside and fringe centerfielder. Getting back an upside starter who likely fits among their Top 25-30 prospects and a fringy LOOGY is the best possible return they could have hoped for.

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It’s the fourth inning of Tuesday’s game against Anaheim. Keller had been cruising along all night, but back-to-back singles by Mike Trout and Justin Upton suddenly had the Angels in business against a guy making his second career big league start.

So what does Keller do? Nothing different. He starts Luis Valbuena with a two-seamer low and away, then pounds him up and in—fastball, fastball, fastball, the last cracking his bat and settling into Jon Jay’s glove in center.

Zack Cozart got the opposite approach. Fastball up and away, fastball up and away as he flied out to center as well.

What did I like about this? I liked the poise that a young guy had when things got tight. I liked that he trusted his stuff, didn’t try to paint the corner too much and wasn’t afraid to pitch up and in, knowing that a fastball left out over the plate could be hit a long way.

Nope and nope. Keller worked out of it with something approaching ease. And if the Royals offense had bothered to show up at all, he certainly pitched well enough for Kansas City to come away with a win.

[very Ron Howard on “Arrested Development” voice] They didn’t.

Andrew Heaney—in what was either the best game of his career or his good fortune to face the Royals on a night when they were as bad as bad can be—tossed a one-hit shutout, and as good as Keller and Trevor Oaks combined to be, that one hit was not a two-run homer, meaning the Royals lost 1-0.

Baseball can be a cruel game.

Rather than our typical 850-1,000 word opus, tonight’s recap will be rather brief because… um… nothing happened? Here is a list of Kansas City baserunners, in its entirety, for nine innings of baseball:

• Jon Jay was hit by a pitch to lead off the first.
• Hunter Dozier singled in the fifth.
• Jorge Soler walked in the seventh.

End of list. No player advanced to second. According to Statcast, Dozier’s single—which exited at 109.4 mph—was the hardest-hit ball of the night and one of only two balls hit by a Royals player harder than 100 mph (the other was Alex Gordon’s fifth-inning groundout). So yeah… not the best night for Kansas City’s offense.

One almost wishes it were a blowout, for no other reason than that it wasted a fine performance from Keller and his bullpen supplementation. Almost every time there was trouble, Keller and Co. worked out of it:

• A one-out walk to Andrelton Simmons in the first was negated after a Trout double play ball to Moustakas, who was straight-up Hoovering at third all night. He made a diving stop to start this 5-4-3 and made a backhand grab in foul territory to nab Cozart in the seventh.
• A leadoff Justin Upton single in the second was followed by Valbuena flyout, Cozart strikeout and Martin Maldonado strikeout.
• The aforementioned fourth inning.

The fifth inning yielded the game’s lone run, and kudos go to Mike Scioscia for devising it. Chris Young socked a one-out single to left, followed by a Michael Hermosillo single. On Ian Kinsler’s flyout to right, Young moved up 90 feet to put men on the corners with two down. Hermosillo took off for second on an 0-1 count and Salvador Perez fired to a covering Whit Merrifield; as soon as the ball was out of Salvy’s hand, Young broke to the plate and even if Merrifield had immediately thrown home, I doubt he would’ve been able to nab young, who got an excellent jump.

And to the best of my knowledge, that is literally all that happened. Because on 116 pitches, Andrew Heaney threw a one-hit shutout, striking out four.

The Bright Spot: Keller was good, but I might’ve been more impressed with Trevor Oaks, who pitched three shutout, high-leverage innings close and late.

The Nadir: It probably gets worse than being one-hit by Andrew Heaney, but I’d just as soon not find out.

The Next Step: Win, lose or draw, Wednesday will be awesome because Wednesday is Ohtani Time! In the first series between these two in April, Ohtani was supposed to start the Sunday contest before weather forced a postponement. I am excited to see him.

I am less excited to see Ian Kennedy.

If you want to know what an expert thinks about the five pitchers drafted, you’re in the wrong place. Clint Scoles is who you’re after, and he’s way smarter than I am. My 1,000-yard view of the situation is that five collegiate arms seems like an odd way to add juice back into your farm system, but I’ve also never crafted a draft and development strategy that yielded two pennants and a World Series title. I defer to Dayton Moore. I know next to nothing about many of the principles involved on draft night beyond what I find out from Clint or a random college game I may find on ESPNU. Monday night saw FIVE collegiate arms get drafted by Kansas City; I’m sure there’s no correlation between that and the fact that the Royals current pitching situation is Jakob Junis, Kelvin Herrera and a pocket full of wishes.

Anyway, go read Clint’s stuff if you want some positivity in your future. Read this if you want some positivity about your present! You’re getting a raise tomorrow and a beautiful woman will accept your offer to take her out on a date*!

*–Some exclusions may apply.

That’s all I’ve got because the bullpen reared its ugly, Medusa-like head yet again in forking over a 9-6 win to the Angels.

As per usual, the night began with Kansas City scoring runs, because the Royals score runs in the first two innings and then NEVER AGAIN (usually)(sometimes). It began with a manufactured first-inning run after American League All-Star Jon Jay singled to lead off the game, smartly moved up to second on Whit Merrifield’s flyout and scored on a Mike Moustakas single.

An inning later, Jay would drive in a run. Hunter Dozier roped a one-out double, scoring on an Alcides Escobar single. Esky stole second, moved to third on an Abraham Almonte ground out and scored when Jay singled him in.

However, the Royals would only be up a run after two innings; the Angels proved a formidable foe early, putting up a run on a bases-loaded sac fly in the first (Mike Trout singled, Justin Upton singled and Albert Pujols walked) and scoring on a bizarre play in the second when Martin Maldonado singled with Jefry Marte aboard, only the ball… got under the glove… got by… I don’t really know what happened out in left, but the upshot is that Marte scored and Maldonado wound up on second.

The Good Guys tacked on two more in the fifth, with Whit Merrifield stroking a leadoff double and the Angels (wisely) pitching around Mike Moustakas on four pitches. After a Salvador Perez flyout, Angels starter Nick Tropeano missed his spot by several feet, uncorking a wild pitch to move Merrifield and Moustakas up 90 feet. Good Jorge Soler doubled both of them home to give the Royals some breathing room.

Unfortunately, the insurance runs were gone as soon as they arrived. In the Angels portion of the fifth, Justin Upton led off with a homer while Marte led off the sixth in the same fashion to chase Duffy from the contest. Duffy had some good moments, but on the whole he was playing with fire all night; he recorded no strikeouts in a start for the first time since July 10, 2015 and all 15 of his recorded outs were flyouts.

On came Kevin McCarthy and nope, that didn’t spell the difference either. Pinch-hitter Shohei Otani snuck a one-out single under the glove of a heavily-shifted, hard-charging Escobar, then moved to second when Ian Kinsler walked. Trout tied it with a single to score Ohtani, then Pujols singled to score Trout, only because a heads-up Moustakas threw Kinsler out at the plate on Justin Upton’s bouncer to third with one away.

(Is it just me or is Moustakas a little better defensively than last year? His UZR and other advanced metrics say so. Maybe not Gold Glove material, but perfectly serviceable.)

Although surrendering a lead has been as sure of a sign that the Royals were toast as I can think of this season, the fight was not gone. Perez led off the Kansas City seventh with a homer to tie the game, reaching double-figures for the seventh consecutive season.

A three-spot for the Halos doomed the Royals in the bottom of the eighth. Tim Hill issued a leadoff walk to Martin Maldonado, and then for kicks he walked Michael Hermosillo immediately thereafter. After Hill struck out Ian Kinsler, Trout grounded a pitch back through the box—Hill deflected it, Merrifield pulled up, I assume, thinking Escobar would make the play. Nobody did. Pinch-runner Kaleb Cowart scored from second on a ball that didn’t leave the infield.

Upton singled to score Hermosillo.

Pujols singled to score Trout, although Alex Gordon—again—threw out Upton at third for his third outfield assist in eight days to help ease the burden on Burch Smith, who replaced Hill prior to Pujols’ at-bat.

The Bright Spot: Jon Jay had three hits. He’s hitting .311. Convince me it’s not the best story on this team right now.

The Nadir: Hill is one of the few trustworthy relievers on this roster, but he gave up more earned runs in a third of an inning tonight than he did in the entire month of May.

The Next Step: Andrew Heaney takes the ball for the Angels. Brad Keller will go for the Royals. Rumor is Jackson Kowar is being flown out to Anaheim to piggy-back Keller as he continues to get stretched out.

Being able to fend off the A’s and even the series at one game apiece was just a sweetener.

Despite tying the game up, Oakland could not find the go-ahead run and Jorge Soler provided the late-inning run needed to give the Royals the 5-4 win at Kauffman Stadium, Saturday.

Could I interest you in a 4-0 lead after two innings? I knew you’d like that. it began, as many a Royal run-scoring opportunity has begun this season, with Jon Jay. The centerfielder lined a single into center, moved to third on Whit Merrifield’s double. Salvador Perez scored both on a double that one-hopped the fence after going over Matt Joyce’s head.

Jay played a pivotal role in the two-run second, this time driving in a run rather than scoring it. With two down, Goins attempted to catch the A’s napping and laid down a bunt. He was initially ruled out but on further review was deemed safe. Blessed with new life, Alcides Escobar tripled home Goins and then scored when Jay doubled down the line in left.

(Updated scoring dichotomy’s: Royals outscoring foes 73-52 in the first two innings; opponents hold 276-161 advantage thereafter. Will keep updating as it becomes more and more improbable. If every game stopped before the top of the third, the Royals would be leading the division.)

This was the welcome I was hoping the Royals would provide Trevor Cahill, and Jason Hammel was fairly sharp for his part. He stayed away from the big inning, yielding a run in the third (Jed Lowrie single following a Marcus Semien double) and again in the fourth (Stephen Piscotty scored on a Bruce Maxwell single; Piscotty almost had an RBI himself but Alex Gordon threw Dustin Fowler out at home, his second outfield assist this week).

Skipping ahead (nothing happened in the fifth or sixth innings, to the best of my knowledge), Maxwell greeted Hammel with a home run to centerfield to start the seventh, which knocked Hammel out of the game. This wasn’t as good as his 10-strikeout start, or even some of his other good efforts, but it’s also not Ian Kennedy getting his brains kicked in. You can work with six innings, three earned and three strikeouts.

(Hammel also had a little luck: Four A’s hit balls at least 106.0 mph off of him; Maxwell’s was a home run, but Matt Chapman’s second inning single yielded nothing and the other two—a Piscotty liner and a Khris Davis grounder—were outs.)

As ever when the bullpen gets involved, things can get a little tense and Saturday was no exception. Kevin McCarthy relieved Hammel and quickly buzzed through the A’s in the seventh, but Tim Hill had a rockier time, if perhaps some bad luck, in the eighth. Matt Olson greeted him with a single to start the frame, which is fine—Olson took Kennedy deep twice yesterday, I’ll take a single, although it was a belt-high four-seamer, so things could’ve been worse.

And Hill induced a high chopper that Goins played expertly off the hop (I’ll bet the Venn diagram between Ryan Goins and the word ‘expert’ is super small), but developed too slowly to turn for two. That allowed Chad Pinder, pinch-hitting for Fowler, to lace a single back through the box to score Olson, tie the game and rob Hammel of a victory.

It’s also a neat little summation of why the win’s stat for pitchers is a big pile of horse poop, but I digress.

If form were to follow function, this is the part where the 2018 Royals would come unglued, surrender a bunch of runs and lose. Instead, Hill got Piscotty to ground out and Jonathan Lucroy to line out to end the inning, then got to join the rest of the free world in watching Jorge Soler do that thing where he hits a baseball super-hard a very long way.

Actually, that’s not true; the 103.6 mph exit velocity is on the lower end for him this season, and 393 feet passes for wall-scraper territory where Soler is concerned; it’s just the third of his nine that failed to clear 400 feet. But it also got out of the yard and gave Kelvin Herrera more than enough rope to close out the contest for his season’s 13^th save.

[old-timey auctioneer voice] Do I hear one top-50 prospect for Herrera? Do I hear one, can I get a one, anybody, one… I gotta one, can I get a two…

The Bright Spot: Jon Jay raised his average to .305 with a two-hit performance. He’s right ahead of his career numbers and comparable to what he did in Chicago last year and San Diego the year before. Is it a guarantee he’s going to be benched once Jorge Bonifacio is ready? If nothing else, he can continue putting on and hopefully snag a prospect near the deadline.

The Nadir: Slowly giving back runs as the fanbase died a slow death. Even if the worst didn’t happen, that was less than ideal.

The Next Step: The one guaranteed solid performer among Royals starters, Jake Junis looks to shake off his season’s worst outing (career-high four walks, four runs allowed to the Twins, Monday) in Sunday’s 1:15 p.m. (CT) matinee. Daniel Gossett looks to shake off a thrashing at the hands of the Rays (looks weird in print), which is consistent with the 0-3, 6.05 ERA the righty has posted this season.

The Royals had some success this week, including some solid pitching performances by Brad Keller, Danny Duffy, and Jason Hammel. We covered some of the recent DL moves and the way it’s shifted the pitching staff. We also discussed Jon Jay’s successful May, Hunter Dozier’s adjustment to the big leagues, and took another look at how trade values may be shifting.

In a second segment, we looked at some year by year numbers to see how strikeout, home run, and hit rates have changed over the years. Of course, the strikeout and home run rates we see today are higher than in the past, but by how much? And how quickly have they shifted? We picked out some key seasons where things started to change, and how the game shapes up today as a result.

Subscribe to the podcast via iTunes and BlogTalkRadio. You can also download this episode here (mp3).

Follow the Vault at @KCBaseballVault. Follow host Jeff Herr at @TheJeffReport, co-host Michael Engel at @michaelengel. You can also email feedback to KansasCityBaseballVault@gmail.com. Email us a question and if we answer it on the air, we’ll send you a gift certificate to our friends at Kelly’s Westport Inn.

With the draft coming up this week, we’ll begin to see that happen as the Royals have the highest pool allotment and four of the first 40 picks. I believe the performance of many of the Royals top prospects have probably helped their standing in prospect rankings. Guys like MJ Melendez and Seuly Matias starting off so strong, along with solid seasons from Khalil Lee, Nicky Lopez and others, looks good for the organization. It’s still a long process, though. And even with that, there are three other areas that the 2018 season can be judged at the big league level, so I wanted to take a look at the progress of those three areas:

Finding Out

While nobody would argue that the Royals have enough impact talent in the upper levels of the organization to compete quickly, they do have some pieces that could be useful parts of the next good Royals team. This season was important to determine if they can cut it in the big leagues long-term or if they’re just placeholders for when the big prospects make their debuts over the next few years. It was important to see if Jorge Soler and Jorge Bonifacio were long-term pieces, along with guys like Cheslor Cuthbert and Hunter Dozier and maybe even Ramon Torres.

The Verdict:

So far, the reviews are mixed on both the players and the Royals ability to learn anything. Soler has played every day and has done quite well, though he’s in the midst of a slump right now. He looks like a part of the next good Royals team whether he’s in the lineup or part of a trade to acquire more talent. Cuthbert has played regularly and struggled mightily and is now on the disabled list. I imagine he’s facing his last days as a Royal soon, and part of that is that I believe the Royals have been impressed with what they’ve seen from Hunter Dozier. Even though the power has been lacking, he’s had good at bats and hit the ball very hard while looking good at first base.

Obviously they haven’t yet had the opportunity to see a sophomore season from Bonifacio because of his suspension, but his time is coming with the Royals scheduled to play their 81st game on June 29th in Seattle. And with Ramon Torres, they chose to enter the season with Ryan Goins on the roster. I assume this is because Dayton Moore was tired of people making fun of Chris Getz, so he wanted to show everyone what a truly awful baseball player could do, but I can’t be certain. Even so, those two along with Dozier need to be front and center for the Royals for at least a few weeks to give the Royals an idea of what they can expect moving forward.

Building Value

When the Royals signed the veteran trio of Lucas Duda, Jon Jay and Mike Moustakas, the general consensus was that they were doing so to make the team more watchable in the short term and to find some trade chips in the slightly longer term. They also signed a couple veteran relievers that I’m sure they hoped they could flip at the deadline for non-zero prospects in Blaine Boyer and Justin Grimm. In addition to them, the Royals already had Kelvin Herrera, Danny Duffy, Jason Hammel, Whit Merrifield and maybe even Ian Kennedy as players the Royals could try to move at the deadline.

The Verdict:

Moose has been fantastic this year, and provided there are needs at third base, figures to be a somewhat coveted bat. The issue is that there are a lot of the same problems plaguing his trade value that plagued his free agency given that there isn’t a huge need out there. Still, the season he’s having and the attitude he’s shown have been big pluses for him. Duda was starting to come around before getting hurt, but he has the same issues as Moose as far as need with the added issue of more trade chips around the league at first. But that’s nothing the Royals weren’t expecting. With Jay, he’s been quietly much better than I want to give him credit for, though he still has an empty batting average and even a slightly empty OBP due to his lack of speed and ability to take extra bases. Merrifield has turned in another really solid start to his season. If the Royals are willing to deal, there’ll definitely be takers for him.

On the pitching side, only Herrera has done the Royals any favors this year. I imagine he’ll bring back the best return at the deadline of any player the Royals deal, simply because of the need for lock down relievers. Like I’ve mentioned before, he has the added bonus of having done it before in the postseason and having done it well. We all know the stories about Duffy and Hammel and Kennedy was a long shot to be dealt anyway. He’d have had to pitch like a legitimate number two just for a team to consider taking on his contract and, while he’s been good at times, he hasn’t been nearly good enough. And then there’s the relievers, but you know that story.

Keeping Things Interesting

As I said above, signing some veterans to the roster was designed to make the team more watchable and interesting. Adding some pieces to the offense would help the team score some runs while the bullpen looked like it’d be in a big time transition early in the year while waiting on guys like Richard Lovelady, Josh Staumont and others to progress. If the team could plate a few more and keep a few more off the board in the late innings, maybe they could be decent enough to keep the team competitive in games and interesting.

The Verdict:

Nah. This team is 3-13 in games decided by five or more runs, allowing 136 of the 301 runs allowed on the season in those 16 games (127 of the runs in the 13 losses). The offense has been better than it likely would have been with Jay getting on base and Moose hitting home runs, as well as a bit of a breakout from Soler. The pitching has been a disaster and the veteran bullpen arms have been a huge part of the problem. So no, this team is decidedly not entertaining or especially watchable, though they have been better of late, so that’s something.

Overall, the Royals have gotten a decent start on their 2018 “to do” list, but plenty of work remains. They need to get Richard Lovelady, Josh Staumont and others up to the big leagues. They need to find out what they have in Trevor Oaks. They need to see what Adalberto Mondesi can show in the big leagues. They need to stop giving time to useless veterans like Goins and Boyer. They now have 107 games left to do that this season (and let’s be real, next season is more of the same). If they can get through this year and have an idea on most of these guys, along with getting some value back for their current veterans, this year’ll be a success even if they don’t win another game.

First, there were my hometown Nashville Sounds, who had a 12:05 first pitch against Oklahoma City. The Sounds leadoff batter got a hit, the Sounds didn’t get another hit until the eighth inning and then won on a walk-off anyway in the ninth. It was good and exciting and the humidity was not 932 percent, which passes for a retroactive Holy Day down here.

Did you notice the word exciting was used in there to describe a baseball game? I had almost forgotten baseball games could be exciting, but I spend a lot of time watching the Royals, so forgive me. It’s how I chose to spend the last few hours of the day, only to watch Minnesota come out on the top side of an 8-5 decision.

For the first four innings, Monday’s battle between Jakob Junis and Lance Lynn was quite the pitcher’s duel, which has become expected of Junis and used to be of Lynn. The fifth is where things got a little sideways for both, however; Junis, who had corkscrewed Miguel Sano into the dirt in both his first two plate appearances on a diet full of sliders changed things up in the fifth, going fastball (strike), fastball (ball) fastball (launched into the stratosphere) to put a crooked number up for Minnesota.

A bevy of doubles allowed the Good Guys to even things up in the home half. Jon Jay (who had himself a day, what a rhyme, every time, oh God I can’t stop, someone find me a mop) led off with a double, with Whit Merrifield walking on four pitches and Mike Moustakas banging both home with a double of his own. Brand-new ball game!

In theory. In practice, Brian Dozier’s RBI single which scored Mitch Garver in the sixth put the Twins ahead for good, though the Royals were not without chances. Jay doubled again to lead off the seventh, but a baserunning… whatever… saw him easily cut down at third after Merrifield hit a two-hopper to short that Jay either thought was getting through the infield or thought would be slow-developing enough to allow him to advance; regardless, Eduardo Escobar threw to third, Sano applied the tag and the Royals would come out of that inning with no runs.

The Royals coming out of innings with no runs thing was quite the theme. Kansas City left 12 men on for the game and were a lukewarm 4-for-19 with runners in scoring position. For the novice among you, 1.) This is a Baseball Prospectus site; by law, they’re not allowed to let anyone dumber than me write here so you’re gonna need to brush up and 2.) 4-for-19 with RISP is just terrible.

Eddie Rosario cleared the bases with a three-run double in the eighth, but by then it was no longer Junis’ problem. His line: six innings, six hits, three earned, seven strikeouts (and a season-high four walks, if we’re being picky). And while I’d love to tell you that Rosario slammed an absolute rocket off Burch Smith, the truth of the matter is that he hit a little liner into short right-center that just sort of rolled into no-man’s land.

The Royals scored three runs in the later innings to give you the final, respectable deficit that gave cause for Fernando Rodney to come in and shoot his arrow. In the eighth, Alcides Escobar kick-started a two-out rally by getting hit (really, the only way Esky can kick-start a rally), followed by a Ramon Torres single. Jay (there’s that man again) laid down a perfect bunt along the third base line; Sano, playing way back, had no chance on it, so Zach Duke attempted to make the throw to first. He was not successful, the throw got away and Esky scored. Rodney replaced Duke, Merrifield singled and Torres scored. Mike Moustakas struck out to end that rally.

It was a two-run game when the Twins came to the plate in the ninth, but it was a four-run Minnesota lead after Blaine Boyer had his say. Boyer, who is a Major League Baseball Player thanks to Good Dudeness and nothing else, got two outs before surrendering a double to Max Kepler, a single to Robbie Grossman and a bases-clearing double to Garver in the span of [checks notes] eight pitches.

He’s a super-good dude though.

In the Royals half of the ninth, Jorge Soler (Good Jorge!) murdered a baseball into a cloud of fine particles. Nothing else happened. The Record is (Rustin Dodd clubs me over the head).

(Happy Memorial Day. We joke a lot around here and I know it seems like the world is on fire every time you go online, but there are still people that have and continue to fight for our freedoms and make the ultimate sacrifice for you to live and believe as you care to do. That’s not something you can ever make too much of a big deal about.)

The Bright Spot: Jay was 4-for-5, made a nice sliding grab on a Sano liner in the seventh and dang near brought back Sano’s homer in the fifth. His three doubles also tied Lucas Duda for most by a Royal this season. Jon Jay, who is a regular in this lineup mostly because Jorge Bonifacio got himself suspended, is hitting .305 with three days left in May. If he gets one more hit before June starts, he’s the first Royal with 40-plus in a month since Johnny Damon in 1999.

Also, kudos to Alex Gordon on a three-hit day that bumps him back up to .283 on the season.

The Nadir: I mentioned Boyer; to do so again would be piling on. Also, Jay and Gordon were a combined 7-for-10; everybody combined to go 6-for-30.

The Next Step: Kyle Gibson v. Danny Duffy at 7:15 p.m. (CT) tomorrow; Duffy was very good the last time out. Either it marked the beginnings of a turnaround or he’ll be back to earth with an unpleasantness tomorrow.

• Trade talk around the internet has started, and the Royals find themselves in an interesting position. Unlike last year, they have no hope of turning things around, so if the right deal were to come along tomorrow, they can and should jump on it. That said, there are so many teams out of it and so many marketable players who will be on the trade market that buyers don’t have to be desperate just yet. If the Royals were to shop guys like Mike Moustakas, Kelvin Herrera and Jorge Soler today, they shouldn’t settle for a package that doesn’t change the path of the farm system. I know that seems silly given the fact that none of the three are likely to return a package like that, but it’s May 18 and there’s time for teams to get more desperate as there potentially becomes more separation in the standings. If, for example, the Royals are offered a good, not great prospect for Soler, why deal him? If the Braves don’t offer up one of their top five prospects for Moose, there’s no reason to trade him at this point. They’ll still likely have a need in a few weeks and might be fighting for their playoff lives more than they are today. I guess my point is that it’s all well and good to be looking at what players are worth in a trade, but this is the time to overvalue them in hopes of getting a fantastic deal in exchange for an extra 40-50 games with a player.
• I wrote last week about Salvador Perez off to a good start and what it’s meant for the lineup and he’s been basically a disaster at the plate ever since. I guess that’s not entirely true. He did hit the game winning home run off Andrew Miller last Friday, but even so, he’s had a rough go of it. He’s 2 for 19 since then and has somehow grounded into three double plays in the last five games, often in some terrible situations to do so (not that there’s any good situation for that). He missed the first 20 games of the season, which is almost half the year and he still leads the Royals in double plays. His batted ball numbers aren’t all that different from the last few years, so things should start to even out with him soon enough, but he’s swinging and missing more than ever, so that’s something to keep an eye on as his sample size gets a little bigger. The lineup is obviously better with him than without him, so this isn’t to bag on Perez, but he’s been an incredibly frustrating hitter to watch over the last week or so. Just looking at that Rays series, a couple big hits from him might have given the Royals a series win instead of getting swept. That’s probably true of every hitter, but Perez is always right in the middle, so it’s magnified with him.
• One guy who I bashed in this space a few weeks ago but has turned it on is Jon Jay. He’s now hitting .397/.426/.476 in May and even has four extra base hits in that time, which is rare for him. He has a .463 BABIP in that time, but hasn’t exactly been crushing the ball. A lot of my complaints remain from when I discussed him before because he just doesn’t hit the ball with any authority and doesn’t have enough speed to turn his singles into doubles or score from first on an extra base hit. That said, the line he’s put up in May will play and might even make him marketable in a very small trade. One player who kind of reminds me of Jay is Nicky Lopez, who is currently tearing it up in AA right now for the Royals. Even with an 0 for 3 yesterday, he’s having a great May as well, hitting .403/.444/.522. The difference with Lopez is that he hardly ever strikes out while Jay has a low enough K-rate, but not exceptional. Also Lopez is a better defender and has more speed than Jay, so he can at least take the extra base periodically. Plus, he flashed a little extra power in the AFL. Can he access that regularly? I have my doubts, but at least he’s shown it.
• I fear for what will happen to him after I write this, but I’ve been really impressed with Eric Skoglund, which is surprising to me because I was convinced he absolutely was not a big leaguer even a few weeks ago. He still has a 5.58 ERA and a 6.15 DRA, so let’s not pretend like he’s actually turned into something good, but he’s been at least pretty good quite a bit recently. He’s limited his walks, actually gotten some swinging strikes and has seen his velocity kick up as high as 96. Sadly, the fact that he hasn’t given up more than five runs in a start this season has made him one of the most consistent starters. Of course, on a staff that apparently thinks giving up nine runs is cool, that’s not exactly high praise. Still, his development this season has been one of the best stories so far even if I have my doubts it’s sustainable. I’m going to need to see it for a few more starts because my analysis of him from before was just too strong for me to totally change my mind on him. He faces a massive test on Sunday against a Yankees lineup that features as much right-handed power as any lineup in baseball. I have a hunch it could get ugly, but if it doesn’t, I might be changing my tune on Skoglund eventually.

• One player I’ve been really disappointed in is Jon Jay. I say that even though he’s posted a typically solid on base percentage at the top of the lineup. I knew he lacked power, but I didn’t think it would be this glaring. There seems to be just zero thump in his bat that I’ve seen. Heading into action last night, he had an average exit velocity of 85.3 MPH and an average distance of just 140 feet. He’s hit just seven balls at 100 MPH or higher. Cheslor Cuthbert had more than that on the last road trip alone. The good news is two of the seven balls over 100 MPH came on Wednesday night, so maybe he’s coming around. Still, it’s a bit concerning. And his arm has been a real problem for this team as opponents have no issues with running against him in the outfield. I think back to the days of Coco Crisp in center field and every medium depth fly ball to Jay is an opportunity for the runner to tag up. We saw it on Wednesday night against the Brewers with men on first and third and a fly ball to center moved both runners up, even with Jay throwing to second base after the catch. He’s not especially fast either, with a sprint speed of just 25.8 feet per second, which ranks eighth on the team behind noted speedsters like Cuthbert and Jorge Soler. That’s not to say I don’t appreciate what Jay brings to the lineup because a guy who will take pitches and work a count is nice to see. I just expected more from the rest of his game.
• Another of the late editions to the team in spring training has put up some subpar numbers to date, but I think he’s been hurt a bit by some bad luck. Lucas Duda isn’t exactly tearing it up with a .226/.286/.351 line, but Statcast might tell us that better times are ahead for him. Heading into Thursday, Duda’s .233 batting average was a full 70 points lower than his expected batting average. His .370 slugging percentage was a whopping 193 points below his expected slugging percentage and his .288 wOBA was 105 points below his expected wOBA. If you’re wondering how the expected numbers are calculated, it’s based on removing both defense and ballpark from the equation to show the skill shown at the moment of contact, according to Baseball Savant. It takes into account the launch angle and exit velocity of the batted ball to figure a hit probability, so it tells the story of a player’s batted ball quality rather than the outcome. I know that scares some of the old school baseball people, but you have a pretty good idea that if a guy is hitting the ball hard as much as Duda is that he’s probably going to start finding some more hits soon enough.
• The Royals offensive profile is very interesting to me. Heading into yesterday’s action, they were hitting fly balls at a rate only bested by Cleveland. It stands to reason that with that in mind, they’re hitting a lower percentage of ground balls than almost every team (they rank fifth in lowest ground ball percentage). And they’re hitting a decent number of line drives, ranking 12th in that category by percentage. Knowing all that, it sure seems like they hit into way too many double plays. And they do. They rank seventh in baseball in number of double play opportunities turned into double plays. The optimistic side of that will say that hitting more balls in the air will turn into more home runs and the double plays are somewhat flukish given their batted ball tendencies. The pessimistic side wonders if they simply don’t get enough extra base hits with their fly balls and line drives and have too little speed in the lineup and too many holes to avoid double plays. I’m not entirely sure where I’m going with this other than that this Royals team does seem to hit the ball differently than past Royals teams. And if you’re looking for home runs, this team has started to hit them a little bit since they got out of the frigid weather for the most part, so that’s at least encouraging in some ways.
• This team is such an embarrassment on the field right now, but like I said before, it’s probably a good thing there was no false hope from a start even as mediocre as 11-12 or something like that. The Royals are unequivocally as bad as you think they are and as bad as pretty much anyone thought they could be. With that in mind, the time is now to be shopping their trade chips. I know teams aren’t looking to acquire just yet in all likelihood but if a team is in need, the sooner they trade for them, the longer they get to have the benefit of them. I’m thinking specifically of Kelvin Herrera who threw another scoreless inning last night. It’s probably not realistic to trade him today or anything but I hope the Royals are actively telling teams they’ll take offers at any time. No sense in risking him losing value.