But now things are different. Escobar is no longer the shortstop. That title belongs to Adalberto Mondesi, who hit .276/.306/.498 last season. With the Royals, Escobar topped that average twice, that OBP twice and got within 100 points of that slugging percentage exactly zero times. So aside from being a considerably better option, he’s also less durable. And that’s not a bad thing necessarily, but I believe the Royals will treat Mondesi the way they treated Lorenzo Cain for most of his tenure. Sure, they’d love to get 150 games out of him, but I think they’ll be happy with 135-140 in order to keep him and, in Mondesi’s case, his back healthy from the beginning of spring to hopefully the end of October.

And what that means is an increased need for a backup shortstop on the roster. With Escobar, he wasn’t coming out unless he was hurt in the middle of a game, which meant someone would play out of position for four innings and then they’d call someone up from Omaha. You just can’t do that if you’re planning to give multiple days off to your shortstop. Even if it’s once a week, you want to have someone there who isn’t drastically out of position and hurts the defense regularly.

There are a few names out there they can pursue. You know one of them. You’re not going to like one of them. I don’t like it either. I’ll get to him last just because I don’t want to get to him.

The Free Agents

MLB Trade Rumors lists 12 players as free agents under the shortstop umbrella. I count another two or three who are non-tender candidates. Of those, maybe Tyler Saladino would be a bit, though it sort of depends on how the Brewers handle their free agents and Jonathan Schoop. Of the free agents, there isn’t really a great option that jumps out to me other than the one I’m not going to mention for now. Asdrubal Cabrera, Freddy Galvis, Marwin Gonzalez, Jose Iglesias and Manny Machado all are obviously looking for starting jobs. Dixon Machado isn’t very good. Neither is Gregorio Petit or Eric Sogard. Jose Reyes is scummy, so he’s probably out. That leaves a couple players. Adeiny Hechavarria would fit as a strong defensive backup who would remind you a lot of that guy we’re not mentioning. And I’ve mentioned Jordy Mercer before if he’s willing to sign as a backup and for not too much money, though I think his market may be slightly more robust than I thought a few weeks ago.

Trade Targets

This is always much tougher to gauge because it’s just hard to say what a team is willing to do. For example, the Red Sox have three shortstops on their 40-man roster, so maybe they’d be willing to part with a player who doesn’t have much of a path to playing time. That doesn’t mean they’d just give up someone like Tzu-Wei Lin easily because he’s shown way too much promise to just dump because there’s a roster crunch. Maybe Ronald Torreyes could be had in a deal. He’s been a backup for the Yankees for the last three years. As of now, he’s very important with Didi Gregorious out for awhile to start the season, but if they go get Machado and don’t move anyone, he becomes moveable. Another name to watch could be Charlie Culberson, though I don’t know how keen the Braves would be to trade him at all after seeing him hit .270/.326/.466 for them in 322 plate appearances last season. But if they sign a third baseman or a shortstop and keep Dansby Swanson, the roster is getting awfully crowded.

An outside the box thought would require the Astros to re-sign Marwin Gonzalez and then turn around a flip Aledmys Diaz, who they just acquired from the Blue Jays. That would all depend on how they act and react in free agency, so it’s just really tough to say there. Again, trade speculation is so tough that I hesitate to even name any additional names here just because it’s so early in the offseason. But just know the possibility to go this route is out there.

Rule 5

Unless I’ve missed someone, there isn’t really much out there in the Rule 5 at shortstop that would get me excited for the Royals to have to carry all season long. There is one player who I could see maybe possibly worth a shot and that’s Drew Jackson from the Dodgers. He might not fit perfectly at shortstop, but I think he can handle the position well enough to play there once or twice a week. He hit .251/.356/.447 with an 11 percent walk rate and 22.7 percent strikeout rate that gives a bit of concern. He can really run. If he’s left unprotected, I believe the Royals could do far worse than him as a backup infielder, and I think he can play the Rosell Herrera role well.

Internal

Okay, here we go. The Royals could bring back Escobar. While the fans were ready to move on after 2017, it sure seemed like everyone was ready after 2018, but he hit .326/.367/.442 the last two months of the season after he really became a backup player and even posted a walk rate of 6.3 percent. I’m not saying I like the idea. I’m saying these are the ways the organization would justify it and spin it. I mentioned Rosell Herrera, and I do believe that if he’s going to stick on this 40-man, it’ll have to be because he plays shortstop. He played 1.2 innings there in AAA last year, six innings there in 2015 and 346 in 2014, which is his last significant action at the position. He also hasn’t played there in winter ball at all, spending most of his time in the outfield. I’m not saying he can’t play short. I’m just saying he probably can’t. Humberto Arteaga is a defensive wizard and he’s coming off his best year with the bat and continuing to hit well in the Venezuelan Winter League. I don’t think he’s an especially strong possibility, but the organization really likes him. They could also add Jecksson Flores, who broke out in AA this season. He’s really more of a second baseman, but a nice season could get him a shot on the 40-man and a crack at the big league roster.

And that leaves us with the one guy who could make this whole discussion moot. If Nicky Lopez breaks camp with the big club out of spring training, he’s the guy. I imagine if he’s up in the big leagues, he’s there to play mostly every day and I would guess he’ll play second and third and fill in at shortstop for Mondesi when he needs a rest. Lopez hit just .236/.314/.341 over the final two months of the season, so there is definitely no harm in letting him cook a little more in AAA to start the 2019 season. I believe the direction they go with regard to the backup shortstop position over the next couple months will tell us a lot about their thoughts on Lopez.

I know what you’re thinking. That’s a lot of words about a backup shortstop on a likely 90+ loss team, but hey, it’s early in the offseason and with so much attention likely to be focused on the pitching staff, this is the one spot where they might look to be active with position players.

• I think I may have talked about this before, but it’s probably worth going over again. There are a few guys the Royals have who will be out of options in 2019 that might things a little complicated. Cheslor Cuthbert is the most obvious because he’s been out of them for two years and stuck on a roster where he really doesn’t fit, but there are others joining him now. Paulo Orlando cannot be sent down again, which makes him a prime DFA candidate (along with his poor play obviously). Rosell Herrera is also out of options, so he might struggle to last the year, especially once Nicky Lopez is brought up. Two others who are interesting are Ramon Torres and Bubba Starling. Given the makeup of the likely 2019 roster, I actually think Torres makes more sense than Herrera, but the Royals love the infield/outfield versatility Herrera brings. Starling, to me, should be the first guy DFAed. I don’t care where he was drafted, where he was born or who he rooted for growing up. That time has passed for him. On the mound, it’s less cumbersome as Brian Flynn and Jorge Lopez are the only pitchers of note out of options. Flynn, to me, is a solid but easily replaced reliever (of course last year’s bullpen might say otherwise on the easily replaced part), but Lopez’s options mean he has a big league role somewhere in 2019. My guess is he opens as the fifth starter but ends the year in the year in the bullpen. If you’re looking ahead to 2020, Samir Duenez will be out of options and with Ryan O’Hearn’s emergence, he might be a candidate to be removed at some point in 2019.
• The Wily Peralta deal makes a lot of sense to me even if you don’t believe he can repeat what he did last year (and I don’t). They were bringing him back no matter what because he was one of the few relievers last season who didn’t turn everything he touched into garbage. So instead of paying him $3 million in 2019, they cut that salary by $750,000 and for his troubles added an extra quarter million to what he would have taken home by giving him a $1 million option buyout. The great thing about that contract is that it doesn’t stop them from doing anything else and if he’s good, they can move him, but if he’s bad, they can move on from him very easily. With all those walks, my guess is that bad is the bet here, but it’s nice to have a guy who at least had some success. Plus, Dayton Moore hadn’t given out a contract with a mutual option in a minute, so he had a chance to scratch that itch. Everybody wins.
• I’ve spent a lot of time talking about bargain-type relievers who the Royals could look to in order to shore up their bullpen. And while I think that’s the direction they’ll go, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention a few starters who could fill the role of the final starter in the rotation. What that would do is push all the candidates for that spot to the bullpen to help that unit out. I’ve talked a lot about my thoughts on Jorge Lopez and how I think he’s ultimately a reliever, but Heath Fillmyer fits well there as well with how good his slider was in the big leagues. No, the Royals aren’t going to be in on Patrick Corbin or anything (though they did talk about him in a trade a couple years ago), but a look at the bottom of the barrel of free agent starters could lead them to a veteran on a small enough deal that you figure why not. Some options are James Shields, Miguel Gonzalez (if he’s healthy), Josh Tomlin (woof), Hector Santiago, Jaime Garcia and maybe even a Drew Pomeranz if he ends up cheap enough. One other name to keep an eye on is Erasmo Ramirez. I don’t have any inside information here, but he seems like a Royals target and the reports indicate the Mariners are moving on from him and will be DFAing him shortly. I wouldn’t like that move much, but it does seem like a Dayton special.
• This isn’t Royals-centric, but I keep thinking about Manny Machado’s free agency and I can’t wrap my head around why any team would give him $300 million or more. He’s a fantastic player. At third base, his defense is in the top three in baseball and he can really hit. Maybe he can handle shortstop for a few more years too as he did look better there once he went to the Dodgers. But I feel like there’s too much of an emphasis being placed on his age when he hasn’t really shown that he’s a “best player in baseball” sort of guy for very long. I’ll say it again so that I don’t hammered for saying I don’t think Machado is good. I think he’s truly great. But he’s a real piece of work and even though he’s entering just his age-26 season, I’m just not sure I’d commit that kind of money to him. He’s a year removed from hitting .259/.310/.471. Maybe I’m underselling his age here and it probably won’t matter because he’s going to get 10 years and $326 million or something (so he gets the biggest contract ever), and it’ll have an opt out after three years that he’ll take, so the team will “only” give him $90 million or whatever, but I’m just struggling with the idea that he’s a guy you’d want your team to give that kind of money to. I’m going to repeat this one more time for the people in the back. He’s a truly fantastic player, but he has too many red flags for me to want to give him that money.

To say that as one who has spent hundreds of hours watching the Royals this year, it’s really no small feat to make me consider a team to be bad, but the O’s are so much worse than any team I’ve seen, including the Royals, perhaps ever. Friday, they made Brad Keller—a fine pitcher having a good season by most any measure—look like modern-day Sandy Koufax. Saturday, they snatched defeat from the jaws of victory by surrendering the walk-off bomb by Whit Merrifield.

Sunday, they just plain old-fashioned sucked. Jorge Lopez is, I think, going to be good pitcher. But he may not enjoy a better start than his outing against a punchless Orioles lineup in the series finale.

Jonathan Villar, who has to be wondering what he did to deserve going from Milwaukee and a pennant chase to Baltimore and a surefire march to 110 losses, homered with two outs in the first inning. That and the five outs they were able to record before surrendering Kansas City’s first run represented the halcyon part of Baltimore’s day.

A one-out Jorge Bonifacio single and back-to-back two-out knocks by Brett Phillips and Alcides Escobar (don’t blame me, I’m just the messenger) scored Rosell Herrera, who reached on a fielder’s choice in the second inning. That tie the game—an inning later, the Royals hung up a crooked number and Baltimore never recovered.

Sunday’s effort was aided by the fact that Baltimore continuously shot itself in the foot at the worst possible time. Take the third inning, for example—after back-to-back singles by Whit Merrifield and Alex Gordon, a pickoff attempt by David Hess went hilariously awry and ended with Merrifield scoring and Gordon standing on second.

After Jorge Bonifacio doubled to score Gordon, Hess tried (and failed) to pick him off at second. Hess’ low throw trickled into the outfield under Breyvic Valera’s glove, and Valera made a bad situation worse by trying (and failing) to throw Bonifacio out at third—his toss got away from Jace Peterson at third and Bonifacio trotted home for another run.

The Good Guys tacked on another in the fourth, and it was started by a heads-up Brett Phillips. The rookie checked his swing on a potential third strike in the dirt and didn’t even wait for third-base umpire Greg Gibson to confirm whether he had held up or not—he streaked down the first base line and beat out Caleb Joseph’s throw. He moved to second on an Escobar single and scored when Whit tagged a liner into left.

And through this, Lopez kept right on cruising. He had at least one strikeout through his first five innings of work, including sitting down the side in order in the second. And when he wasn’t sitting down the Orioles on his own, he was getting help from some great defense behind him—in the seventh, Herrera made a tremendous dive-and-flip to Escobar to force Chris Davis out at second, then turned a 4-3 double-play by snaring a diving liner off the bat of Valera.

To add insult to injury for the Orioles, the Royals poured in four more runs in the bottom of the eighth. Rosie was hit by a pitch and Escobar walked; making his MLB debut, Meibrys Viloria rocketed a double off the fence in right to clear the bases, then came in to score two batters later on a Gordon double. Gordon then scored on Hunter Dozier’s first pitch triple into the left field gap. 9-1 your final; the Royals outright drubbed the O’s. Viloria got a Salvy Splash. Time to add the best photo in the history of the world.

Unusually Happy Tweet of the Game

This is really, really fun baseball to watch. #Royals #RaisedRoyal #ForeverRoyal

— Emily B (@emilyreadsalot) September 2, 2018

The Bright Spot: Three hits for Gordon and Escobar. Two each for Merrifield, Dozier and Bonifacio. But Lopez (7.0 innings, five hits, eight strikeouts, one earned) has to take the nod here. I don’t know what the kid will become in his career, but Sunday was a good omen.

The Nadir: Ryan O’Hearn was 0-for-5.

The Next Step: The Labor Day matinee in Cleveland will pit Jakob Junis, fresh off his first career complete game, against Adam Plutko, who I have no opinion about one way or another except, “Hey, at least he’s not Corey Kluber, Mike Clevinger, Carlos Carrasco or Trevor Bauer.” First pitch is scheduled for 3:10 p.m. (CT).

In no particular order, here are 10 good things that have happened to the Royals in 2018:

1. The one-year contracts worked just like they should (mostly). Jon Jay and Mike Moustakas were signed in the early spring for two reasons: provide some reasonably good baseball ability, then get traded for prospects. They held up their end of the bargain (Moose’s WARP as a Royal this year: 2.6, Jay’s: 1.0), and the Royals acquired Elvis Luciano and Gabe Speier for Jay and Jorge Lopez and Brett Phillips for Moustakas. The latter two are in the majors already (and Phillips, thanks to his defense, appears to be at least a useful piece—if he hits, he could be very good). The former two are lottery tickets, probably, but that’s OK since it was highly unlikely Kansas City would receive a top prospect for four months of Jon Jay. For purposes of this point, we’ll ignore that other one-year contracts for Alcides Escobar and Lucas Duda are still on the books. Hey, there’s still a few days to trade those guys!

2. Speaking of trades, the Royals seemed to deal Kelvin Herrera at just the right time. And they got Kelvin Gutierrez, Blake Perkins, and Yohanse Morel for him. Herrera went on the disabled list after posting a 4.50 ERA for the Nationals, just returned to the active roster, and got hurt again Sunday. Meanwhile, Gutierrez has hit .281/.338/.419 for Northwest Arkansas and could be manning third base in Kansas City in the near future. Perkins has a .243/.369/.311 line in Wilmington, but more exciting is that he is, by accounts I’ve seen, playing good defense in center field and is also walking a lot: 46 BBs in 250 plate appearances. And Morel? Well…he’s got an interesting name. He’s also pitched 11 games at the Rookie ball level, so who knows?

3. The Royals didn’t just make trades to supplement the future. They also traded with Cincinnati to get Rule 5 selection Brad Keller and went to the waiver wire to add Rosell Herrera. Keller is just 22 and has shown some promise as a starter (3.69 ERA in 15 starts, covering 83 innings). I don’t think he’s a future ace, but he seems to have a role somewhere on a big league staff. Herrera had a decent start to his Royals career but has slumped recently. Still, he has speed and could be a useful utility player/depth piece. That’s OK, because this year should be all about finding talent in unexpected places and then seeing if it can play in the majors.

4. Whit Merrifield has proven his 2017 season was no fluke, hitting .307/.374/.441 so far this season. That’s nice because it’s always good to have at least one player worth watching in the present, and because he could be a very nice trade chip this winter, should the Royals choose to go that direction. I would hate to see him go, but he turns 30 next January, meaning he is unlikely to be this good when the Royals are ready to contend (even the best-case scenario probably puts this in 2021). And he’s still not arbitration-eligible, meaning he is a good, cheap player. His age means he won’t fetch a top-notch prospect probably, but he could still bring back some valuable younger talent.

5. Adalberto Mondesi looks like a pretty good player. Yes, the four(!) walks in 160 plate appearances is a concern, but the four home runs and 17 stolen bases (with three caught stealing), along with the flashy defense, look promising. The Royals could and should be playing him more often, but the early returns are good.

6. The Royals had lots of draft picks this year: four in the first round, six in the top 100, nine in the top 200. That’s a good way to revitalize a farm system in a hurry. And they are almost certainly going to have the first or second overall pick next year. A couple of this year’s early picks, pitcher Daniel Lynch and center fielder Kyle Isbel, are off to good starts, too—Lynch is 5-0 with a 1.46 ERA at Class A Lexington, and Isbel has a 1.063 OPS for Idaho Falls at the Rookie level. The emphasis the Royals placed on college players in this draft means we should be seeing some of these guys in the majors in two or three years.

Um, let’s see…wow, I just had to decide to find 10 good things, not six, didn’t I? Hmm…ok, here’s one.

7. Players already in the system have had some breakout years. Seuly Matias belted 31 homers for Lexington before suffering a season-ending finger injury over the weekend; he’s still only 19 (he turns 20 on September 4). Khalil Lee got everyone’s attention with an .808 OPS at pitcher-friendly Wilmington in High-A ball. He struggled a bit after a promotion to Northwest Arkansas but had an .842 OPS in the last couple of weeks before he went on the disabled list on August 3. MJ Melendez (.807 OPS at Lexington, and he’s also 19) and Nicky Lopez (.819 OPS at Omaha) have also had nice years. One season after being demoted from Omaha to Northwest Arkansas, Ryan O’Hearn made it to the majors and has already launched six home runs in 69 plate appearances. And his co-first baseman at Omaha, Frank Schwndel, has hit .285/.337/.507 this year. He should be in the big leagues soon.

Uhhh…

8. No one died in the Great Kauffman Stadium Flood of 2018.

9. The Royals got one year closer to having massive contracts for Alex Gordon and Ian Kennedy off the books. Gordon only has one more year on his deal, which is worth $20 million annually (plus a mutual option, which at this point I would hope would not even be a consideration for the front office). Kennedy now has two years left at $16.5 million per year. And hey, Gordon has actually been not terrible this year. Not good, mind you (.239/.320/.349), but not as bad as he was in 2017.

And finally…

10. They probably won’t have a worse record than the 1962 Mets, the standard for futility in the modern era with a 40-120 record. Just three more wins to insure they don’t reach 120 losses. I feel fairly confident they can do it.

Phew! Made it!

Please understand, none of this excuses the results this season. I do believe this team has underachieved. Not that they should have been contenders, but they shouldn’t be losing 115 games, either. I think most people and projection systems had them between 90-100 losses, meaning this is on pace to be a 15-20 game underachievement. On the whole, this year is unacceptable. But just because it’s unacceptable doesn’t mean everything is awful.

• It’s been nice to see Ryan O’Hearn over the last few days after getting his callup for his big league debut with the Royals in Chicago. Personally, I’d have given Frank Schwindel the chance first because he’d put up better numbers in AAA and I would have wanted to reward that, but the difference is largely negligible and the advanced metrics showed that O’Hearn deserved the chance as well. What he can do now over the last two months of the season is position himself to head into spring training as the leading candidate to start at first base in 2019. Hunter Dozier had his opportunity, but I think it’s fair to say that he’s frittered away his chance. My guess is that Lucas Duda is in his final weeks with the Royals as they’ve probably already put him on trade waivers and, while he might get claimed (I’m looking at you, Rockies), I think the Royals will work out a deal or simply just let him go. At that point, they could even get Schwindel to the big leagues. It’s a small sample, but Samir Duenez appears to be on a hot stretch and maybe he could even factor in, so the older guys are going to need to get their shots while they can. Back to O’Hearn for a quick second, one of the things that impressed me in his first three games was the quality of plate appearance. He walked a couple times and even in a couple that ended in outs, he really seemed to have a plan at the plate. That’s very nice to see, but especially in a guy’s big league debut series, which has to be full of all sorts of butterflies.
• Let’s talk about Rosell Herrera, who is certainly not the best young player the Royals have acquired this season, but might be the most fun. He’s hit well enough with the Royals, .279/.321/.402 with 11 extra base hits in 132 plate appearances, but now he’s showing off some infield work. If he can handle the infield, there’s definitely a spot on next year’s roster and even beyond for him. I think that’s a bigger if than you’d like, but he’s been a lot of fun to watch on the field with his all out hustle and his general attitude. He’s been especially good over his last nine games, hitting .342/.390/.526 with four doubles and a home run, a lot of that getting done in a tough place for a young player to play, Yankee Stadium. I feel like every team has a guy who isn’t the best or even the sixth best player on the field who the fans absolutely love, and that’s especially true on bad teams. Herrera is definitely that guy on the Royals, and I’m okay with it. It’s good to have some energy out there.
• What bothers me most about Dayton Moore’s comments regarding looking to win sooner than later is that I’m not so sure he’d have the same belief if they were 45-63 instead of 35-73. That’s incredibly short sighted that meaningless wins or losses might be changing the way he’s going about rebuilding really the whole organization. Maybe I’m wrong and this is what he’d have been doing all along, but given his comments on being embarrassed and not wanting to go through this again, I just have to believe that the product on the field, which has been largely achieved by players who are likely not going to be in the organization even by the time the front office thinks they can compete. Like I said on Wednesday, I think I actually see what they’re trying to do and I don’t really have a huge problem with it even if it’s not the direction I’d go, but sometimes I just wish Moore would talk less because he ends up saying things that just make you shake your head. Of course, we all shook our heads when he said there was no reason this team couldn’t win 15 of 20. Then they went 15-5. We shook our heads when they traded Zack Greinke for a largely underwhelming package and Lorenzo Cain became a star. And we all shook our heads when they made the move for James Shields too early in the rebuild, and we all know what happened next. That’s not to say that he’s infallible and every move we don’t like should be expected to be great, but he has a knack for somehow getting the most out of situations, so as Royals fans, we’ll have to hope this is another one like that.
• I was asked on one of my radio spots yesterday about Ned Yost, and I truly believe that he wants to manage this team until it’s in a position to at least not be horrible. My guess is that he’s back in 2019 and if things progress the way the Royals want them to, he’ll turn it over to a new manager for the 2020 season. That’s the year that I believe a lot of the young guys on the team now could be entering their better seasons and some of the young guys in the minors will be working their way to the big leagues. If Yost gets through next year and, as he says, absorbs some more of the losses, you could argue the Royals should be on the upswing by then, which allows the new manager to sort of start his own journey with the big club. My guess right now is that new manager is Pedro Grifol, which I think will be a lot of fun for us to watch because he really has a nice grasp on the analytical side, but also mixes in the traditional baseball stuff as well. I can’t even pretend to know if it’ll work, but I’m thinking that’s the plan as of now and I don’t actually think it’s too bad of one.

Game One

It’s weird how sometimes you lose an integral part of the lineup and hit a brief hot streak, like the rest of the clubhouse realizes that they have to up their collective game in response.

Aside from a brief return to form in the middle innings, that was more or less what the Royals got in Game One, handing the Yankees a 10-5 beating on their home turf.

Brad Keller got into a whole bunch of trouble in the second inning, walking leadoff batter Greg Bird before surrendering a single to Neil Walker and hitting Austin Romine—doubly dangerous given the vitriol Jakob Junis received Thursday after hitting Aaron Judge. But then an Austin Wade tapper right in front of the plate—I guess Wade thought it was foul? Who cares—was snatched by Salvador Perez, who stepped on the plate and then tagged Wade for the rarely-seen 2U double play.

(Last one I can remember: Game 4, 2015 World Series when Mets catcher Travis d’Arnaud made a meal of Ben Zobrist kind of being in his way.)

The Good Guys in Blue scored two in the third. With one out, Adalberto Mondesi doubled, followed by a Whit Merrifield walk. Rosell Herrera doubled the duo home to give Kansas City an early lead. A pitch hit the next batter, Perez. We’re going to see fireworks before this series is over, dadgummit.

Kansas City scored four in the fifth, leading things off with a BERTO single and a one-out ground-rule double by Herrera. Perez scored both with a single to center, then he made the easy trot home when Lucas Duda (still SUPER AVAILABLE, MLB GM’s) hit a sky-scraper that cleared the short porch in right at Yankee Stadium.

The Yankees answered with two in the fifth on a Giancarlo Stanton homer, just the third allowed by Keller in more than 75 innings work between starting and relieving this season.

Keller wouldn’t make it out of the sixth, giving up three straight singles to Gleyber Torres, Bird and Walker to start the frame. Romine grounded into a run-scoring double-play—the double-play ball is Keller’s best friend—but Keller walked Wade, was visited by Ned Yost, who left him in, then gave up a single to Shane Robinson to score Wade and was summarily replaced by Kevin McCarthy.

(Note: I wish Elias or somebody tracked this because I’m almost certain opponents are hitting like .850 when Ned visits the mound but doesn’t take out his pitcher.)

An inning later, the Yankees would pull within a run. Didi Gregorious led off the inning with a single and scored on Gleyber Torres’ double, but Torres tried to be a hero and move to third on the play at the plate. Sheriff Salvy was having none of that, obviously. McCarthy and Tim Hill combined to get out of that bucket of syrup.

A Jorge Bonifacio walk, Alex Gordon single and Brian Goodwin homer put the Royals comfortably back in front again in the eighth, and Duda added a sac fly to score Herrera in the ninth to allow the Royals to reach double-digits in the run column for the first time since May 30 against the Twins.

Game Two

It’s always fun to have the new guy show up mid-game. Brett Phillips arrived in time to put on a uniform (wearing No. 14, if you’re curious) and the FSKC cameras caught him talking to Burch Smith in the dugout mid-inning, trying to figure out who everybody was.

Royals lost, 5-4.

The game itself got off to a bit of a slow start, at least from Kansas City’s perspective. With two down in the first, Perez singled, Jorge Bonifacio doubled and Duda was hit by a pitch to load the bases. Unfortunately, Hunter Dozier grounded out to end the inning and yes, we’ll see this scenario play out again later.

The Yankees pushed two across in the first. Brett Gardner and Stanton led off with singles, clean-up hitter (???) Miguel Andujar singled to score Gardner and then Heath Fillmyer hit Greg Bird to load the bases. Neil Walker capitalized with a sac fly to score Stanton and put a crooked number up in the New York first.

Perez homered in the third. That tied him with Yasmani Grandal for most in the bigs by a catcher this season and gave him 18 RBI in the last 15 games. With Moustakas now in Milwaukee, it makes no sense to pitch to Salvy if you’re an opponent, but they keep doing it even when his protection in the lineup is Bonifacio and Herrera.

The Yanks added another run in the fourth on a Shane Robinson homer, but from there it was smooth sailing for Fillmyer, who was solid over five innings (five hits, three earned) before turning it over to Brian Flynn for two scoreless innings. In the sixth, Flynn induced his 14^th double play ball, most by a reliever in the bigs this season.

During this time the bats were doing their part in the comeback. In the fifth, the Royals loaded the bags thanks to one-out singles by Merrifield and Herrera and a Perez walk. Bonifacio struck out, but Duda drew a bases-loaded walk to plate Whit and bring the Royals within a run. Dozier struck out swinging to leave the bases loaded again. Kid’s got a swell exit velo, though, so it’s all good.

They’d tie it an inning later, with Rosie plating Brian Goodwin after a leadoff single and an Escobar sacrifice (literally the only good Esky can do at the plate without help).

Dozier would finally get something right with a two-out double in the seventh that eventually led to him scoring the go-ahead run. Goodwin singled, moving him to third, Escobar was walked—on four pitches!!!—and then Drew Butera walked to plate Dozier. I have been led to believe the Yankees had a good bullpen, but you can’t prove it by Zach Britton. Trash, I say. He should be a Royal.

I mentioned Flynn’s two scoreless innings. They were great. The bad news is that he was brought out for a third and Bird greeted him by launching a homer into the bullpen. Then Walker doubled. Then Flynn was removed and Glenn Sparkman was left to clean up the mess. Then Sparkman gave up a bunt single to Romine and walked Torres on four pitches that weren’t particularly close to load the bases with nobody out.

It didn’t go as poorly as it could’ve. Aaron Hicks hit a sac fly to score Walker. A Gardner tapper to Sparkman got a much-needed second out but moved the remaining runners up 90 feet. Then Sparkman reached back for a little extra to fan Stanton and end the inning.

Bless their terrible batting hearts, the Royals tried like the devil against Aroldis Chapman in the ninth. BERTO led off with a single, but Gordon struck out, Escobar popped the first pitch up to Torres at second and, after BERTO stole second, Butera walked. Hope!

Then Whit took strike three on a backdoor slider. I’ll take a split.

The Bright Spot: Rosell Herrera collected five hits over the course of the doubleheader, taking his season average from .246 to .268.

The Nadir: Escobar was 0-for-7. It was pretty incredible, to be honest.

The Next Step: One more game awaits Sunday as Smith squares off against newly-acquire J.A. Happ as the Royals eye a split. 12:05 p.m. (CT) from the Bronx on FSKC.

Specifically, they elected to fall behind early, make up the ground and THEN have the opponent rip them to pieces in the later innings. I want to call that progress, but I really hope that’s not what progress looks like.

Royals lost 6-4.

Thanks to Francisco Lindor, who may as well be a Batman villain as far as the Royals are concerned at this point, Cleveland jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the top of the first. Lindor—who was drafted after the Royals picked Bubba Starling and that’s something that needs to be mentioned more often—led off with a single, moved to third on Michael Brantley’s single and scored on a Jose Ramirez base hit that was deflected off starter Danny Duffy.

For laughs, Duffy walked Brandon Guyer to load the bases, with Yonder Alonso scoring Brantley on a sac fly.

Ah, but the Royals answered swiftly in their half of the first. Rosell Herrera’s one-out single started the rally and Lucas Duda’s sixth homer of the season, deposited into the right field seats, finished it. Two-run homer, tie game.

An inning later, the Royals did something they haven’t done a lot of in the last month: manufactured a couple of runs. Alcides Escobar’s Decomposing Body started the rally with a one-out single, then he politely got out of the way on Adalberto Mondesi’s ground out to second so Mondesi could flash that speed and steal second.

Merrifield blooped a single that Rajai Davis just missed to score Mondesi, then Herrera doubled to bring home Whit and suddenly, the Royals looked like a halfway-competent ballclub for the first time in a month or so. Things perhaps could’ve turned out even nicer had Guyer not made an outstanding grab against Hunter Dozier to lead off the inning, crashing into the wall and still completing the catch. The good times are never that good for Kansas City.

These lasted all the way into the sixth inning. By now, I think we can safely say that Danny Duffy is no longer a third time through the order sort of guy, as evidenced by his .290/.345/.510 slash line, 112 tOPS+ or any other number you care to reference. At present, after two times through, Duffy is cooked. He turned the Cleveland lineup over for the third time in the fifth and got through Lindor (single), Brantley (lineout) and Ramirez (pop out) with relative ease. Bullpen’s turn, right?

Not so, said the Ouija board Ned Yost consults for pitching decisions. Duffy then proceeded to walk Edwin Encarnacion, hit Guyer and give up a single to Alonso to load the bases for Gomes. Gomes then homered to turn a two-run lead into a two-run deficit on one pitch.

(Guyer’s gonna be sore in the morning. In addition to crashing into the wall to snare Dozier’s drive and getting hit, he fouled a ball of his leg late and had to leave the game.)

And then Duffy faced FOUR MORE BATTERS. I honestly don’t know what they’re doing over there sometimes, but you remove the guy whose running on fumes after he surrenders a grand slam. That’s just common sense.

AND YET INEXPLICABLY the Royals had actual, legitimate chances to tie or take the lead in the last two innings. In the eighth, Salvador Perez led off with a single and then moved to second with two down on an Alex Gordon single. Hunter Dozier proceeded to lace a single back through the box, which should’ve scored Salvy or loaded the bases.

It did neither. Rajai Davis went down to one knee in center, clearly happy to concede the run, and then THREW TO THIRD BASE, all while Mike Jirschele is holding up the stop sign for Salvy. By the time Salvy reacted and got the Rube Goldberg machine that is his body moving again, Davis had thrown to Lindor, who rifled the ball to Gomes at the plate to nail Salvy and end the inning.

I’m sorry, words really don’t do that sequence justice and until we can embed video again you’ll just have to trust me. Watching Perez try to take his body from stopped to full throttle in 0.02 seconds was like watching a tank try to go from stopped to wide open. I’m surprised he didn’t tear something.

Escobar flew out to open the ninth because reasons, but then the Artist Formerly Known as Raul Jr. singled and forced an errant throw by Tribe second baseman Erik Gonzalez that got into the dugout. After Merrifield was walked, a one-out, run-producing opportunity sat before young Rosell Herrera.

He struck out swinging.

Well, okay but then Salvy still rep—wow, second pitch hacking on a pitch in on his hands and he flew out to end the game.

Your Tweet of Despair

This team doesn’t have one good pitcher. Not one. #Royals

— Renwick Hayfield (@MIZ9ER) July 4, 2018

The Bright Spot: Young Rosie (good rap name) collected three hits and Kevin McCarthy produced his seventh straight scoreless outing and 13^th in his last 15.

The Nadir: The clown show that was Perez’s eighth inning base running exhibition. You can blame him or Jirschele or both and it really doesn’t matter.

The Next Step: Well, tomorrow was supposed to be the guaranteed loss that is Ian Kennedy, but he’s gone and landed on the disabled list with an oblique strain, so that’ll fall to Trevor Oaks, probably. Serious Baseball Man Trevor Bauer will oppose him at 7:15 p.m. (CT) for the July 4 contest. Stay safe tomorrow, gang.

Sure, we survived this kind of nonsense before—looking at you, 2004-2006 Royals—but coming off a five-year period that featured a World Series title, an American League pennant, and three years of contention, this is tough to take.

It would be a little easier to take if we could see steps being taken for the future. By that, I mean seeing the building blocks for the next good Royals team. For the most part, those guys are in distant locales like Lexington and Wilmington. I get that, and there is no good reason to rush any of those players. However, the Royals have committed two major sins so far this year at the big-league level: they are bad at baseball, and as an entertainment concern, well…they’re kind of boring.

Yes, boring: the offense is 14th in the league in home runs, eighth in stolen bases (but with only 38, they average one every other game), and 13th in on-base percentage. They do put the ball in play (fewest strikeouts!) but seldom successfully, as evidenced by their .239 team batting average, good for 11th in the AL. And let’s not forget the second-most double plays in the league—at 75, they are averaging nearly one per game.

On the pitching side, despite working in spacious Kauffman Stadium, the Royals have allowed the most home runs in the league (well, at least that’s exciting for other teams). They have picked up the fewest strikeouts. And they have issued the fourth-most walks in the league, a deadly combination when you give up all those home runs. You might think, “Well, at least the ball is in play a lot,” but when you look up the Royals’ defensive efficiency on the Baseball Prospectus site and realize it is the second-worst in the league (thanks, Baltimore!), you realize that’s not good news. In recent years, you got excited when a Royals opponent put the ball in play, because there was an excellent chance one of the defenders would make a highlight-reel catch. By and large, that’s not happening this year. In fact, by that standard, they’re not even making catches an average team would make.

So yeah, boring. None of this is news if you’ve spent much time watching the Royals this year. But I had to make my case.

Now, how do the Royals solve this? Like I said, they don’t have a raft of top prospects to call up from Omaha. That’s not going to change even when they trade off assets before July 31; if Kelvin Herrera didn’t bring back major-league ready talent, Lucas Duda is unlikely to do so (no offense to Duda). Maybe Mike Moustakas will, but I wouldn’t count on it. Still, there are a few personnel moves the Royals could make that would at least make following the team a little more interesting, even if they do nothing to stop the losing. Thinking about the future and trying to figure out which players might stick in the majors is about the only way Royals fans are going to be entertained the rest of this season.

The Royals actually did a couple of these things over the last week, bringing Adalberto Mondesi and Rosell Herrera to the majors. They also made the right call by keeping Hunter Dozier in the majors when Duda came off the disabled list, dispatching Paulo Orlando to Omaha. Applause for both of those moves. On the other hand, they sent Scott Barlow and Ramon Torres down, and those are probably mistakes.

See, there is a lot of veteran dead weight on this team. Some of it, due to massive contracts, is probably unmovable. Of course, here I refer to Ian Kennedy and the $16 million he is owed this year. Oh, and the $16.5 million he’ll get next year. And the year after that. Sigh.

Anyway, there are lots of other options to clear off the roster. Players like Abraham Almonte, Drew Butera, Ryan Goins, Justin Grimm, Jason Hammel, and Brandon Maurer (along with the aforementioned Orlando) offer little upside. Alcides Escobar really doesn’t, either, but I can’t imagine the Royals cutting him loose, so let’s not worry about that for now. The good news is the Royals have very little money or development time invested in these players. Trade ‘em for lottery tickets, or just release ‘em.

Because there are actually some options at Omaha to replace these players. Relievers Josh Staumont and Richard Lovelady have had success there, and Barlow pitched decently in limited time in Kansas City. We’ve seen a little of Cam Gallagher at the major-league level and he seems like a passable backup catcher. Frank Schwindel and Ryan O’Hearn might deserve a look in the majors. Torres probably won’t ever hit in the majors…but I’d rather find out about him than watch Goins not hit in the majors.

Then there’s the Mondesi/Escobar situation. Most of the players I just mentioned probably aren’t part of the next good Royals team, but this is the time to find out. But with all the hype he’s had, it would be nice if Mondesi turned out to be part of that team. Let the kid play shortstop as often as possible. I actually approve of the Royals trying Escobar at some other positions if it means Mondesi plays more frequently. Escobar chasing down fly balls has the potential to be entertaining. At least it’s different. And that’s what the Royals and their fans need now. Because if you can’t be good (and none of these moves will make this team good in the short-term), you can at least be entertaining.

That a team as bad as the Cincinnati Reds couldn’t find something to do with Rosell Herrera is starting to become a bit of a mystery to me, but their loss was the Royals gain on Friday night.

That’s because Rosell made the two plays of the game, keeping it tied and ultimately putting the Royals ahead as the Baby Blue Bombers toppled Houston in a gritty road win—their first since June 9 and just the third victory for Kansas City this month.

The Astros got two hits—a second-inning double by Carlos Correa and a sixth-inning Jose Altuve single. Two hits represented the second-fewest Houston, possibly the league’s most dominant offense, has secured in a game this season and saw the Astros shut out for just the fifth time. By the Royals, of all teams. Let’s dive into why and how this happened because baby, this is not the Kansas City Royals I expected to see tonight.

For starters, even though he allowed just the two hits, I don’t think Danny Duffy would tell you that he had his sharpest stuff tonight. Yes, the fastball had more action—he hit 96 mph on multiple occasions, a far cry from where we were in April when Duffy was struggling to break 90 on the regular—and yes, six innings of two-hit, shutout ball are nice. He also walked four and needed his defense to bail him out on more than one occasion.

After Correa doubled in the second, Duffy walked Gurriel and hung a curveball to Evan Gattis who, rather than deposit it 450 feet away, grounded into a double-play and Duffy struck out Marwin Gonzalez to end the inning.

In the third, Duffy hit Jake Marisnick and walked George Springer with one down, but got himself out of that one by getting Alex Bregman to fly out and Jose Altuve to ground out.

The sixth was the turning point, and a point I did not think would turn out well. After Springer led off with a walk, Bregman struck out and Altuve singled, Duffy started missing. Wildly. He hit the backstop to move Springer and Altuve into scoring position and lost Correa, after starting him out 0-2, with three straight balls so far up in the zone the Jolly Green Giant wouldn’t have been enticed to swing.

Sacks full. Gurriel up. Ned Yost heading out to the mound. This is usually where the starter, at over 100 pitches, hands the ball to the manager and scuttles to the dugout, exhausted yet disappointed at a job not quite finished.

Instead, Duffy remained in the game. Did he talk his way out of removal, or was Ned merely curious to hear his plan of attack? Doesn’t matter. Gurriel tried to yank a slider on the inside corner on Duffy’s first offering, grounding to Mike Moustakas, who stepped on third and fired to first for the double play. Duffy’s night was finished, but the offense still had work to do.

It was an offense that had left chances on the table all night. Back-to-back two-out singles by CENTER FIELDER Alcides Escobar and Paulo Orlando in the second… nothing. Back-to-back two-out walks to Alex Gordon and Escobar (?) in the fourth… nothing. A two-out double by Herrera in the fifth… nothing. In the half-inning preceding Duffy’s sixth-inning jam, Gordon had singled and Escobar had doubled (centerfield really must agree with Esky) with two down… but Gordon held at third and Orlando yeah you know.

Both Duffy and Dallas Keuchel turned it over to the bullpen after six shutout innings, and while Chris Devenski easily stymied Kansas City to start the seventh, Kevin McCarthy had a little trouble after the stretch. Gattis and Gonzalez led off with walks, then pinch-hitter Tony Kemp hit a bouncer to Whit Merrifield at second. Merrifield, knowing Kemp’s speed out of the box, elected to go after the granite-footed Gattis at third, resulting in the rarely-seen 4-5 on the scorecard and one out.

That nice bit of heads-up fielding was nearly rendered moot by Moustakas, who fielded pinch-hitter Tyler White’s grounder five pitches later, wanted to tag Gonzalez on the way to third, turned, discovered Gonzalez was already past him… and had nothing.

Bases full, George Springer up, nobody in the bullpen—this was McCarthy’s mess to clean up. And for the second time in as many innings, Yost’s faith in his pitcher was rewarded with a double play ball, Merrifield to Adalberto Mondesi to Dozier.

The Royals had a chance to finally scratch one across against Hector Rondon in the eighth. Salvador Perez, who makes Sid Bream look like Usain Bolt (ask your parents), legged out a one-out double, followed by strikeout (Dozier), intentional walk (Gordon) and walk (Escobar) to load ‘em up again.

To his credit, Orlando ran the count full. To his discredit, he swung at ball four, which was two feet outside.

Bregman looked like he had put the Astros ahead to lead off the eighth, lifting a drive to right. Ranging back, Herrera made the difficult look routine, soaring to snatch a homer away from the Astros slugger to keep the game scoreless.

Instead of resting on the laurels of his defensive achievement, Herrera drove in the game’s only run in the ninth. Mondesi led off with a single and stole second, but he needn’t hurry because two batters later Herrera’s drive into right-center allowed him to scamper to third with his season’s second triple and give the Royals a lead Tim Hill, New Closer, would hold up with a three-up, three-down ninth inning.

Streak snapped. All thanks to Danny Duffy, Tim Hill and Rosell Herrera.

The Bright Spot: Herrera and Escobar are two-thirds of the outfield of the future. Fight me.

The Nadir: You two-hit a team, you really should put the game away before the ninth inning if I want to pick nits.

The Next Step: Ian Kennedy loses to Lance McCullers Jr. (or a reliever) but it doesn’t matter because Kennedy is going to lose.

(Kennedy is 4-1 with a 1.99 ERA against the Astros in his career, but let’s not jinx this.)

BPKC Hitter of the Day: Rosell Herrera 2-4 2R, 2b, RBI, SB (4)

BPKC Pitcher of the Day: Richard Lovelady 2 IP 1 H 0 R 0 ER 0 BB 3 K 1-1 GO-FO 30p/20k

Columbia Fireflies 9 Lexington Legends 4

The Legends bats had trouble making contact on Thursday while their starter had difficulty hitting the strikezone. Starter Yefri Del Rosario in his second start with the squad walked four hitters while giving up four runs while the defense struggled behind him, allowing seven (3 ER) runs to cross against him. With Del Rosario walking hitters and the defense giving up extra outs the Legends hitters were struggling to make contact, striking out fifteen times in the game while losing an early lead and failing to score during the final six innings.

Nick Pratto: 2-4 R, BB, SB (9)
Seuly Matias: 2-5 R, 2B
Cristian Perez: 3-4 RBI, 2E, hitting .388 with a 16 game hitting streak

Winston-Salem Dash 8 Wilmington Blue Rocks 2

One of the White Sox top pitching prospects kept the Wilmington offense in check while the Wilmington pitching staff couldn’t do the same. Right-handed Dylan Cease yielded just five hits against the Rocks with Nick Heath coming up with three of those. With a fastball that can touch 99 mph, it was the groundball contact that impressed the most with 12 groundouts created along with four strikeouts in his eight-inning performance while allowing just two runs. Wilmington’s starter Ofreidy Gomez gave up six runs in five innings (5 ER) with three free passes and five hits allowed including a big two-run blast to Yermin Mercedes. The game got away from the Rocks during a three-run fifth that put Wilmington behind 6-1.

Khalil Lee: 0-4 RBI, K
D.J. Burt: 1-3 RBI
Nick Heath: 3-4 R, K, SB (14)

Tulsa Drillers 5 NW Arkansas Naturals 2

The Naturals offense was limited to just five hits by Tulsa pitching while the Drillers used a three run fourth to take command of the game. After exchanging runs in the first inning, Alex Liddi’s fourth inning home run gave the Naturals a brief lead. The Drillers quickly countered in the home half of the inning with four extra base hits off Pedro Fernandez to plate three runs. From there the Naturals went down in order, hitting in a pair of double plays to eliminate the only two baserunners they had. The loss moved them back into a tie with Arkansas for first place with Springfield sitting a game back and Tulsa just two back with four to play in the first half.

Nicky Lopez: 1-4
Elier Hernandez: 1-4 RBI
Erick Mejia: 1-3 R

Omaha Storm Chasers 5 Tacoma Rainiers 3

Three players who have made appearances in the majors already paced the Chasers offense for a win. Newcomer Rosell Herrera reached base three times, scoring two runs when Jorge Bonifacio drove him in with a pair of hits. It was Bonifacio who was driven in during a three run fifth inning by Cam Gallagher who also drove in another run late with a safety squeeze. The five runs were enough as Heath Fillmyer gave up three runs in his six innings and the bullpen tossed the final three innings scoreless with Richard Lovelady tossing two scoreless in the win.

Adalberto Mondesi: 0-4 RBI, K
Jorge Bonifacio: 2-4 R, 2b, 2 RBI
Heath Fillmyer: 6 IP 5 H 3 R 3 ER 3 BB 4 K 6-3 GO-FO 93p/54k

Thursday Boxscores

Friday Probables
Omaha – Josh Staumont 1-1 1.59 ERA 1.35 WHIP
NW Arkansas – TBA
Wilmington – Gerson Garabito 2-5 4.35 ERA 1.52 WHIP
Lexington – TBA
Idaho Falls – TBA