There is a lot of incentive for Kansas City Royals principal owner John Sherman, general manager JJ Picollo, and manager Matt Quatraro to make excuses for this year’s poor team performance. It keeps the public more invested, and frankly to do anything else would admit that something in the organization needs to change—which hasn’t really been an organizational strength since Ewing Kauffman was alive.
The biggest and most obvious excuse the Royals have deployed has been one that the teams have leaned on since practically the dawn of time: injuries. “If only we were at full strength,” these teams say, “we would have won more games.” The problem with this is twofold. One, that it tends to overlook that literally every other team in the league also deals with injuries. And two, a club that falls apart due to injuries tends to also be a club that doesn’t have the depth to sustain any stormy weather.
In Kansas City’s case, there is also a secret third reason: they sucked right out of the gate, rendering the injury claim sort of moot. The Royals only won seven of their first 23 games, and they were 15 games under .500 by the end of May. Those teams tend not to come back to do anything relevant during the rest of the season despite who is or isn’t on the injured list.
But I say “sort of” moot because the Royals have, indeed, suffered some key injuries, especially on offense. Kansas City expected starting second baseman Jonathan India to have a bounceback campaign; instead, he played 17 games before going under the knife with a season-ending shoulder surgery. Starting center fielder Kyle Isbel missed nearly 50 games with a foot injury. Starting third baseman Maikel Garcia has dealt with a litany of injuries, most recently a weird hand injury which caused him to miss the last two months. Starting first baseman Vinnie Pasquantino has also missed about two months of time with a pair of separate maladies. Starting shortstop and superstar Bobby Witt Jr. missed half a dozen games in June and another 13 in July, which is a lot for a guy who is the engine behind the entire offense.
Fortunately for the Royals, Monday was a huge day: they got Garcia and Pasquantino back. Lo! Rejoice!
It’s not just Garcia and Pasquantino being back that matters, though. It’s that, for the first time since, like, May, the Royals are at full offensive strength. Yes, India is still injured, but Michael Massey and/or Nick Loftin have proven themselves a pretty spot-on simulacrum of what a healthy India would have played like.
This also means that, for the first time since May, the Royals have no real excuses for fielding a solid offense.
Specifically mentioning the offense here is important, because a lot of the rest of the team is still in shambles. The best thing anybody can say about the bullpen is that they keep showing up to the ballpark when they’re supposed to, and the rotation is leaning on Randy Dobnak and Daniel Lynch IV for it’s last two spots. The Royals, therefore, are likely to lose a lot of games over the next month and a half. It is not really fair to expect competitive baseball there.
But! We should, theoretically, expect a decent offense if the Royals are to make the jump to competitive baseball next year year. After all, there aren’t any excuses. Call this team Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, because everyone is here: no pining for a Pasquatch bomb or a cheeky bat flip after a Garcia walk. No more watching Josh Rojas play shortstop. No more wondering if Kyle Isbel would have made that play.
Early returns are good. Yesterday, the Royals rolled out a mostly perfect lineup and, wouldn’t you know it, scored a bunch of runs right away.
Still, early returns are just early returns. Kansas City has about three dozen games left, and it’s on the offense to continue the party. Notably, it’s on the offense to continue to do well against a team that is actually competent, which rules out the OaklandLas Vegas Sacramento A’s, who somehow have an even worse record than the Royals do.
I am aware that this post sounds more than a little snarky, but that’s what you get when the team has played so badly for so long and still insists that A) no one’s doing a bad job and B) everything is a-go for next year. The onus is on the team to prove cranky pop-tart eating writers like me wrong and warm the fire in my cold, jaded sports heart again.
The good news is that Caglianone’s breakout, Massey and Loftin’s emergence, and Quatraro’s (probably begrudging) willingness to boot Pasquantino and Perez further down in the lineup makes this mid-August lineup much more interesting and efficient than it was three months ago. So if there’s a time to prove that the offense at least is ready for prime time, the next month and change is it.