The Kansas City Royals reached the All-Star break at 38-59, tied with the Los Angeles Angels for the worst record in baseball and sitting fifth in the American League Central, 13 games out of first place.
This was supposed to be a playoff push after a 2024 postseason run and another winning year in 2025, but almost nothing has gone right.
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“It wasn’t what we thought we were capable of doing,” shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. said after Kansas City was swept in Baltimore to close out the first half.
Witt and Michael Wacha have held up their end, taking home most of the club’s first half honors while the roster sank around them.
The bigger story is the group of players expected to carry this team who dragged it down instead, and three stand out above the rest.
Nobody on the roster fell further than Vinnie Pasquantino, who followed up a 32 homer, 113 RBI season in 2025 by hitting .224 with a .659 OPS and six home runs through 68 games before a broken hamate bone in his right hand ended his first half on June 14.
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The power never showed up, as his hard contact and exit velocity both sat at career lows before the injury.
He beat his recovery timeline and returned in Baltimore over the weekend, which at least gives him a full second half to prove the bat is still in there.
Salvador Perez has been the face of the franchise for 15 years, which makes this season harder to watch.
The 36 year old is hitting .209 with a .593 OPS and 11 home runs, a steep fall from the 30 homers and 100 RBIs he produced in 2025.
The contact is still there, but the ball is not going anywhere, with his barrel rate dropping from among the best in baseball to below average.
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Perez also dealt with thumb and elbow problems late in the half, and rookie Carter Jensen has started taking more of the work behind the plate.
Matt Strahm Has Made the Bullpen Worse
The Royals traded for Matt Strahm in December, sending Jonathan Bowlan to Philadelphia for a lefty coming off a 2.74 ERA and three strong seasons with the Phillies.
The trade was meant to steady a shaky bullpen, and instead Strahm limped into the break with a 7.18 ERA while giving up home runs at the highest rate of his career.
A knee problem cost him two weeks in May, and a brutal June stretch buried his numbers.
“It’s been a rough go this year,” Strahm admitted after giving up the go-ahead homer in Friday’s loss to the Orioles.
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Kansas City’s bullpen finished the half with an ERA over five, near the bottom of baseball, and Strahm sits near the center of that problem.
With the front office now listening on its veteran starters ahead of the August 3 trade deadline, the second half becomes about finding out which of these three can still be part of the next good Royals team.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source sports.yahoo.com ’
