Given the way that the Royals typically lumber out of the gates, maybe it shouldn’t be a surprise — or a harbinger of doom — that they fell to 7-9 on Sunday at Kauffman Stadium with a 6-5 loss to the White Sox.
No, it’s not good that they merely split a series against a divisional foe coming off three straight 100-loss seasons.
Or that the Royals have won just one of five series in this early season as they embark on a road trip to Detroit and New York. And that their scoring outburst on Sunday was the first time in six games they’d mustered more than two runs … only to have that squandered because of too many men left on base (seven), a rare rough start for Noah Cameron and another bullpen letdown.
It’s a funny thing how baseball sometimes becomes a sort of game of Whac-A-Mole: Just as you smack down one issue, like ending an unfathomable 0-for-33 stretch with runners in scoring position, another surfaces.
That dynamic has been part of the overarching theme with the Royals in this micro-snapshot of the season at almost exactly the 10% mark — way too early to be an identity but hard to shrug off, too.
While the Royals largely have gotten the same stellar starting pitching they could expect out of this rotation, they haven’t been buoyed or validated — at least not yet — by some of the very things that they reckoned they could count on most:
A bullpen that was among the best in baseball last year entered the day with a 5.68 ERA, the fourth-worst in baseball. And it took its third loss Sunday after John Schreiber allowed a leadoff double in the seventh that turned into the game-winning run on his wild pitch.
Stars Vinnie Pasquantino and Salvador Perez, each of whom had 100-plus RBIs last season, continue to grapple to find their grooves. Each is hitting .153 after Sunday.
Pasquantino is one for his last 21 with one RBI in the last seven games and six overall; Perez has two RBIs this season.
The flip side of all this is that Perez’s terrific career has been marked by funks and spurts … just seldom this early. And Pasquantino has been prone to slow starts.
Only a year ago later this month, he said in a recent interview with The Star, he was in the clubhouse after a game texting his father that he was “completely lost.”
Not long after, he was found — and went on to finish with 32 home runs and 113 RBIs.
Conversely with the bullpen, despite that ERA and some lapses, it also happens to lead MLB in saves with seven — including five by Lucas Erceg.
No wonder it’s hard to get a bead on where this is going just now.
Especially considering this particularly confounding part of the Rorschach Test:
The Royals’ starting rotation entered the game with a 2.56 ERA — second in MLB only to the Yankees (2.50). Meanwhile, its offense with 54 runs through Sunday is tied for second-worst in baseball.
So there is many a mixed message with not a lot of statistically significant data — at least in terms of sample size.
You could just as easily say the Royals have frittered away a good deal of that great starting pitching as that they’ve been fortunate to cobble together three wins with three or fewer runs.
Most of all, the point here is that absolutely nothing defining has happened yet. This season still is too much in the embryonic phase to draw any conclusions despite an uninspiring start.
Because it’s a 162-game marathon, I don’t believe any sport is easier to overreact to day by day than baseball. It’s hard not to fall into that trap, whether overly optimistic or pessimistic.
Starting pitcher Noah Cameron #65 of the Kansas City Royals pitches during the 1st inning against the Chicago White Sox at Kauffman Stadium on April 12, 2026 in Kansas City.
But it’s frustrating to try to gauge all the ebb and flow that can take place before a team becomes whatever it is.
For what it’s worth from the press box, I still like what’s here:
A rotation that will nearly always give them a chance to win.
A 1-2 punch at the top of the order — and left side of the infield — with Maikel Garcia and Bobby Witt Jr.
A middle of the order in Pasquantino and Perez, whose history tells you this is a phase, not the sum.
The back end of the bullpen still can be special, with Erceg a force and Carlos Estevez more likely to morph back into himself when he returns than how he performed in the one ghastly outing in which he was hurt.
Young Carter Jensen, who broke that 0-33 RISP streak with an infield single, leads the team in home runs with four, and Jac Caglianone seems to be in the right frame of mind for a breakout. Meanwhile, led by Kyle Isbel, the Royals have gotten better production from the bottom of the order than they did all last season.
Human nature makes it a lot easier to perceive the downside, of course. And, sure, it’s going to take about all of those notions to go the right way for the Royals to make something of this season.
But with 146 games to go, this is a work in progress still unfurling. And after two straight winning seasons, including the 2024 postseason run, this remains too intriguing a group to assume it can’t or won’t grow from here. Even if it’s going to be exasperating at times along the way.
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