The Kansas City Royals are not having a very good season. After they reached the postseason in 2024, they fell just short in 2025 and are now five games below the .500 mark. Fortunately for them, the American League is relatively weak, as is the AL Central, so they still have hope of a turnaround.
However, while the team isn’t playing well, there have been a few bright spots, including star shortstop Bobby Witt Jr., who currently leads Major League Baseball in Wins Above Replacement and hits.
He also has a 1.101 OPS in the month of May alone, and he is mirroring a strong start from three-time American League MVP Aaron Judge, who has posted a 1.022 OPS this season.
Bobby Witt Jr. Mirroring Aaron Judge’s Hot Start
For the season, Witt is hitting .306/.378/.506 with seven home runs, 22 RBI, 12 stolen bases and an .884 OPS. While that mark for the entire season is much lower than Judge’s current mark, Witt’s torrid month of May should certainly have him in the conversation with Judge for the American League MVP award.
With Cal Raleigh struggling and now on the injured list, a case can be made that Witt and Judge are the two best players in the American League, and while the numbers aren’t exactly the same, both players are off to red-hot starts and making a huge difference for their teams.
If the Royals are going to turn things around, they’ll need to keep relying heavily on Witt for their offense to keep producing. Witt says that the secret to his hot start is all about being able to adjust his routine on the fly.
“It’s always evolving, whether it’s the hitting routine, the defensive routine, whatever I want to get better at each and every day,” Witt said. “I think that’s the thing about the big leagues. You have one good game, and you try to do the same exact thing and then you have a bad game, whatever it is, so there’s always got to be some type of evolvement.”
It will be interesting to see if Witt can keep up this pace and potentially take home an MVP of his own this year. He and Judge are both off to good starts, and Witt’s strong OPS numbers this month are certainly on par with what Judge has been able to do for the past several years.
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