The Kansas City Royals found themselves on the losing end of a series for the second straight time after dropping what appeared to be a winnable road three-game road set against the rebuilding Minnesota Twins, fresh off a trade deadline fire sale.
The reality of going another three games without making up any ground in the American League Wild Card race is undoubtedly a tough pill to swallow.
However, the Royals shouldn’t consider this weekend a complete wash. Not only did they manage to salvage the series by winning one game on Saturday, they continued to to deploy some promising lineup optimization practices, by further tweaking the batting order. And it once again showed promise.
Despite series loss versus Twins, Royals rewarded for continued lineup adjustments
Matt Quatraro’s tweaks began last week when he shifted Mike Yastrzemski up to the leadoff role and Jonathan India down to the seven spot against the Red Sox on Wednesday and both had excellent outings.
Then on Friday, it was Yastrzemski’s time to shine in the leadoff role yet again, homering right off the bat in the first inning. And while India may not have had the 2-for-4 and three RBI performance he did on Wednesday, he did manage to be productive in the loss by picking up another hit.
Then on Saturday, it was Maikel Garcia who was moved up to the one spot. It was just his 11th time in the leadoff role this season and he did not disappoint, going 2-for-4 with a third inning RBI-double to open the scoring, which turned out to be the difference in a 2-0 win.
He continued to strengthen his case to see increased time time in the one hole, as after his multi-hit performance on the weekend, he’s now hitting .415 with seven RBI, a .981 OPS and 170 wRC+ in the this spot.
Then, in Sunday’s extra-innings thriller, Quatraro got creative again. Yastrzemski was back in the leadoff role but it was Garcia in the two-spot that made the headlines here.
Entering Sunday’s contest, Garcia had hit second in the order just one time prior this in 2025. This obviously is due the the fact that Bobby Witt Jr. has occupied this spot of lineup for some time now. He’s the face of the franchise who’s only a year removed from an MVP-caliber season where he hit solely in two-hole, so there’s no questions of whether or not that this is the best spot for him.
But with Witt out of the lineup in the series finale, Quatraro used the opportunity to test out Garcia in the two-hole and it paid off big time. He went 3-for-4 with three hits, two walks and run scored.
While they may only be 2-2 since deploying these more notable roster adjustments, the changes are having a ripple effect down the order.
Kyle Isbel has continued his strong second-half down in the nine-hole, as he opened the Twins series with back-to-back multi-hit performances. Then, up in the three-spot, Vinnie Pasquantino finally came alive a bit after a slow start to the second-half – he holds 91 wRC+ since July 18 – by belting a go-ahead homer in the seventh, taking advantage of Garcia reaching base just before him.
They haven’t been lighting the world on fire by any means with phenomenally high run prodcution, but there’s definitely sign the little things are clicking for Kansas City’s offense.
As frustrating as it might be to drop back-to-back series, this by no means should deter the Royals from abandoning their method of lineup tweaking because there’s reason to believe there moving towards a more complete offensive profile as team due to their alterations.
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