Matt Quatraro’s controversial Royals lineup decision wasn’t wrong (but it was ill-timed)

Struggling doesn’t quite sum up the Kansas City Royals’ current situation. They’ve dropped six straight after Saturday’s embarrassing 13-4 beatdown at the hands of the Yankees and the offense continues to look as hopeless as it has for weeks. With such struggles, fans have seemingly advocated for weeks as to why manager Matt Quatraro has continued to role out the same lineup every game.

On Saturday though, Quatraro did attempt to shake things up, benching his struggling captain Salvador Perez in what he referred to as a “mental breather”, as reported by Anne Rogers of MLB.com. Because of that, frustrations appear to be boiling over in the clubhouse as Perez didn’t seem to take the news all that well, taking to Twitter after the game to share his disagreement with the decision.

Whether he needed a mental breather on Saturday or not, the fact remains that Quatraro’s decision wasn’t unwarranted by any means. In fact, given the fact Perez looks far from his 30 HR and 100 RBI production from a year ago, with three homers and six RBI with April coming to a close in less than two weeks. He also looks far from producing his below-average 95 wRC+ in 2025 this season, with a putrid 36 wRC+ along with a .160/.210/.307 slash line through 20 games to start the year.

The problem lies in the fact that this seemed long overdue, emphasis on the overdue portion of that phrase. Fans’ frustrations have been boiling over for weeks now and moving names down in the order have been on there minds well before the six-game losing skid. And with names ahead of him in the order like Bobby Witt Jr. and Maikel Garcia constantly being left on base, the damage has already been plentiful.

This makes Saturday’s decision all the more puzzling. The Royals didn’t have any above average names to insert in his place and with the team travelling back to Kansas City following Sunday’s game, logistically an off-day for the finale would’ve made more sense.

Now that decisions have been made, who else should the Royals bench?

Perez isn’t the only underperformer that’s warranted a day off for some time now, so even if Quatraro was late in making his decision to bench him, there’s no point in stopping now. So, who should be next?

While Vinnie Pasquantino may’ve been the prime candidate for the answer to this question at the start of the week, a pair of homers and three RBI in his last three game could indicate he’s breaking out of his early slump.

With so many platoon and occasional players in the lineup, there’s no clear answer like Perez and Pasquantino would’ve been, but one name that perhaps needs an even further reduced role than his current platoon role is Jonathan India.

India hasn’t been a regular fixture at second since Michael Massey returned from the IL. And the results have been underwhelming of late. Since his two-hit game on Apr. 6 in Cleveland, India is slashing .050/.269/.100 with a 28 wRC+.

As for Perez, he’s set to return to the lineup on Sunday, DH’ing and hitting clean-up, as the Royals look to avoid a full week of losing and their second straight sweep. First pitch from the Bronx goes down at 12:35 p.m. CT.