Kansas City Royals reliever Matt Strahm entered Friday night’s game against the Baltimore Orioles having pitched some of the best baseball of his 2026 season.
Over his previous eight appearances, the 34-year-old lefty had allowed just one run with a 1.23 ERA, and it looked like the mechanical tweaks he made in late June were finally paying off.
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Then Samuel Basallo hit a two-run home run off a hanging slider in the eighth inning, and the Royals lost 5-3 at Camden Yards.
Strahm didn’t shy away from it afterward.
“I feel like I missed two pitches, spiked the change-up, and hung the slider,” Strahm said. “Otherwise, I felt good. That’s kind of been my season. Every miss of mine’s kind of gotten the spotlight.”
A Good Stretch Wiped Out
That is the part that makes this loss sting so much.
Strahm had been building real momentum after a rough stretch from June 2 through June 19 where he gave up 10 runs in 6 1/3 innings, and it seemed like the high-leverage lefty Kansas City traded for was starting to show up.
The Royals acquired Strahm from the Phillies this past December after he posted a 2.74 ERA in 2025 and established himself as one of the best setup men in baseball during his three seasons in Philadelphia.
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Kansas City expected him to steady their bullpen, but instead Strahm is sitting with a 5.81 ERA across 31 innings and a career-high 2.4 home runs allowed per nine.
The Bigger Picture in Kansas City
Strahm’s struggles are just one piece of a season that has gone sideways for the Royals.
Kansas City sits at 38-57, dead last in the AL Central and nowhere near the playoff picture they expected to be in after making the postseason in 2024 and coming close again in 2025.
The bullpen as a whole has been bad, and the offense has not done enough to cover for it.
Friday’s loss to the Orioles, who are 44-51 and sitting fifth in the AL East themselves, followed a familiar script.
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Isaac Collins tied the game with a home run in the top of the eighth, but Strahm gave the lead right back in the bottom half when Basallo connected.
It is the kind of sequence that has defined Kansas City’s year.
With the All-Star break and trade deadline both on the horizon, the Royals are running low on time to turn things around.
For Strahm, all he can do is keep showing up and try to string together another good stretch.
“As a reliever, the only thing you can do is show up tomorrow and get three outs,” Strahm said. “It’s been a rough go this year.”
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source sports.yahoo.com ’
