The Kansas City Royals are 3-1 to start the month of June after what was a tumultuous month of May that really put them behind the competitive eight ball. One area that’s particularly looked more competent in recent games has been their offense. After reaching the lowest of lows in their recent six game losing streak, where in a three game span between from May 26-29 they scored one or less runs in each game, the offense has scratched across at least three runs across in each of their last six.
At the center of it all has been some struggling bats that have suddenly started to find their footing again at long last as games potentially meaning that much more already. While Vinnie Pasquantino might be the highest profile name to do so, Michael Massey has been the hottest hitter in the Royals lineup over the past five games.
He’s gone 10-for-20 with three homers, seven RBI, a 1.474 OPS and a 308 wRC+ in that span. To put things even more in perspective to how on form Massey has looked of late, his 0.6 fWAR across this five game stretch trails only Milwaukee Brewers star youngster Jackson Chourio’s 0.7 clip and is notably better than names like Shohei Ohtani (0.5 fWAR), José Ramírez (0.5 fWAR), Pete Crow-Armstrong (0.4 fWAR), Yordan Alvarez (0.4 fWAR) and Corbin Carroll (0.4 fWAR) to name a few.
However, while he may now be an above-average 104 wRC+ hitter during this stretch, he was a very below average 66 wRC+ hitter before hand, as it’s taken an out of body stretch just to make him look average again.
Sure this is undeniably the second baseman’s hottest stretch at the dish this season, but the issue is that it’s not his only one this year. Royals fans should be all-too-familiar with Massey’s track-record to at this point to know that with the highs he’s capable of are also paired with some very painful lows.
Michael Massey has had hot streaks in 2026 already – and they were short-lived
Let’s look back at those aforementioned string stretches in 2026 for Massey. In four games from April 21-25, he went 7-for-16 with one homer, three doubles, four RBI, 224 wRC+. He’d follow that up by hitting .050 with a -50 wRC+ in his next seven games.
Then, from May 5-9, Massey went 5-for-11 with two homers, six RBI and a 350 wRC+. He was then pretty well non-existent over the next three weeks until his most recent hot streak started on May 31, hitting just .200 with a 24 wRC+ in that span.
Even last season, after an underwhelming start to his season that saw him on the injured list for much of it, it took a 151 wRC+ from the time he returned on Aug. 25 to the end of the year just to bring him up to a measly 57 wRC+ total on the year. Royals fans (myself included) have been here with Massey and have been burned before.
Let’s not forget, second base has long been recognized across the league as long standing issue for the Royals. Massey’s the textbook definition of a streaky hitter and while what he’s doing is exciting in the moment, it’s important to remember the past and keep expectations tempered.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source kingsofkauffman.com ’
