After a nice start to the month of June (6-2 record), the Kansas City Royals have now lost three straight series and are an even 8-8 to begin the Summer. While there are a multitude of reasons to point to for this poor 2026 season, when parsed out, it’s fair to put a little bit of blame on everybody’s shoulders for this porous campaign.
KC ranks 25th in runs per game (3.99) and home runs (65), and bottom-four in slugging percentage (.378). The majority of batters have fallen short of expectations this year, most notably Vinnie Pasquantino and Salvador Perez, especially when you bake in the expectations for both hitters coming into the season. Pasquantino was finally getting in a bit of a groove and was a catalyst for the Royals’ hot June start. But a fracture in his hamate bone in his hand has caused the Pasquatch to miss potentially the next month-plus.
For Perez, unless he somehow finds a way out of this treacherous 68 games he’s played in, it may be time to start thinking about phasing him out of the lineup a bit more consistently. Which, yes, has become an easier thought when you have an up-and-coming 22-year-old catcher in Carter Jensen waiting in the wings. But Salvy is a Royals legend and future Hall of Famer. And at least for this year and next, he’s under contract and the heart and soul of this ballclub.
Royals battling a myriad of injuries in the midst of a disappointing 2026 season
Pitching has also slackened off a bit from previous years, as the Royals rank 20th in runs allowed (4.73) and 23rd in batting average allowed (.252). It doesn’t project to get any better either, as both starting aces Cole Ragans and Seth Lugo remain sidelined, and perhaps for longer than expected in Ragans’ case. While Lugo is scheduled to return from his concussion on Friday and make the start versus the St. Louis Cardinals in the I-70 series, fans received a worrisome update on Ragans from manager Matt Quatraro.
Royals reporter for MLB.com, Anne Rogers, stated that Ragans is still shut down and symptoms have continued from the VEO/elbow injury he suffered well over a month ago. He plans to see another doctor in the coming days, with Quatraro saying, “hopefully we can get a concrete answer on what’s going on.”
It’s not a quote that instills a lot of confidence that Ragans is on track to return to throwing anytime soon, if the Royals still don’t exactly know how to deal with the unique ailment. It may be hard to say it and really mean it as a fan of this team, but at almost the halfway point of the season, it doesn’t feel like the Royals have the health or momentum to mount a furious comeback in the standings.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source kckingdom.com ’
