{"id":2435178,"date":"2026-05-28T06:32:14","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T06:32:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2435178"},"modified":"2026-05-28T06:32:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T06:32:14","slug":"kc-royals-players-frustrated-after-sweep-by-new-york-yankees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/kc-royals-players-frustrated-after-sweep-by-new-york-yankees\/","title":{"rendered":"KC Royals players frustrated after sweep by New York Yankees"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The Kansas City Royals came into their recent homestand looking to find some life after a rough six-game road trip where they were swept by the Chicago White Sox and lost the I-70 Series to the St. Louis Cardinals.<\/p>\n

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They certainly hoped nine consecutive home games could be a remedy for a team sitting next-to-last in the AL Central. But those hopes were quickly dashed after sweeps by the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees.<\/p>\n

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The Royals finished the homestand 2-7, taking both wins from a series against Seattle. They are 3-13 in their last 16 overall after Wednesday night\u2019s 7-0 loss to the Yankees.<\/p>\n

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The Yankees have often given KC trouble, exemplified by 13 straight regular-season losses to the Bronx Bombers over two seasons.<\/p>\n

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Wednesday\u2019s game was the Royals\u2019 last chance to muster a win against Aaron Judge and company before another 10-game road trip.<\/p>\n

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A new sign appeared on the team\u2019s clubhouse door that read: \u201cBe ready to f\u2014 win.\u201d While frustration has become visible with this team<\/a>, now 22-34 on the season, players have tried to maintain a belief that they can still win.<\/p>\n

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But the Royals failed to keep up with their opponent\u2019s bats again, and could barely generate any offense against perennial All-Star Gerrit Cole, who made his second start of the season.<\/p>\n

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The Royals have been swept five times in 2026. The lack of firepower from the mound and at the plate has elicited more emotional responses from the group.<\/p>\n

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Manager Matt Quatraro and his staff are questioning their process, urgently searching for ways to win.<\/p>\n

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\u201cJust trying to evaluate our, like we\u2019ve talked about, our processes, our performance, how we\u2019re utilizing players, and am I putting them in the best spots to succeed,\u201d Quatraro said after the loss. \u201cAre there other things that I can do to get the best out of the team? And we have a tremendous amount of the responsibility, I feel, is how I\u2019m handling it, and what the coaching staff \u2014 how we come together as a group to support the players the best.\u201d<\/p>\n

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How the Yankees swept the Royals<\/h2>\n

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The Yankees began to deliver some damage in the fourth inning Wednesday, taking advantage of a squandered chance for the Royals, who could\u2019ve taken the lead in the third at Kauffman Stadium.<\/p>\n

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With two outs, Maikel Garcia hit a shallow line drive that bounced in front of Judge. He responded with a clinical throw to the chest of catcher Austin Wells, who tagged a sliding Michael Massey out at the plate. Massey had attempted to score from second.<\/p>\n

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Quatraro said he was pleased with the decision to run on Judge.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe way that ball checked up and the way he had to field it, you\u2019ve got to take a chance there,\u201d he said. \u201cI think two outs, in that situation, trying to get on the board. I mean, if we\u2019re going to be aggressive, we\u2019ve got to be aggressive all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

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In the top of the fourth, New York garnered two runs from the bats of designated hitter Ben Rice and Judge.<\/p>\n

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Rice swung at the first pitch from left-hander Noah Cameron, a four-seam fastball, to hit a triple that took an awkward bounce off the left field wall and scattered away from Royals left fielder Isaac Collins past the foul line. Rice\u2019s triple scored Paul Goldschmidt from first.<\/p>\n

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Judge hit a sac fly to right to give the Yankees a 2-0 lead.<\/p>\n

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Cameron had a solid outing despite the two runs, allowing a walk and four hits with four strikeouts. But the Yankees worked him through his five innings. Cameron threw 94 pitches, 62 of them strikes.<\/p>\n

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Cameron allowed two runners in the sixth before John Schreiber took the mound and retired the side, including forcing Judge into a double play.<\/p>\n

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Righty reliever Nick Mears took the brunt of the Yankees\u2019 production in the seventh, walking in a run with the bases loaded and two outs \u2014 on a pitch confirmed from an ABS challenge by Carter Jensen. Alex Lange took over after the walk, but the runs continued.<\/p>\n

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Rice hit an 88.6 mph slider between first and second base, driving in his second and third runs of the game for the 5-0 lead. Wednesday call-up Mason Black<\/a> gave up a two-run home run to third baseman Ryan McMahon off a 95 mph sinker.<\/p>\n

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The Yankees ended the evening with eight hits.<\/p>\n

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The Royals only collected four hits off Cy Young winner Cole, who struck out 10 in his first win of the year. Cameron took the loss and is now 2-4 with a 4.61 ERA.<\/p>\n

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Maikel Garcia had two of the Royals\u2019 hits, with the last one coming in the bottom of the sixth.<\/p>\n

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Royals frustrated by Yankees series<\/h2>\n

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The sweep left a bitter taste in the mouth of Royals clubhouse. Losing is always tough, as Quatraro routinely says, and players maintain they are confident and determined to fight their way out of it.<\/p>\n

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For captain Salvador Perez, that fight may have to be literal.<\/p>\n

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\u201cConcentration a little more, play angry,\u201d Perez said after the game. \u201cPlay hard, angry, you know, like we want to win.\u201d<\/p>\n

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An even-keeled Bobby Witt Jr. repeated the platitudes of \u201cday by day\u201d and \u201cbrick by brick,\u201d emphasizing that players are working to be better across the board.<\/p>\n

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\u201cComes down to just us,\u201d he said. \u201cHow much do we want it, and how bad do we want it? We can keep digging ourselves a hole, or we can come out of it. And I think with the guys that we have in here, we\u2019re all pulling on the same rope, coming together as one.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The Royals had to tip their cap to Cole, one of the most dominant pitchers in the last decade of baseball. But the players know it\u2019s up to them to turn around a season that isn\u2019t lost just yet. At least one team has made the playoffs with a 22-33 record in the past five seasons.<\/p>\n

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They put the burden strictly on their own shoulders to put some winning baseball together.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe can admit as a team we\u2019re playing really, really poor baseball, we\u2019re not executing at a level that we\u2019re capable of,\u201d infielder Michael Massey said. \u201cAnd I also think, at the same time, we could realize that there\u2019s been less than 23,000 players that have ever played Major League Baseball.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of talented guys in this room, there\u2019s a lot of really good players. We just need to continue to fight, continue to work. Just a tough time. We\u2019ve got to stick together, just keep fighting.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Up next:<\/b> The Royals have a day off before they play in Arlington, Texas, against the Texas Rangers on Friday at 7:05 p.m.<\/p>\n

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This story was originally published May 27, 2026 at 9:36 PM.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Related Stories from Kansas City Star<\/h5>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\nPJ Green<\/a><\/p>\n

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The Kansas City Star<\/span><\/p>\n

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PJ Green is a breaking news reporter for The Star. He previously was a sports reporter for Fox\u2019s Kansas City affiliate and a news reporter for NBC\u2019s Wichita Falls, Texas affiliate. He studied English with a concentration in journalism and played football at Tusculum University. You can reach him at pgreen@kcstar.com or follow him on Twitter and Bluesky – @ByPJGreen<\/span>\n <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.kansascity.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Kansas City Royals came into their recent homestand looking to find some life after a rough six-game road trip where they were swept by the Chicago White Sox and lost the I-70 Series to the St. Louis Cardinals. They certainly hoped nine consecutive home games could be a remedy for a team sitting next-to-last […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2402337,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2435178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-royalty"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Royals-closer-Carlos-Estevez-starts-Triple-A-rehab-Update.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2435178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2435178"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2435178\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2435179,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2435178\/revisions\/2435179"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2402337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2435178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2435178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2435178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}