Kansas City Royals: Injuries Have Dealt Royals Well
The 2016 season has concluded a spell of bad injuries thus far for the Kansas City Royals.
Alex Gordon, Mike Moustakas, Salvador Perez, Chris Young, Kris Medlen, Lorenzo Cain, and Wade Davis have all been on the disabled list at some point this season. With the halfway mark around the corner, hopefully the Royals’ bad luck doesn’t continue.
It hasn’t been all that bad though.
After the Alex Gordon and Mike Moustakas collision, we saw the rising talent in Cheslor Cuthbert and everyone’s favorite, Whit Merrifield. Alex Gordon wasn’t hard to replace hitting .211 and even with Moustakas’s early power numbers, Mike was only hitting .240. Merrifield is hitting .290 with five stolen bases. Cuthbert is hitting .282 with eight home runs.
It was becoming clearer that second baseman Omar Infante had no role on the team after Merrifield’s quick success. Being the utility player that Merrifield is, he was able to secure the second base job as well as play in the outfield if need be.
This led to a Brett Eibner call up and a few more starts for day one starter Reymond Fuentes. Eibner stole Kansas City’s faith with a walk off RBI in his second start. Both still have a small sample size, but Eibner is hitting .304 through 19 games and Fuentes through 13 games is hitting .317.
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After the collision with third baseman Cheslor Cuthbert, Salvador Perez missed six games due to a bruised left thigh. Drew Butera came in and raised his batting average from .250 to .308 through seven games. He also hit two home runs and an RBI in five of the seven games he started.
I don’t believe Alex Gordon will continue to hit under .250 for the rest of the season, but without the injury you may have never seen Merrifield this year. The Royals only have Moose until the end of next season, so with Cuthbert’s rise to action, you have a piece of potential if a deal doesn’t get done.
The point here is that we did not see a huge drop-off from these injuries. Guys were able to step up for what had to be done. What is hurting the Kansas City Royals is that the key players are losing reps and rhythm. Even missing a weeks worth of games is going to have an influence on where anyone’s game is at when they return.
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Fans never want to see any player get hurt whether if he plays for their team or not. The Royals have been able to capitalize on injuries and make the best of them. We are far from being out of the playoff race and a huge part of that stems from the production of the new faces this year.