Royals Letting Season Slip Away With Continued Poor Play At Home

The Kansas City Royals are the current owners of the worst home record in all of Major League Baseball. The Royals terrible play at home this season is tough to understand and even tougher to explain. The Royals are a relatively young team and so one would expect them to play better at the comfy confines of their own stadium rather than on the road, but the exact opposite has been true for the Royals this season.

Kansas City is entering dangerous territory when it comes to staying in the playoff hunt and if they are unable to turn things around at Kauffman sooner rather than later, then their playoff dreams will be extinguished.

The Royals pitching let them down in this latest series against the Cards after being so good in their previous three series and as the bats have heated up, naturally the pitching has cooled down for KC.

Kansas City has had a tough time putting together solid games in the field and at the plate at the same time, if they pitch well then they typically haven’t hit well, and if they hit well then they don’t pitch well. Baseball is a funny game and it often works out that way, but above all else the Royals need to find some measure of consistency to prove to fans that they finally are moving in the right direction.

Making the playoffs this season would be nice, but staying competitive throughout the course of the season would be huge and would give fans a reason to come out and support this team in 2013.

The Royals will be hard-pressed to make a big splash at the trade deadline but they need to seriously consider doing something to continue building this ball club for the future, whether that be trading closer Jonathan Broxton, outfielder Jeff Francoeur, or  dealing them both.

The Royals are on a similar path as the Chiefs in that they have committed to a plan and they are letting it play out (in both cases that plan was going with mostly young players who can develop as a group and hopefully all peak at a similar time), but like the Chiefs did this offseason, the Royals need to be active in upgrading their roster when given the chance.

Kansas City could be the next Tampa Bay, they have the makings of a potent offense if guys like Eric Hosmer and Lorenzo Cain can become what we expect them to be, but the Royals must find a way to upgrade their pitching staff and it won’t be easy because everyone is always looking for pitching.

In a 162-game season it is rarely worth getting too worked up over one series, but the Royals had a chance to make a statement at home this weekend and they failed to do so. Let’s hope Kansas City can get their struggles at Kauffman worked out and Dayton Moore makes a few moves at the trade deadline so that the All-Star game isn’t the only excitement for KC fans this summer.