KC Royals: Five Lessons Learned After First Month

Lesson Three: No one is going to hand the Royals a third consecutive World Series’ trip.

Yes, the Royals made Wade Miley look like he was in the running for the Cy Young award the other night, he’s not, but aside from that, they’ve been facing some tough competition with the bats.

I think sometimes as fans, we forget that the other team gets paid to win also. They’re out there very much trying not just to win a ball game, but prove a point against a team that now has a target on their backs. The Royals have responded well to pressure in the past, but now they aren’t producing as they have in the past.

If strikeouts are up this season, it’s for good reason. The Royals have been facing some very tough pitchers. See below some of the starting pitchers in their losses, along with the pitcher’s ERA and strikeouts per nine innings.

• Noah Syndergaard: 2.51 ERA – 12.2 Ks/9
• Sonny Gray: 3.81 ERA – 8.3 Ks/9
• Gio Gonzalez: 1.15 ERA – 7.5 Ks/9
• Felix Hernandez: 1.38 ERA – 7.7 Ks/9
• Garrett Richards: 2.34 ERA – 8.8 Ks/9
• Nick Tropeano: 2.11 ERA – 8.4 Ks/9
• Jordan Zimmermann: 0.55 ERA – 6.3 Ks/9

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Granted that’s not all the starting pitchers that the Royals have lost to. There are also some real clunkers out there such as Chris Bassitt, Collin McHugh, Tyler Wilson, Jered Weaver, and the aforementioned Wade Miley. The Royals struggled to put up runs against those players also.

Just looking at the seven pitchers I’ve highlighted though, it’s hard to argue that the Royals haven’t been up against some tough pitching. Those seven pitchers have a combined ERA of 1.94 in 213.2 innings of work this season. They also average 8.5 strikeouts per nine innings of work.

In their combined starts against the Royals, those seven pitchers have thrown 44 innings and allowed only three earned runs. That’s an ERA of 0.61 against the Royals in those starts.

Yes, runs have been hard to come by, but the Royals are going to have to find a way to beat good pitching. They did last year, and it was the difference in the season so far. In their losses, they have just 19 runs on the season which is an average of 1.58 runs/game.

Next: Slip Sliding Away