KC Royals: Just How Bad Were the April Slumps?

The KC Royals had an up and down month in April, but just how bad were the downs?

Ugh – what a month.  If you ignore Eric Hosmer and Mike Moustakas’ hot starts, the Royals offensive productivity in April was, er, quite unproductive. In fact, right now Drew Butera technically leads the team with a .400 batting average.

While it’s no surprise that Salvy and Omar aren’t raking, the truth remains that a core group of the Royals starting lineup had a tough April. OK, that’s kind of an understatement —  almost half of the Royals lineup had a pretty abysmal first month of the season.

As a group, Alcides Escobar, Lorenzo Cain, Kendrys Morales, and Alex Gordon went a combined 74/341 for a .217 average. They had six home runs and 27 RBI, total. To put that in perspective, 15 different players had more than six home runs in April, by themselves.

They had a total of 90 strikeouts. The entire team had 156. That’s an average of close to four strikeouts between them each game. Keep in mind that these guys are in the top half and heart of the order (even Gordon, who hits sixth, would be batting closer to the front on most teams).

They’re supposed to be the core production. Last month, even what’s looking to be a historically terrible Atlanta Braves team managed to bat .229. And dare I say it, but even Neifi Perez his .236 for the Royals in 2002.

There has to be silver lining here. Things have to get better. These are all capable All-Star major league players on the World Champion Kansas City Royals – they will be just fine, right? To gauge our level of concern, let’s take a look at each batter’s worst month of his career to see how this stacks up; if nothing else, it’s proof that the worst is (hopefully) behind us.

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