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Kansas City Royals: American League Central is weak so far in 2017

By Leigh Oleszczak

Apr 10, 2017; Kansas City, MO, USA; A B2 Bomber flies over the stadium during the National Anthem, prior to the game between the Kansas City Royals and the Oakland Athletics at Kauffman Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Peter G. Aiken-USA TODAY Sports
Apr 10, 2017; Kansas City, MO, USA; A B2 Bomber flies over the stadium during the National Anthem, prior to the game between the Kansas City Royals and the Oakland Athletics at Kauffman Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Peter G. Aiken-USA TODAY Sports /
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The Kansas City Royals haven’t been above .500 all season, but they’re still very much in the running for the American League Central crown. That’s because so far this season, the division has been incredibly underwhelming.

In any other division in Major League Baseball, the KC Royals would probably have to strongly consider selling away their best players, even this early on.

Fortunately for the Royals, however, they’re playing baseball in the AL Central, which at this point of the year, is struggling to remain competitive. Here are the current standings in the American League Central:

  1. Minnesota Twins (20-17)
  2. Detroit Tigers (20-19), 1 Game Behind
  3. Cleveland Indians (20-19), 1 Game Behind
  4. Chicago White Sox (17-21), 3.5 Games Behind
  5. Kansas City Royals (17-23), 4.5 Games Behind

Okay so it’s not pretty considering that the Royals are in last place and have yet to win a game against the Twins, but come on. The freaking Twins are winning the division right now and they have a losing record at home.

It’s just interesting to me that in an offseason where everyone basically handed the division to the Indians, it’s still anybody’s division to win at this point. The Royals, despite having an awful start to the season, are just as much in the running to be AL Central champions as anybody else. That should make fans feel good about themselves.

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With an important series against Minnesota this weekend, the Kansas City Royals have a chance to really make up some ground in the division. If they take even just two out of three from the Twinkies, that’ll be crucial for their standings.

As much as Royals fans freaked out at the start of the year, things aren’t looking so bad anymore. If they were in the American League East or West, they’d be ten games or so behind for first place and fans would be pushing for Dayton Moore to sell, sell, sell.

As for the Wild Card standings, I don’t really like to glance at those until around the All-Star Game, but for the sake of this article, I went ahead and looked. The Royals are only four and a half games out of the second Wild Card spot. None of us would have predicted they’d be that close in the standings after how disastrous the team looked in the first month of the season.

While the division probably won’t be this bad all season long, the KC Royals are still in it for the time being. They just have to win the games that count moving forward.

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