Kansas City Royals: What we learned in first blowout win of 2020 season

The Kansas City Royals are 2-2 after four games in the 2020 season and they scored double digit runs against the Tigers in Detroit on Monday. What did we learn about the boys in blue in this blowout win?

After their first series of the season, a glaring issue for the Kansas City Royals was their inability to score runs. They scored five runs during their three-game series in Cleveland, but the offense exploded onto the scene on Monday night in Detroit, plating 14 runs and hitting six homers.

Yes, we can address the fact that Detroit was projected to be even worse than the Royals will be this season, but any time a team can score 14 runs in a game, that’s a welcomed sight, especially for a team that was struggling to hit at all.

The Kansas City Royals got behind early on in this game, but bounced back in a big way.

After scoreless first innings for both teams, the second inning was a different story. Maikel Franco hit his first home run as a Royal, giving KC a 1-0 lead, which wouldn’t last long.

The Tigers scored five runs in the second inning and just like that, it looked like the Royals were going to have to dig themselves out of a major hole.

Well, it was basically all Kansas City for the rest of the night, as the Royals scored 11 runs in the next three innings.

Whit Merrifield and Salvador Perez each hit a home run in the third inning, with Merrifield’s being a two-run shot.
The fourth inning was when KC really destroyed Detroit pitching, scoring six runs in that inning to go up 10-5. Franco hit his second home run both as a Royal and of the night.
Jorge Soler visited Dong Town in the fifth inning and put the Royals up 12-5.
Brett Phillips got in on the home run party too, crushing a homer in the ninth inning to give Kansas City a 14-6 lead.

It was an offensive party for the Kansas City Royals, but the pitching – for the most part – did their part as well.

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Yes, they gave up six runs, but five of those runs were charged to Mike Montgomery while only three were earned runs. Montgomery was pulled after two innings and it was another attempt at using an opener and rolling with the bullpen for the rest of the game, which – to Mike Matheny‘s credit – worked much better this time around.

The only reliever who gave up a run was Josh Staumont, who surrendered a home run in the sixth inning, making it a 12-6 game at that point in time. Even still, Staumont looked great, as did the rest of the bullpen.

Sunday’s game in Cleveland was a terrible one for the Royals relievers, but in the other three games, they’ve done quite well!

Foster Griffin made his Major League debut and looked REALLY good until it looked like he injured himself. That forced him to exit the game in the fourth inning, but prior to that, he was wheeling and dealing, having pitched a scoreless third and looked to be on his way to pitching another clean inning before his removal.

Not only did Griffin make his MLB debut, but he got the win. Plus, it was his 25th birthday as the broadcast noted several times. What a birthday for Griffin!

Kevin McCarthy, Glenn Sparkman, and Gabe Speier were the other relievers who pitched in this game who hadn’t been previously mentioned. They all pitched clean innings.

The bullpen pitched well, but it was the Kansas City Royals’ offense that stole the show on Monday in the Motor City.

This team had struggled to do anything at the plate in the young season, but the party got started in Detroit and hopefully this is just the beginning of this slugfest.

Whit Merrifield was a triple shy of hitting for the cycle.
The team hit six home runs.
Maikel Franco raked with the bat, crushing two home runs and starting to show why he was once a top prospect.
Ryan O’Hearn made his season debut after having tested positive for COVID-19 a few weeks ago. He mashed at the plate and has a .500 batting average after one game.

The only bad from this game was the second inning in which a defensive error allowed a run to score. Two batters later, a three-run homer was belted to left field and the damage wouldn’t have been as bad had that error not occurred. Things obviously went uphill from there though.

Look, I get it – Detroit isn’t a good baseball team, but they were 2-1 and leading the American League Central heading into this game and had a small bit of momentum after their first series of the season. The Royals squashed that momentum and built some momentum of their own.

dark. Next. 2020 Season Will Be Year of MLB Debuts for Royals

Hopefully these Kansas City Royals show up for the rest of the season because this was a fun game.

Four games down, 56 to go!

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