What we learned after Kansas City Royals wasted solid Danny Duffy start

The Kansas City Royals couldn’t get any offense going on Monday night in Wrigley Field. 

That’s a darn shame too, as Danny Duffy pitched his best game of the season, but his offense couldn’t pick him up. The Kansas City Royals fell 2-0 to the Chicago Cubs, who are now 8-2 while the Royals drop to 3-8 on the young season.

In a normal year, a 3-8 start isn’t ideal, but people know it’s a long season. In a 60-game season, starting 3-8 means the Royals have to turn things around quickly – and fast – if they want to even be close to contending.

With the 11th game of the season in the books, it’s time to look at what we learned about the Kansas City Royals.

As mentioned previously, Danny Duffy took the mound to make his third start of the year. Duffy came into this game with an ERA close to six, but he threw a gem, going six innings while allowing just one run on three hits while striking out six batters. His ERA is down to 4.11 after the solid outing.

Duffy went six innings, which was the most by a Royals starter this year. Ian Kennedy was the first of two Royals relievers to pitch in this one and surrendered a run. Josh Staumont pitched the eighth inning and didn’t allow any further damage. His ERA has shrunk to 1.80 and Staumont is looking like one of the best options out of the pen for the boys in blue.

The Cubs lineup is typically a pretty hot-hitting group and they were held to just four hits and two runs while striking out nine times. They did walk four times though.

Offensively, the Kansas City Royals did very little once again.

The Royals were hitting the ball against Alec Mills (a former Royals draft pick for what it’s worth) early on, but after the second inning were practically hitless until the Cubs turned to their bullpen.

Kansas City finished the evening with five hits and couldn’t get any across the plate. Alex Gordon came close to hitting a home run, but it was a windy night in the Windy City, so that forced the ball in foul territory.

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• Jorge Soler got a hit against his former team and rose his batting average to .282. He also walked once.
• Ryan O’Hearn‘s hit helped propel his batting average to .318 on the year. It’s been nice seeing O’Hearn rebound from a tough 2019 campaign and even nicer seeing that he’s doing okay after having COVID-19 and missing the start of the season.
• Salvador Perez, Franchy Cordero, and Adalberto Mondesi had the other three hits for the Royals.
• The Royals walked three times, which was a weird sight considering they don’t walk very often.

This was yet another close, frustrating loss for the Kansas City Royals.

What’s even more frustrating is that the boys in blue will face Kyle Hendricks on Tuesday night and he’s capable of mowing down every single Royal and pitching a complete game against them.

Ryan and Hud mentioned several times on the broadcast how poorly the Cubs bullpen was doing this year and the Royals were able to make some noise late in this one.

That’d make me feel a little bit better about Tuesday’s game, but Hendricks isn’t going to be easy to get out of the game. Considering Mills went seven innings before getting removed, it’s very possible the Royals don’t get to that Cubs pen on Tuesday.

Will the Royals be able to tie the series before the Cubs then head to Kansas City for a two-game series at the K?

Eleven games down, 49 to go!