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The Kansas City Royals — AKA he American League All-Stars minus Mike Trout — still have 100 games on the regular-season schedule, but it’s safe to say that this is a team with staying power. Only those St. Louis Patriots – err, Cardinals – have a better record, and only they have a larger division lead. At 37-25, the Royals and their fans can have faith in their legitimacy. With a recently slumping lineup that averaged more than eight runs over their last three games, KC can also reasonably hope to get even better as the season continues.
It’s easy to blame bad Milwaukee Brewers pitching for KC’s recent offensive upswing, but before this ongoing series began, Milwaukee’s starters looked like they were starting to turn things around — momentarily, at least. Last night’s starter for the Brewers, Mike Fiers, was enjoying a 2.97 ERA in his seven starts prior to getting shelled at Kauffman for six runs in five innings. Matt Garza allowed just one earned run or less in three consecutive starts before KC plated six in six innings against him on Tuesday. Even the struggling Kyle Lohse, who gave up five Royal runs in Game 1 of this series, gave his team a quality start with 6.1 innings pitched and only two runs allowed to the Pittsburgh Pirates in his previous outing.
The Royals’ offense represents the lowest base-on-balls total in MLB, but they also have the lowest amount of team strikeouts. The biggest difference between this season and last, at least so far, is the partially reduced reliance on stolen bases thanks largely to having more power in the lineup. KC currently sits at the middle of the pack when it comes to stolen bases, tying for 17th in the majors — a far cry from their league-best total of 153 last year. Their .408 team SLG% makes them the eighth-best power-hitting team in baseball, as opposed to their 2014 SLG% of .376 that made them No. 19 in the league.
