Witt and Without

 

The Royals are not the worst team in baseball, but they are the worst team in the AL Central, the worst division in baseball. So it's not exactly a serve that they're not as bad as the A's. At least the A's are being taken down by GOOD teams..

The Royals have been let down by both injuries and general inefficiency at the same time. Right now I count eight major pieces for this Royals team that are injured. A lot of them are bullpen pieces, like Josh Staumont, Amir Garrett and Ryan Yarbrough, but this team is without two of their best young players, Vinnie Pasquantino and Kris Bubic, for the rest of the year and two of their best first-half performers, Kyle Isbel and Brad Keller, for at least a few more weeks. 

And what they have...isn't much. I'll give the Royals credit for being able to bluntly decide something doesn't work, as they've DFA'd people like Hunter Dozier, Franmil Reyes, Mike Mayers and Jackie Bradley Jr. just because they weren't adding anything to this team. But you still have younger players like M.J. Melendez, Nate Eaton, Drew Waters, Daniel Lynch and Brady Singer who are struggling mightily. I thought Singer was gonna have a Cy Young season, he's 4-7 with a 6.34 ERA, and it's honestly awful to see. Meanwhile, Jordan Lyles, who I figured would be the backbone of the rotation, is 0-11. Joan Adon I could see losing 11 games, but Jordan Lyles, who had some really nice seasons since moving to the rotation? Baffling.

Bobby Witt, as he was last year, is good at some things but not the multifaceted guy the Royals have needed. He's stolen 22 bases and has 12 home runs, but he's not hitting for average and he only has a .720 OPS. There's a ton of things he's great at, and he's been the Royals' best hitter this year on a number of levels, but similar to Spencer Torkelson, he hasn't taken to the majors as swiftly as one might expect. As we've seen in a number of cases, that doesn't mean he'll never figure it out, but it's a tad annoying. Not that the entirety of the hopes of the season were resting on Witt, and not that he's completely disappointing people, but...Adley Rutschman isn't struggling like this, and he was just as big of a prospect. 

The Royals are gonna need to cut their losses, sell high and hope they have enough to recoup a little quicker. This hasn't been a great run for this team. Yes, beating the Rays helps, I'm always keen for somebody to do that, but it needs to be more than that.

Coming Tonight: One of the forerunners of a team that leapt to first when no one expected them to.