Royals Report: 5 Things About Collapse In Toronto

The Royals couldn’t salvage the finale of their three-game set against the Blue Jays, losing 4-2 after seeing Toronto rally for two runs against set-up man Kelvin Herrera in the bottom of the eighth inning.

The Kansas City Royals fall to 43-41, eight games behind AL Central leader Cleveland in fourth place. The Blue Jays improved to 48-39 and 2.5 games behind the Orioles in the AL East.

The KC Royals continue their complete failure to compete on the road. Away from Kauffman Stadium the team in now an awful 16-30. The Kansas City Royals have to figure out a way to stop wetting the bed when they leave their home park. Their 2016 season pretty much depends on their ability to find a way to win a reasonable amount of away games.

On Wednesday, it wasn’t the starting pitching that failed. In fact, Ian Kennedy was rather impressive for once away from Kauffman Stadium. Instead, it was the bullpen that failed after the Royals tied the game at 2-2 in the seventh inning.

Right now, the Kansas City Royals resemble an old rowboat that keeps springs more leaks every time you plug one.

On to my observations about Wednesday’s game:

Next: Ian Kennedy

5) Ian Kennedy Gets It Done On The Road

Probably the most hopeful development of Wednesday’s game is that Ian Kennedy produced a dominant performance on the road. In 6.0 innings, Kennedy allowed a mere 4 hits, 1 walk, and 2 earned runs with 10 strikeouts.

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That excellent start stands in contrast to Kennedy’s 3-6, 5.37 ERA and 7.6 K/9 on the road coming into Wednesday’s game. Though he left the game trailing 2-1, Brett Eibner‘s solo home run in the seventh inning took Kennedy off the hook and left him with a no decision.

The more interesting factoid from Kennedy’s splits is that his strikeouts per nine has been much higher at home (10.8 K/9) vs. away (7.6 K/9). That’s a statistic that shouldn’t much be affected by park factors. On Wednesday, one big reason that Kennedy performed contrary to his splits was his ability to miss bats in Toronto.

Overall, the strong game caused Kennedy’s ERA to dip from 4.04 to 3.97. It’s not a huge drop, but getting under 4.00 somehow makes him look a lot less mediocre. Talk about a weird fixation on whole numbers. But, I think a lot of people suffer from the same mental tick.

Next: Road Offense

4) Royals Road Offense Disappoints Once Again

For some reason, Kansas City Royals hitters just don’t get it done on the road. Yes, most teams enjoy a performance bump in familiar surroundings. But the KC Royals rank 27th in baseball in team wRC+ (adjusted runs created, a catch all offensive stat designed to evaluate a player’s total offensive value normalized for park factors and opponent quality).

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If you prefer triple slash numbers, those are awful too at .256 /.301/.383 with 41 home runs. At home, the Kansas City Royals are a quite good 9th in wRC+, with a triple slash of .292/.343/.444 with 35 dingers.

On Wednesday, the KC Royals continued this sharp difference by only managing 3 hits, 1 walk, and 2 earned runs in seven innings against Marcus Stroman—who came into the game with a 5.08 ERA. While Stroman has made some adjustments since his early season struggles, it’s not as if the Royals were playing Clayton Kershaw or Chris Sale.

When mediocre mid-rotation pitchers regularly dominate your offense on the road, you know you have a problem.

Yes, the KC Royals were missing Lorenzo Cain and Kendrys Morales on Wednesday. Salvdor Perez is also mired in a horrific 0-23 slump. The Kansas City Royals are still failing to hit on the road for reasons that defy rational explanation. Part of the problem can simply be variance, but at this point it seems as if it’s also in their heads.

Whatever the cause, the KC Royals need to fix this problem in the second half of the season or else they’ll be sitting on their couches come October.

Next: Whit Merrifield

3) Whit Merrifield Struggling To Make Contact Again

Whit Merrified earlier went through a string where he struck out eight times in 14 at bats. He then went 6 for 15 with 1 strikeout to turn things again. Now, Merrifield is back to missing the ball. He has 6 strikeouts in his last 12 at bats in the three games against the Blue Jays.

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Oh, yeah, Merrifield also took the collar each of the three games to go 0-12 for the series.

Again, I can’t help but wonder if some teams have identified a hole in his swing. Whatever the reason might be, Merrifield has clearly cooled off from his hot start and is now hitting .294/.313/.407 on the season. That’s not bad at all for a middle infielder—and is still a whole lot better than Omar Infante. But Merrifield is looking more like an average hitter at the plate rather than a plus bat.

That plate performance still makes him a useful player given his ability to play every position except catcher with plus defense and his quickness on the base paths. Yet, Merrifield isn’t what Kansas City Royals fans had hoped from his impressive debut.

Even so, the KC Royals are getting far more than they could have reasonably expected from a guy that profiled as a career minor-leaguer before the season began.

Next: Hunter Dozier

2) Hunter Dozier On A Tear At Omaha

The next prospect we might see with the KC Royals is third baseman Hunter Dozier. The 24-year-old former eighth overall pick in 2013 has had multi-hit games in seven of his last eight at AAA Omaha.

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On Wednesday, Dozier went a combined 5-7 with a home run in the Stormchasers double header against the Iowa Cubs. For the season, Dozier is now slashing .320/.383/.569 with 17 home runs and 50 RBIs in AA NW Arkansas and AAA Omaha combined. Dozier is also hitting well at the higher level, slashing .327/.376/.536 at Omaha for an outstanding .911 OPS.

Yeah, that plays.

Dozier’s leap is one of the bright spots of the Kansas City Royals farm system this season. After two mostly lost years stuck at AA NW Arkansas, Dozier’s long-awaited breakthrough at the plate has come. Clearly, he’s ready for a major league trial.

He might get the call to Kansas City if Kendrys Morales’ back problem turns out to be worse than the team believes at this time.

Next: Kelvin Herrera