Royals Report: Is Win Over Angels Too Little Too Late?

The Royals broke their four-game losing streak by salvaging the final game of their set against the Angels with a 7-5 victory at Kauffman Stadium Wednesday night. But, can the Kansas City Royals win enough to stave off a “sell” decision from the front office?

The KC Royals improved to 49-51 with their 7-5 win, and closed to 8.5 games behind the Indians in the AL Central. The Angels fell to 45-56 and remain in last place in the AL West.

Despite the win, the Kansas City Royals are a still-awful 7-16 in July, which has seen them drop to the fringes of the AL playoff race. Not only do the Indians, Tigers, and White Sox lead them in the Central, but the KC Royals are 6.5 games behind the Boston Red Sox and Houston Astros for the AL’s no.2 wild card slot. Fangraphs.com estimates that the Kansas City Royals have a 1.8 percent chance to make the post-season.

Meanwhile, the KC Royals offense needed the help of two throwing errors by Angels infielders on infield hits by rookie Raul Mondesi to score four runs in the seventh and to tack on two more in the eighth. Though it was nice to see the Royals put up a seven spot, the offense looks far from fixed. Big guns Eric Hosmer, Kendrys Morales, and Salvador Perez remain mired in slumps. Even with their ace Danny Duffy on the mound, the KC Royals needed help from the Angels defense to overcome a 3-1 seventh inning lead by Los Angeles.

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In short, it’s hard for me to get too excited about Wednesday’s win.

With four games remaining before August 1, the Royals can put themselves a mere one game over .500, at best. Even that modest accomplishment would require them to sweep first place Texas on the road in a four game series. Since the KC Royals are a horrid 17-32 on the road, I’m pretty skeptical that it’s going to happen.

Over the last 2.5 seasons, the Kansas City Royals have overcome some rather impossible-seeming hurdles to win two straight AL pennants and the 2015 World Series. They overcame a 48-50 start to win 89 games and sweep their way through the AL playoffs. In 2015, they pulled off eight comeback post-season wins to set a playoff record. Counting this group out completely would be foolish.

Next: Royals Rumors: KC Packaging Wade Davis, Ian Kennedy In Trade Talks

Do the Kansas City Royals have some more fairy dust left in their bag of tricks? It doesn’t look like it right now, but even the most pessimistic fans have to harbor just a little belief after the Royals’ last two post-season runs.