Five Keys to Kansas City Royals Winning Series Versus Minnesota

No. 2 Keep Mike Moustakas Healthy

As mentioned on the previous slide, Moustakas is dealing with a knee injury. He tweaked it running the bases on Wednesday night, but it could be a reoccurrence of an injury suffered in Cleveland a few weeks back.

Either way, it doesn’t appear this injury is as severe as the previous one. While the power-hitting third baseman missed some time after the injury in Cleveland, Moustakas is back in the lineup on Thursday. However, he will be relegated to designated hitter.

It’s a good sign that Moustakas has been deemed healthy enough to hit. But it’s concerning that he won’t be back on the field. It makes you wonder how he is really doing, and if it’s worth risking further aggravation.

Thursday’s game is massive, but it’s not worth risking Moustakas further injuring his knee. No game—particularly a regular season one—is worth that, especially if it would get better by just taking a day or two off.

Some would argue the Kansas City Royals rushed Salvador Perez back from the disabled list, as he still seems to grimace after a bad swing-and-miss. Let’s hope the team isn’t doing the same thing with another of its key players.

A 100 percent healthy Moustakas for two games in this series is more valuable than a 50 percent healthy Moustakas for four games.