KC Royals starters have erased stellar start to season during six-game losing streak

It's been hard to defend this Kansas City Royals team at multiple points this season, especially amidst this current six-game losing streak. The offense continues to contribute next to nothing outside of Bobby Witt Jr. and the already shorthanded bullpen has had some key contributors cost them games of late.

However, what's kept the afloat to start the year has been their starting rotation, who entered this week in fine form. Before Monday's contest with the New York Yankees the Royals' staff sat third in MLB in starter ERA at 2.77, first in FIP at 2.92 and seventh in WHIP at 1.13.

Amidst the losing skid though, the starters haven't looked as sharp as they did to start the year. And if we've learned anything about this 2025 Royals squad this week, if the starters aren't on, there's no guarantee the rest of the team can do enough to lift them up.

KC Royals starters have erased stellar start to season during six-game losing streak

Now, it's important to preface that the sky isn't falling with this rotation, as despite the losing streak, some of these performances have actually been fairly solid, but they haven't featured the ground-breaking performances that you'd expect with the caliber of names within this group and top five rankings that they held early on.

Entering Saturday's game, the Royals had not seen a starter allow less than three earned runs in their previous turn through the rotation. Again, considering they allowed no more than five runs in any start it's nothing to completely shake your head at, but allowing three to five runs a night is just medicore for the most part.

And mediocre is the perfect way to represent where this starting staff now ranks in compasrison to the rest if the rotations in the league after a tough week. Entering Saturday's contest, the Royals sat 10th in ERA at 3.61, tied for 14th in WHIP at 1.26 and tied for 15th in BAA .237, while also now falling outside of the top five in FIP down to sixth at 3.43. Still this is not anything to panic about, like their offense or their injury-filled bullpen, but it's also nothing to be inspired about.

But Saturday marked the start of a new turn through the rotation though, and with Seth Lugo looking to put Monday's four homer night behind, this would've been the prime opportunity for a Royals starter to put this scuffling team on his back and try to get them out of this slump.

While a three run night on five hits and two walks over 6 2/3 innings is nothing to be ashamed of, Lugo still painted himself into a corner a couple of times in this one and happened to get burned in the fifth, thanks to a Spencer Torkelson three-run shot. Not a four homer loss, but also not an outing worthy of award-recognition like we saw with Lugo last season.

At the end of the day, Lugo didn't manage to turn the tables for this staff on a less than ideal week. By no means is this loss solely on him, but with the offense floundering yet again and the bullpen facing more adversity with some unknowns still surrounding Erceg and his foot, the Royals could've used some of that early-season rotation magic right about now.

Kansas City have not be the doing nearly enough to support their starters throughout this losing streak, but when you have an All-Star ace in Cole Ragans, the reigning AL Cy Young runner-up in Lugo and one of the league's most reliable veterans in recent years in Michael Wacha all looking average during this stretch, then it's hard to say when this losing streak could end.