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3 hot takeaways from big KC Royals sweep

Kansas City dominated the A's on a celebration weekend.

By Mike Gillespie |
/ Ed Zurga/GettyImages
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For two nights and a day this weekend, Kauffman Stadium played host to a celebration of the 2014 KC Royals and their monster bullpen trio of Kelvin Herrera, Wade Davis, and Greg Holland. The present Royals, an exciting collection of homegrown young talent and veterans transplanted over the busy baseball winter, made sure Oakland didn't spoil the festivities.

Kansas City convincingly won all three games, beating the A's 6-2 Friday night, 5-3 Saturday evening, and 8-4 Sunday afternoon. The wins preserved the weekend's festive aura, boosted the Royals 10 games over .500 for the first time since 2015, and kept them in second place in the American League Central, just 1.5 games behind the Guardians, who maintained that thin divisional margin by putting together a home sweep of their own against Minnesota.

The Royals have now won eight of their last 11 and will host Detroit for three games starting Monday night while Cleveland welcomes the Mets for three early-week contests.

First things first, though. What can KC fans take away from their team's third series sweep of the season?

The Royals didn't let Brent Rooker beat them

Keeping former Royal Rooker in check was a weekend must. The 2023 AL All-Star came to town hitting .281 with 10 homers and 34 RBI, and punished the Royals last season in his first full campaign after they lost him to the A's on waivers during the offseason.

Rooker enjoyed some success this weekend — he went 4-for-14 and drove in four runs — but nothing he did turned anything around for Oakland. His seventh-inning Saturday RBI brought the A's within one run of the Royals, but KC went on to win with Rooker striking out to end the game. And his two-out, three-run, ninth-inning homer off Matt Sauer Sunday was simply too little, too late.

Not letting Rooker beat them was yet another example of how the Royals are making a habit of doing what winners do.

Moving on...

Starting pitching remained the name of Kansas City's game

Although the Royals obviously scored enough to win all three games, this sweep wouldn't have been possible without the rotation's continued success. In their 18.2 collective innings, stingy starters Cole Ragans, Seth Lugo, and Brady Singer allowed the A's just three runs, which simplified things for the rest of the club and gave the offense some margin for error.

But that wasn't all. Performance by performance, the three starters rolled through Oakland's hitters with relative ease. Ragans started Friday night's opener and held the A's scoreless for his seven innings; he gave the A's only two hits, struck out seven, and faced the minimum in five frames. It was a perfect rebound from the May 11 beating he took from the Angels, who thrashed him for seven runs in 6.1 innings. He's now 3-3 with a 3.70 ERA.

Lugo pitched Saturday night, won his American League-leading seventh game and, although he gave up two runs, his 1.79 is also the AL's best. He fanned 10 for the second game in a row. Lugo hasn't failed to pitch into the sixth inning in any of his 10 starts. After Saturday, he's 7-1.

Singer finished things off Sunday. He struck out nine, walked only one, and yielded just one run in six innings. He's now 4-2 with a 2.70 ERA over his 10 starts.

And the final takeaway...

What about Kansas City's outfield bats?

The way their outfielders are hitting this season proves an important point: these Royals aren't perfect. The club's three regulars — left fielder MJ Melendez, center fielder Kyle Isbel, and right fielder Hunter Renfroe — were slashing .177/.230/.346, .212/.252/.336, and .154/.227/.256, respectively, coming into the Oakland series.

That those three collectively looked a bit better against the Athletics doesn't change the equation much. Melendez played twice and went 2-for-7 (both his hits were doubles); Isbel, who started Friday and Saturday and pinch ran and had one at-bat Sunday, was also 2-for-7 and homered once, and Renfroe, who sat out Saturday, was 1-for-7, giving the trio a combined .238 average. Together they drove in one run, and that came via Isbel's Saturday solo homer.

Those numbers might be excusable in isolation, but simply reflect the regulars' continuing struggles at the plate.

The Royals are 29-19, but the unfortunate truth is this: they can't sustain that kind of record with soft-hitting outfielders. The club is clearly deeply committed to Isbel and Isbel, but probably less so to Renfroe. At some point, however, general manager J.J. Picollo will be forced to make a change or changes ... especially if his club keeps winning and a postseason berth remains at stake.

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