Hot component needs to stay hot for the KC Royals

The KC Royals, losers of a franchise record-tying 106 losses just a season ago, are in first place.

That's not a typo, or the product of wild wishful thinking. Fresh from sweeping Monday's doubleheader against Cleveland to kick off a critical four-game battle between top playoff contenders, the Royals grabbed a share of the American League Central lead by beating the Guardians 6-1 Tuesday night in a game interrupted by rain for over two hours.

It was not a win captured in Kansas City's usual ways. Bobby Witt Jr. had only one hit and didn't drive in any runs. Salvador Perez, the undisputed hero of Monday's twinbill, also didn't have an RBI. The rotation didn't produce a quality start.

Instead, Paul DeJong's two-run second-inning homer gave the Royals all they needed; the four additional post-rain delay runs they scored were nice, but not decisive.

No, the real determinative factor in this game was the bullpen.

Yes, the bullpen, that struggling collection of mostly inconsistent relievers in spite of whom Kansas City is moving closer to its first postseason berth in almost a decade.

How did it happen, and what might it mean?

Kansas City's bullpen shut Cleveland down

That sentence sums it up, but it's the details that matter considering what KC's relief corps faced Tuesday.

Unfortunate circumstances forced the pen, the Royals' season-long weak link, to go to work prematurely. Starter Michael Lorenzen injured his hamstring covering first base in the second; although he stayed in for a few moments, he left with two outs. Carlos Hernández, given all the warmup pitches he needed, promptly struck out Bo Naylor to end the inning. Although he later gave up a run, the two additional frames Hernández worked were fairly tame.

Then came the rain and the nearly two-and-a-quarter hour delay it caused. Sending Hernández back out when play resumed would have been unwise, so the task of guarding KC's 2-1 lead fell to James McArthur.

Shaking off, at least temporarily, the inconsistency that's burdened him all season, McArthur pitched two perfect innings.

Then John Schreiber threw his own perfect frame. So did Sam Long. And surprisingly, so did Chris Stratton, whose three-up, three-down ninth slammed the door on the Guardians.

Simply put, those four relievers gave Cleveland nothing. No hits, no walks, no hit batsmen. No Guardian reached base against them.

It was a performance to behold from a unit everyone questions, an encore of Monday night's dominance, but better. The bullpen hardly budged an inch in Monday's doubleheader, giving Cleveland only a run in 9.1 innings.

This is the kind of work the KC Royals need from their relievers

Hopefully, what the bullpen did Monday and Tuesday will continue; this is when the Royals need top-flight relief appearances. They won't get them every night, but stellar bullpen work is required if this club hopes to punch its ticket to October baseball.

The odds seem against it. After all, Kansas City's pen has featured unsteady hands all season. Its 4.33 ERA is better than only six other major league teams, and few of its members can be counted upon to provide consistently good work. As a unit, the Royals' pen isn't World Series-caliber.

But for the club's final 29 games, the first of which begins today at 12:10 p.m. CDT in Cleveland, can it be good enough to help get Kansas City to the playoffs?

If the relievers pitch like they have against the Guardians, with only a bump in the road here and there, the answer is Yes. But if they revert to subpar form when they get to Houston Thursday, postseason play could escape the Royals' grasp.

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