KC Royals News: Danger lurks, some grumblings, and hot prospects

The KC Royals played their 25th game of the new season Wednesday and, to no one's real surprise, lost. After its 2-0 defeat at Arizona's hands, the floundering club is 6-19 and will almost certainly suffer a 20th defeat sometime during its four-game road series with Minnesota that starts tonight.

Count on that 20th loss, in fact. The Twins, who sit alone atop the American League Central, two games ahead of Cleveland and eight ahead of last-place Kansas City, are currently too good not to beat the Royals at least once, if not more. After all, they swept the teams' season-opening series at Kauffman Stadium and, at 14-11, are eight games better than KC in the win column.

It stands to reason, then, that the Royals will head home after Sunday's game even deeper in the cellar than they are now.

Unfortunately, danger awaits at The K.

The KC Royals are beginning a dangerous 14-game part of their schedule

While having to play the Twins four times in their house is bad enough, what faces the Royals when they return to Kansas City isn't, at least for the first three games of the long 10-game homestand they begin Tuesday night, much better. First into town will be the Orioles, winners of twice as many games as they've lost (16-8) and who trail first-place and still-hot Tampa Bay by only 3.5 games in the AL East. Baltimore improved immensely last year and looks even better this season. Bad showings against the Twins and Orioles could put Kansas City in an almost hopeless hole.

Fortunately, two bad teams, one worse than the Royals and the other almost as bad, follow the O's. Oakland, in for three after Baltimore leaves town, has one loss more and one win less than the Royals through Wednesday; the White Sox, struggling under new manager and former Royals bench coach Pedro Grifol, are a game ahead of KC.

As poorly as they're playing, however, the A's and White Sox won't be pushovers for a Kansas City club hamstrung by a consistently weak offense and inconsistent pitching. Taking both series will add some luster to the Royals, but losing both will only aggravate the pain of their early season.

Moving on, there are some negative vibes concerning a familiar ex-Royal...

A former KC Royals staffer isn't finding the going easy on the South Side

Speaking of Pedro Grifol, the White Sox seemed excited, if not thrilled, when they landed the ex-KC bench coach as their new manager in November. His hiring followed Tony La Russa's resignation and ended the Hall of Fame manager's controversial second run with the Sox.

The honeymoon, though, is in danger of ending if it hasn't already. The White Sox, thought by some to have a shot at the AL Central title this season, have lost seven in a row and nine of their last 10 and, at 7-18, are ahead of only the Royals in the Division.

Grumblings about Grifol don't seem to have swept the South Side yet, but they're there. Vincent Parise, knower of all things White Sox at Southside Showdown, one of our sister FanSided sites, called in no uncertain terms Wednesday for the immediate dismissals of Grifol and longtime Chicago general manager Rick Hahn. Because the GM's history with the Sox runs far deeper than Grifol's, and Grifol's feet as a big league skipper are barely wet, Hahn is more likely to get the axe in the short term. But patience may be running short on the South Side.

And the White Sox have underachieved too often in the past few years.

Moving on again, is there some offensive help at Omaha?