Royals standout starter's Rookie of the Year case takes hit with rough pair of starts

The Kansas City Royals are somewhat of a rut at the moment after dropping a weekend road set to the Detroit Tigers and then being shutout by the American League worst Chicago White Sox on Monday in a 7-0 blowout.

Amid a team-wide rut, starter Noah Cameron hasn't looked himself in his most recent two starts, headlined by getting shelled by the White Sox last night.

Starters have bad outings here and there, but for Cameron, as great a season as it's been, a pair of rough outings like this have muddied his case for potentially receiving AL Rookie of the Year honors.

Noah Cameron's AL Rookie of the Year case looks weaker after back-to-back rough outings

Monday night was definitely the worst start Cameron has had since he was shelled for six earned runs on June 10 against the Yankees, putting a damper on his historic start to his big league career. And it could very well be argued as the worst start of his major league career.

In 5.0 innings of work, Chicago tagged the rookie right-hander for six earned runs off eight hits (two of which were homers).

Again, starts like this happen, especially for rookies. However, unfortunately for Cameron, this wasn't his first poor-looking start of late.

Last Wednesday against the Texas Rangers, while not looking terrible like he did on Monday, Cameron didn't look sharp, going just 4.2 innings while surrendering two earned runs off three hits and three walks. Again, it was a serviceable outing, but serviceable won't do you any favors in a hunt for major silverware.

Once seen as a Rookie of the Year dark horse, Cameron began generating a lot more buzz when it came to the award as the season raged on. It suddenly wasn't just a great start to the season anymore, rather just a great season full-stop.

Earlier this month, ESPN's Bradford Doolittle released his end of season awards rankings, where Cameron was listed as second under AL ROY, trailing only the Athletics' slugger Nick Kurtz.

That was obviously before his pair of less-than-desirable starts. Since then, Cameron's ERA has risen 45 points from a mid-2.00s mark of 2.47 to a high-2.00s mark of 2.92. Again, still representative of a fantatsic season, but definitely a strike against him in a tightly contested ROY race.

Pair that with the fact his main competition in Kurtz is one a torrid pace at the moment. Since August 15, he's been the best offensive player in baseball in the eyes of wRC+. sporting a stellar 262 mark, thanks to a .375/.535/.844 slash line with four homers and eight RBI.

Cameron will hope to get back on track in his next start at the end of the week when the Royals head home for a weekend series against the Tigers.