By Adam Gardner | April 13, 2026
We’re just over two weeks into the 2026 season but something has to change for the Royals.
The Boys in Blue are 7-9 and just wrapped up a four-game series against the White Sox that the teams split, 2-2. Kansas City’s runs scored in those four games went in this order: 0, 2, 2, and 5. Thankfully the starting pitching has been so good, because splitting a four-game series while only scoring 9 total runs is pretty lucky.
I said in last Thursday’s post that anything less than three wins in the White Sox series would feel like a disappointment; color me disappointed.
The Royals dropped the series opener, 2-0, in a game attended by yours truly. We were invited to purchase tickets on the Price Chopper Patio, so we experienced that for the first time. If you’re looking for a company outing (like what my wife, brother and sister-in-law attended) it’s a good spot because food and drink are included.
It was nice that the wind wasn’t blowing out to right field that night, otherwise we would have tasted the fountains. Check out the view.
What went wrong against the White Sox
The potato salad on the patio was better than the Royals offense that night. It was good potato salad but come on – 0 runs against a guy who pitched in Japan the past two seasons. KC struck out 11 times, which was their third-straight game with double digit strikeouts.
Seth Lugo pitched well once again but it’s impossible to win if the team doesn’t score any runs.
Somehow the Royals won the next two games of the series despite scoring just 2 runs in each contest. Tip of the hat to Kris Bubic and Michael Wacha who shut down the White Sox.
Noah Cameron got knocked around a little bit in the series finale and John Schreiber gave up 1 run in 1 inning of work to pick up the loss.
Carter Jensen and Isaac Collins both had two hits in the loss. Bobby Witt Jr. had a hit, 2 RBIs and was walked three times. One of those walks came with 2 outs in the 9th inning as he reached base as the tying run. Nothing happened, though, as Vinnie Pasquantino struck out to end the game.
Witt needs help
That sequence to end the game is far too common half of a month into the season. If you’re on social media, you might have seen the following information getting shared on Twitter Sunday evening:
There is plenty of misinformation on social media, but this is the sad truth. Witt has 16 hits and has been walked 10 times. After going the first 11 games without an extra base hit, he’s since doubled three times. He leads the league with 8 steals.
Even with all of that, he’s only scored 1 run. To paraphrase Bob Uecker’s “Major League” character, Harry Doyle, “One run, that’s all he’s got? One damn run?”
Is it a fluke? Maikel Garcia is narrowly getting on base more than Witt – .380 OBP for Garcia compared to .371 for Witt – but has scored 10 times. Garcia has 2 home runs, so he scored himself twice and Witt has driven him in twice.
If you take Garcia and Witt’s own batting mostly out of the equation, Garcia has been driven in six times by other batters. A 6:1 ratio over 16 games doesn’t seem too ridiculous. The fact remains that if Witt has 16 hits, 10 walks and has advanced an extra 90 feet eight times, he needs to score more often.
The heart isn’t beating
The issue isn’t difficult to identify: the heart of the lineup isn’t producing.
Vinnie Pasquantion’s slash line is .153/.246/.169 and his OPS+ is 24. An OPS+ of 100 is league average.
Salvador Perez’s slash line is .153/.219/.288 with an OPS+ of 48. Vinnie and Salvy have been well below league average and it’s a big reason the Royals haven’t cashed in on terrific starting pitching early in the season.
They are slumping. It happens to everyone. Slow starts are common for Vinnie as his career numbers for March/April are well below every other month of the season. The only time he’s hitting anything hard right now is when he pulls something into foul play. Anything in play hasn’t been hit hard at all.
Salvy is not typically a slow starter. His numbers by month are pretty steady for his career, and the past couple seasons his worst month has been June. This is why I’m more worried about Salvy’s slump than I am about Vinnie’s – one player has a history of getting it together and the other is just a few weeks shy of 36 years old and we may be seeing the decline.
Is Salvy running out of steam?
We’re talking about a cornerstone of the franchise since he was called up in 2011. Perez is everything you want in a Captain and that’s why he wears the “C” on his chest. I would love nothing more than to see Salvy rattle off one of his hot streaks and make all the worrying look silly.
But at some point he’s just not going to be able to do that anymore. We’ve known that will happen at some point and with each passing season it becomes more likely. He’s played 1,376 games at an extremely demanding position – it’s very possible Salvy just isn’t the middle of the order bat the Royals hoped he’d be again this season.
It doesn’t seem to be a matter of just needing to rest him more, either. In a very small sample so far this season, Perez has hit better in the 11 games he’s caught compared to the five games he’s spent as Designated Hitter.
Since that’s such a small sample, I looked at his career. He is still a better hitter when he’s catching compared to DH’ing. So just keep plopping him behind the plate, right?
The problem with that is Carter Jensen is a better defensive catcher at this point. Jensen also has better splits at the plate when he’s catching compared to when he is the DH. It’s another limited sample, but early in his career Jensen has been a better hitter by leaps and bounds when he’s been catching.
Jensen has also been one of the only Royals hitting the ball hard and in the air, leading the team with 4 home runs.
KC has to have Jensen in the lineup and he needs to be behind the plate. There’s always debate about how much impact a batting order actually has on a game, but you want your best hitters getting the most at bats. It’s time for Jensen to be higher than Salvy in the order.
Staff changes not paying off yet
The Royals made some changes to their hitting coaching staff prior to this season. Alec Zumwalt was given the new title of Senior Director of Hitting Performance and Hitting Coach. The Royals also added Connor Dawson and Marcus Thames as hitting coaches.
I made a comment in my very first post here on “The Looping Liner” saying that I’m not here to make hot takes or scream for coaches to get fired. I’m standing by that.
I’m not in the clubhouse. I don’t get to see the work Zumwalt, Dawson and Thames are putting in with the players. It’s not unreasonable to say we need more time to determine if things are working out.
The results clearly aren’t there right now and that has to change. There’s a saying in sports that goes “It’s not the X’s and O’s, it’s the Jimmys and Joes.” Basically, if players aren’t executing, then no amount of planning by coaches is going to make a difference.
Anne Rogers quoted Isaac Collins after Sunday’s game, “Really at this point, it’s just learning from all the mistakes and trying to build off the positives. We know what type of team we are and what we bring to the table. We’re not where we want to be. But we have plenty of time to get ourselves out of this little hole.”
Baseball is a game all about adjusting. Hitters have to adjust to pitchers and vice versa. Then you adjust from those adjustments. Too many Royals batters are yet to make the next adjustment.
That’s why I’m not ready to ask for heads to roll, and I’m not particularly close to that. Like Collins said, the Royals aren’t where they want to be but they still have time to improve.
The best way to do that is to have a good road swing at the Detroit Tigers and New York Yankees this week. You can’t make the postseason in April, but you sure as hell can put yourself behind the eight ball.
They can’t press and make the problems snowball. KC has 15 games left in April. It will be a great opportunity to get moving in the right direction for the rest of the season.
If KC wants to be the team they think they really are, then something has to change for the Royals.
