A power outage for the Royals – Royals Review

The offense has been really terrible over the last six games. I don’t think any Royals fan has noticed this, but six games and five runs with two shutouts and I’d go as far as to say a third since last night only a zombie runner scored a run in the tenth inning is pretty tough. The last home run was Bobby’s grand slam in a loss last Monday. Where did the long ball go?

This team has been pretty good at hitting home runs this season, which is historically better than normal for this organization. The Royals franchise has never been known for its tremendous hitting power. Ranked 20th in baseball in home runs this year is nothing special, but they are less than 10 home runs behind the average team, so they’re really just middle of the pack. Average home run production is okay, and it’s the most home runs hit by a Royals team since 2017 and their second-best performance in a decade, and that’s in a year when home runs are down overall leaguewide. Now they need to hit more home runs to maintain a playoff spot.

It’s about more than just home runs, though. In the last six games, the team has hit zero triples and just three doubles. Two of those three doubles were Bobby Witt Jr.’s, and of course, no one could bring him home. That means everyone not named Bobby Witt has combined to have an extra-base hit in 197 at-bats!! The team has a .193 slugging average over the last week.

I’ve heard other commentators say that the loss of Vinnie is the main problem, but I don’t think that’s the reason. Whatever the reason, the Royals just had one of the poorest hitting weeks we’ve ever seen, and Vinnie couldn’t have saved them. Even the worst hitter on the team (Adam Frazier or Garrett Hampson?) can usually post a batting average over .200, which makes me suspect this will be over pretty quickly. Hopefully it’s quick enough to retain the wild card.

The current offense is not what we should expect from the Royals for the rest of this week and in the playoffs. They are clearly better than that, it’s just tough when you have your worst hitting week in the middle of a playoff race. Especially when it’s the first playoff race in nearly a decade. Maybe last night’s eight hits and four walks were the start of getting back on track?