It did not end well

The Royals were one strike away from ending their seven-game losing streak. Hang on…the Royals were millimeters away on a check swing call from ending their seven-game losing streak.

Perhaps the outcome was unsurprising. The Royals offense could only muster a single run in regulation. Seth Lugo put up a helluva fight for seven innings, shutting down the Orioles on one hit as his teammates could only squander opportunity after opportunity. Matt Strahm made a welcome return, striking out the side. And then Lucas Erceg couldn’t find the strike zone until two runners were one.

Tie game. Ballgame. Pain.

The Royals lost 7-5, a scoreline that wildly overstates the Royals offensive output yet accurately describes the shambles that is currently the Royals bullpen. The casual observer likely found that game to be "wild" or "interesting." I found it excruciating.

The Royals have lost eight in a row.

The Royals have played 23 games in 2026. They have won just seven of those games. Philip Bump posted an infographic on Monday that, while Mets-centric, pertains to the Royals, as both teams started the season with postseason aspirations and they began the day with identical 7-15 records.

As Bump notes, since 1961 there have been 79 teams that started with seven wins in their first 22 games. Only nine of those teams went on to winning records. Only two of those nine qualified for the postseason. And that’s with expanded playoffs.

I'm going to alter the critiera a bit using Stathead. In the divisional era (1969), a total of 53 teams have begun the season with a 7-16 record through their first 23 games, the 2026 Royals being one of those teams. Of those 53, just two have made the postseason. One, the 1981 Royals, snuck in via that wacky split-season scheme due to the players strike that year. The other was the 2024 Houston Astros who rallied to win their division with 88 wins. Just three teams finished above .500 after starting 7-16. The list of teams can be found here.

Feels like we are already at that time of the season were we need to have The Talk. Unreal.

At the beginning of the season, FanGraphs projected 82 wins for the Royals and second place in the AL Central. They're now projected for 77 wins and fourth. It's impressive that they've shaved only five victories off their initial total. But losing those five could be fatal in a tight division where a Wild Card is not likely in play.

I’m simply gobsmacked that this team had been so horrifyingly putrid to this point. My expectations were large, thinking that the AL Central would allow the Royals to find their footing and the offense would be improved from the dreck we saw last year. I was horribly, horribly wrong. Wide-eyed optimism of February and March met the crushing reality of April. Now, we’re watching some of the most insipid and uninspired baseball. And we all lived through the Matheny Era.

Anything is possible, but it's April 21 and I’m wondering what Lugo and Michael Wacha could get at the trade deadline.

We are going to walk through the offense inning by inning to underscore how awful this team was on Monday. I am sorry to do this to you.

First Inning
Garcia single
Witt strikeout
Pasquantino walk
Perez single
Jensen GIDP

The night opened in promising fashion as Garcia chose not to ambush, but to work the count before he looped a single to center. Witt jumped ahead 3-0 but Baltimore starter Kyle Bradish rallied and punched him out on a meaty slider. It was not a good PA, but we've seen a lot of those.

Pasquantino likewise started 3-0, but Bradish remained wild and issued a walk. Then Perez hit a swinging bunt that loaded the bases.

Jensen followed by grounding into an inning-ending double play. Credit to the Baltimore infield for rolling that over because the grounder to second was not forcefully hit, so they had to make the turn with urgency.

Second Inning
Massey fly out
Caglianone home run
Collins single
Isbel strike out
Garcia single
Witt fly out

Cags got the team on the board with his first home run of the year, a monster blast to dead center. It traveled 437 feet at 110 mph off the bat. We’ve been waiting for that.

Third Inning
Pasquantino walks
Perez singles
Jensen singles

I’ll pause here. Are you familiar with the NOBELTIGER acronym? It stands for “No-Outs Bases-Loaded-Ending with Team-Incapable of Getting-Easy-Run.” I just dropped a massive hint for what was to come.

Massey fielder's choice ground out, forcing Pasquantino at home
Caglianone strikeout
Collins strikeout

That, my friends, was a NOBELTIGER. A wasted opportunity of immense potential.

Fourth Inning
Isbel strikeout
Garcia single
Garcia caught stealing
Witt single
Pasquantino ground out

Of course we would prefer Garcia not getting nabbed while attempting thievery, but did it really matter?

Let’s pause here to recap the Royals offense through four innings. They put 11 runners on base. They were 2-7 with runners in scoring position, which for them isn’t bad at all. And they scored just one run, via the Caglianone solo home run. I'm not sure how that's possible, so credit to this Royals offense for plumbing depths of crappiness heretofore unexamined.

Also! The Royals loaded the bases two times in the first four innings…and made a total of five outs in those situations with Jensen grounding into the double play in the first and the NOBELTIGER in the third.

Nobody wants to do this, but we press on.

Fifth Inning
The Royals didn’t have a base runner so let’s just fast-forward. Anything to get through this exercise.

Sixth Inning
Caglianone walk
Collins single
Isbel strike out
Garcia pop out
Witt walks
Pasquantino strikes out

There they go again. Bases loaded on the back of a pair of walks and a single and Pasquantino chases a 1-2 curve below the zone to end the inning. I would write "end the threat," but Royals batters don't exactly have menace on their side.

If you want to know how poorly things are going, with runners on first and second and no outs, Isbel twice fouled off an attempt to bunt. I admire the optimism.

Seventh Inning
Perez fly out
Jensen HBP
Loftin single
Caglianone ground out
Collins strike out

The Royals actually pushed both of their runners beyond first base in this inning. After Jensen and the pinch hitter Loftin reached, Cags tapped a soft ground ball to second where the only play was at first which advanced the runners. Then Collins looked at a called strike at 3-1 well out of the zone but did not use a challenge. He then doubled down on at-bat tomfoolery when he chased an eye-level, 3-2 four-seamer to end the frame.

I do not sports yell. I promise I do not get angry at sports; mostly bewildered and bemused. Yet I find myself screaming "TAP" at the top of my lungs at various points throughout these games. My wife is researching institutions for me to spend the rest of my summer.

I'll stop here because the Royals didn't do anything of exasperation in the eighth or ninth innings. Once you get to the Manfred Man in extra innings the whole game descends into farce.

While the offense is hot garbage, we should take a moment to appreciate the artistry of one Seth Lugo. With the margins razor-thin, the veteran was absolute nails on Monday, delivering seven innings of one-hit ball. Lugo walked four and struck out seven. The lone hit was the second batter of the game, a double from Taylor Ward.

Ward advanced to third on a ground out, but Lugo closed out the inning with a beaut of a sinker.

Lugo is back, baby. That’s the guy the Royals signed to a long-term deal last July instead of trading him to a contender.

As usual, the story of Lugo’s outing can be told in how he attacked Baltimore’s bats.

Fastball heavy the first time through. He barely showed his curve the first two times around the lineup. Then, the third time, the curve was unleashed. Lugo scuffled a bit in the seventh, walking two batters, but of the 21 pitches he threw in that inning, 10 of them were curves. He closed out his night with a gnarly slurve. And let's not sleep on his first pitch strikes.

This was an absolute masterclass from Lugo. Shame he has the Royals bats on his side.

Let's go through the bullpen.

Matt Strahm - Nails. Struck out the side in the eighth to keep the game at 1-0.

Lucas Erceg - Wild as hell. Walked three batters. Picked off Gunnar Henderson (the second time he was picked off on Monday) for the first out. Almost ended the game on a check swing from Pete Alonso. Gave up the tying hit to Samuel Basallo on a 99 mph meatball on 1-2. Feels fortunate that he allowed just a single run as he had zero command and should be banished from the ninth inning until he can show something. Heartbreaking.

Daniel Lynch IV - The only other guy currently in the bullpen besides Strahm that is trustworthy. Faced four batters. Got all four out.

John Schreiber - With Lynch dealing, I did not like the move to bring in Schreiber. I have receipts.

Schreiber gave up a two-out go-ahead single to Dylan Beavers.

Alex Lange - It's kind of wild that Lange got into the game, but the brain freeze in the Orioles dugout meant they pitched to Witt with two outs and a runner on third. I don't have receipts in this instance, but I definitely would've walked Witt. Don't let the best hitter on the other team beat you. And then I probably would've walked Pasquantino to face Perez. Nevertheless...

So Lange gets into the the game in the 12 with the score tied at two. Single, single, walk, grand slam. Enough said.

Once again, the Royals loaded the bases with nobody out. Poetic, I thought. They would end the game the way they started. Except Nick Loftin, perhaps immune from the stink of the offense given his recent sojourn away from the team at Omaha, clubbed a three-run double.

This gave the Royals three chances with the tying run at the plate. Loftin did not move past second. Damn, baseball is a cruel sport.