Mid-Season: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly of the Kansas City Royals

I purposely haven't blogged in a long time. I have been trying to avoid knee-jerk reactions when it comes to the Kansas City Royals in 2014. Personally, I was on the verge of giving up after being swept by the Astros in late May. Then I was about to book flights to KC for October baseball after a 10-game win streak saw the Royals in 1st place in June for the first time since 2003 only to be immediately followed by your standard 3-8 over the next 11 games. As we stand on July 1st, the Royals are 4 games over .500 after 82 games, it could be worse.  Now is as good of a time as any to look back at the good, the bad, and the ugly of the first half of the 2014 season for the Kansas City Royals.

The Good

I have to start the good with Danny Duffy. Royals fans knew when this season started that Bruce Chen was probably not going to be a 33 start guy in 2014. Bruce got hurt and this opened the door for Danny Duffy to step into the starting rotation. After struggling in May going 1-4 with an ERA of 4.00 and barely 4 K/9, Danny shined in the month of June. In six June starts Duffman has been KC's best starter. He has held opponents to .168 average and posted a 1.69 ERA with a 0.91 WHIP. His strikeouts numbers have also improved to 7.5 K/9. Duffy's continued growth has been vital to Kansas City's success.

I always thought Lorenzo Cain and Alcides Escobar were going to be great defensively for Kansas City in 2014, and they have not disappointed. What I never expected would that they'd be the two most consistent hitters during the first half of the season. It's pretty well documented that everyone on the Royals has struggled at one point or another this year, but Cain and Esky have avoided major pitfalls.

If you would have told me that the player leading the Royals in average on July 1st was Lorenzo Cain back in March, I would have said, "with what? 33 ABs and a DL stint?" The DL stint actually did happen but it was only three weeks in April. Cain hit .342 in both April and May, which is absurd. Cain hit a very respectable .286 in June, it would have been better if not for that Golden Sombero he took last night vs the Twins. Cain is currently hitting leadoff, which isn't ideal considering walked twice in 98 June ABs, but he's hitting so much better than Aoki has at any point of the season, no one seems to care. If Cain can continue to hit +.280 for the rest of the season it would be a major win for the Royals. Something tells me to expect ~.255 however... but I am a pessimist.

Alcides Escobar is blistering right now, 11 multi-hit games in June, a .374 average, and slugging .527. He is back to his 2012 production for the Royals which is key for the long-term success of this lineup. Although it's admittedly pathetic to say this, Esky has picked up some of the slack left behind by 3rd basemen, which will be discussed in another section of this blog. Escobar is also on pace for a career-high in stolen bases in 2014 as he has 20 at the halfway point.

Honorable mention goes to Jason Vargas and Jeremy Guthrie two guys that have been better than I expected. Especially Guthrie who I have admittedly been down on since the beginning.

The Bad
I feel like we are witnessing the beginning of the career regression for James Shields right now. James Shields has been a workhorse for his entire career. He has seven straight seasons of at least 203 innings pitched and he is on pace for 225 again in 2014. He is 32 years old and has only 2 quality starts in his last 8 starts. We are seeing the exact same thing happening to another pitcher who has had seven straight years of of 200-plus innings, Justin Verlander (who is younger, and actually having a worse season than Shields). We saw it starting last year with 32 year old CC Sabathia, and now at 33 he seems like he has one foot out the door. I'll even go back to 1993 when at the age of 30 after seven 200-plus inning seasons Roger Clemens started to post very pedestrian numbers. Then suddenly he went to Toronto at 34 and got some medication training help and become dominant again. I don't think the Shields is going to get that same kind of help that Clemens did. This is why the Royals should go ahead and make their qualifying offer to Shields at season's end, let some team offer him 5 years and let him go. The fact that Shields' strikeouts have come so far down lately is what is really scary. I was at the game in Saint Louis where he gave up a grand slam to Kolten Wong and thought "this isn't happening". I decided not to panic and wait and see what happened for the rest of the month. Outside of a start at home versus the Yankees Shields has looked below average, posting a 1.6 WHIP in June with a 4.88 ERA and 5 K/9. If the Royals want to be playing in October, their "ace" better start pitching like one again.

Eric Hosmer had an absolutely atrocious month of June hitting .195 and slugging sub-.300. Hosmer continues to have a "swing in case I hit it" mentally at the plate. (Of course he's currently 5-6 in July with 3 walks). Hosmer right now is the most disappointing hitter on this team outside of Moustakas, a title that Mous will never relinquish. I gave Billy Butler hell, and deservedly so, for his horrible start to 2014. Even though Billy still can't figure out how to hit a ball over a fence he has raised his average from .223 at the end of April by hitting right around .300 since. Hosmer also isn't hitting HRs, but he only had 2 doubles in the month of June as well. As Royals fans, you can only hope for a 2nd half surge like he had last year, but right now Hosmer is just another offensive liability at the top of the order.

The Ugly
This can go to non-other than Mike Moustakas, was there ever a doubt? Danny Valencia getting injured ensured that Mous wouldn't spend much time in Omaha. He did have his best month of the year hitting .232 with 4 HRs. Yes, you read that correctly, that's his best month of the year so far. Moustakas will now slip back into a platoon with Valencia now that he has returned from the DL. It has gotten so bad, I am considering a party for all my friends if Moustakas gets over .200 at any point. I am actually getting progressively more depressed just trying to write about it.

Signing Raul Ibanez is still mind-boggling to me. Maybe KC wanted to have someone they could play versus RH pitching so Moustakas could have only the 2nd worst BA in the lineup. I know Justin Maxwell had done absolutely nothing this year, but neither has Raul Ibanez. In April, the Angels amid all of Ibanez's struggles, were praising how great he was to have around the team for his leadership. Well, leadership only goes so far and with the emergence of CJ Cron, the Angels kicked the 42 year old out the door. Is Ibanez gonna teach Butler and Hosmer how to hit HRs? Is he going to show the OF how NOT to play defensively? Having an old guy around taking up roster spot is akin to Manny Ramirez "player/coach," but at least he's in AAA. This makes the ugly list just out of principle.