Royals Get Pessimistic Playoff Projection From Bleacher Report After Just 25 Games
There's never a wrong time to project the Major League Baseball postseason.
With nearly a month of action in the books, there are plenty of playoff teams from last season who are off to sluggish starts. The Kansas City Royals stand out among that group, not only because they're 10-14, but because their offense has been truly pitiful.
The Royals have hit 12 home runs all season, the fewest of any team in MLB. Their .589 team OPS ranks 29th of 30, ahead of only the Chicago White Sox. And they're the worst team in the league at hitting with runners on base, batting .225 with a pathetic .296 slugging percentage.
Is there still time for the Royals to turn the ship around? Sure. But that doesn't mean every baseball writer and outlet believes that's in the cards for Kansas City.
On Thursday, Bleacher Report's Kerry Miller projected the playoff field and bracket, and he had the Royals comfortably missing out on October. In fact, he had them dropping into fourth place behind the Minnesota Twins, who are currently a game back of KC at 9-15.
"They'll rally to some extent and might end up with a .500 record if both Royce Lewis and Pablo Lopez get healthy and start doing their thing," Miller wrote of Minnesota. "Winning the division might be a pipe dream, though."
Kansas City could feel insulted by such a projection to some degree, but they've turned the baseball world at large into non-believers. In a way, they're lucky to only be four games below .500, because the schedule has also been fairly tough so far.
Currently, the Royals are in the middle of a 16-game stretch of winnable games, nearly half of which are against the White Sox and Colorado Rockies. If they can get back to within a game or two of .500, they can prevent their fan base from pressing the panic button a while longer.
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Jackson Roberts is a former Division III All-Region DH who now writes and talks about sports for a living. A Bay Area native and a graduate of Swarthmore College and the Newhouse School at Syracuse University, Jackson makes his home in North Jersey. He grew up rooting for the Red Sox, Patriots, and Warriors, and he recently added the Devils to his sports fandom mosaic. For all business/marketing inquiries regarding "Kansas City Royals On SI," please reach out to Scott Neville: scott@wtfsports.org