Royals' Matt Quatraro Offers Candid Response To Kansas City's Offensive Woes
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Major League Baseball is an unforgiving league, and the Kansas City Royals' opponents have been punishing them for their lack of timely hitting.
Through 18 games, the Royals sit at 8-10, which is a credit to their excellent pitching staff. Of late, they've been in a dismal offensive slump, with just 19 runs scored in their last nine games (3-6 record in that time frame).
A year after making a surprise playoff run, the Royals are playing with targets on their backs in 2025. And to this point, the lineup seems to be crumbling under that pressure, even with a predictably strong start to the season from shortstop Bobby Witt Jr.
Currently, the Royals rank 28th in team OPS (.588) and are tied for dead last with 10 home runs. But their skipper seems to believe it's only a matter of time before the team rights the ship.
On Tuesday, after the Royals' second-straight loss to the New York Yankees in the Bronx, Royals manager Matt Quatraro expressed his confidence in his lineup to turn things around.
“There are too many good players in that room. It’s part of baseball,” Quatraro said, per Bill Ladson of MLB.com. “These guys are working their tails off. We are facing really good pitching, and that’s part of the game. We can pitch, too. These games can [turn around] with one swing of the bat. So they have to keep their heads up and keep going.”
Yankees ace Max Fried took his turn keeping the Royals at bay on Tuesday, allowing two runs in 6 2/3 innings with seven strikeouts. In that game, the Royals went 0-for-5 with runners in scoring position.
“We put some pretty good at-bats against Fried, but not enough to string together enough hits for runs,” Quatraro said.
The Royals returned all the important players from the playoff lineup, and it's not as though it took some Herculean effort to get them to October last season. But things will eventually have to turn around, because this pace simply isn't sustainable.
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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
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