Royals offense remains asleep, lose 6-0

A lot will probably be made of the fact that Angel Zerpa gave up five runs in the eighth inning, but, honestly, that doesn’t matter. The Royals scored 11 runs all week. They were shut out for only the third time all season today and, as was true with Glasnow and the Dodgers’ bullpen on Sunday, there’s no shame in being shut out by Jon Gray and the Rangers’ bullpen. But having it happen twice in one week while not scoring runs in the other games is less than ideal.

I could go on and on about how even good teams have bad stretches, how the Rangers lost a bunch of games last year, how the Royals still hold a playoff spot, how they’re still projected to earn a playoff spot more than half the time Baseball-Reference, and all kinds of other positive ways to spin this. But the reality remains that the Royals are 7-12 in June and have already squandered almost all of the cushion they had built for themselves in the first month of the season.

Michael Wacha made his first start since injuring his foot against the Padres. He was satisfactory, going five innings and allowing only one run on three hits. Of course, the line doesn’t tell the whole story and he was giving up hard contact all day. But still, he got his job done.

The Royals got three hits all day. Garrett Hampson and Adam Frazier each singled in the third. Frazier was the leadoff man today with Maikel Garcia being demoted to seventh in the order thanks to his struggles combined with the struggles of the entire lineup. Frazier was such a good leadoff hitter that he was pinch-hit for in the ninth by Nelson Velázquez who collected that third hit, a groundball single with one out. They earned no walks and took no hit by pitches. The offense was just completely and totally lifeless.

There just isn’t a lot else to talk about. The Royals will defend one of their few remaining bastions of being a good team tomorrow as they attempt to avoid earning their first sweep of the season. Alec Marsh will try to bounce back for the Royals. Max Scherzer will make his season debut for the Rangers. The game will start at 1:35 Royals time.