Can the Royals Be This Bad?

Losing 10 games in a row is never easy for a major league team.  Lots of bad things have to happen. Starting pitchers have to falter, Bruce Chen and Luke Hochevar have both struggled.  Which in turn taxes the bullpen. Hitters have to stop hitting.  Eric Hosmer is currently hitting.183.

The Kansas City Royals are 3-12. The Royals loss to Toronto Sunday dropped their record to 0-9 at Kauffman Stadium this season.

Kansas City is the first major-league team to lose its first nine home games of a season since the 1995 Marlins, and the Royals’ streak matches the second-longest of its kind for any American League team over the past 99 seasons.

So what’s their problem? “Not much is going right,” Royals manager Ned Yost said.  That pretty much says it all. No one said the Royals were gonna win their division earlier in the spring. At least I didn’t read of anybody making such a claim. But the Royals were supposed to be competitive. Can the Royals be this bad? No it’s not likely, but sometimes a losing streak starts and it’s very difficult to put the brakes on.

It may be too early to put baseball managers on a watch list but at this point Ned Yost is the leader in the clubhouse. Bobby Valentine may not be far behind.