Game CXXIX Thread: Royals at Cleveland

Remember back in April when the Royals were scoring fewer than three runs a game and losing more than two-thirds of the time? Well it looks like that day off at the of the 20-games-in-20-days stretch has done an even worse number on them. Since then they have gone 3-5 while scoring a pitiful 2.25 runs a game; they’ve been shut out 3 times.

Entering August the Royals held claim to a wild card spot by a fair margin and were only two games back of the division. Now they find themselves eight games back in the division. The good news, if you can call it that, is that they are miraculously only 1.5 games short of a wild card berth, still.

With a little more than a month left to play the Royals find every aspect of their team slumping at the same time. It’s entirely possible for this team to go on an incredible hot streak - we’ve already seen it this season - but their chances for winning the division appear to have flown out the window in losing four out of their last five games against the baseball team from Cleveland.

That being said, another hot streak probably would wrap up a wild card for them. Perhaps this is all working out for the best. There is still no team pulling away with the final playoff spot. If none of the other teams gets too hot and the Royals time their hot streak right they might still end up claiming that spot and still be hot in time for the playoffs.

Before the Royals can consider that, however, they will need to focus on trying to win today. Originally this game was to be started by their erstwhile ace, Danny Duffy. Unfortunately Danny has an elbow injury and so Eric Skoglund will be making his fourth start of the year. If the Royals get more like what they saw in his debut than the starts that came after, they might have a chance, but probably not a great one; Carlos Carrasco is the best starter the Royals will face this weekend and the previous pitchers shut them out easily.

Lineups