Royals lose by a lot

We’re not going to recap the events of this game. When a team loses this bad it the specific moments of that loss are unimportant. The Royals did get a double play, so $1 McDoubles in the KC, St. Joseph, and Lawrence areas, tomorrow. Did you know McDonald’s donates a quarter to charity for every one of those they sell? That’s pretty neat. The Royals also allowed a grand slam, so 40% off of Papa John’s pizza across the US, tomorrow. The Royals set a new franchise record for consecutive scoreless innings and were shut out for an entire series for the first time since Brad Radke, Johan Santana, and Kyke Lohse helped pull off the feat for the Twins in 2004. If you really need to know more about the game the Kansas City Star and kcroyals.com will have more traditional recaps and box scores for you to peruse.

Here are some positives from today’s game: a 12-0 loss is no worse for the standings than a 2-1 loss. No matter how the other games turn out, the Royals will be no more than 2.5 games back of a playoff spot. As noted in the game thread, this team has the ability to get scorching hot with little or no notice and there’s still plenty of time for such a stretch to make a difference.

The Royals announced today that Danny Duffy may only miss one start, and the worst case scenario for his injury is three weeks. At the very least he should be back for the final couple of weeks of a playoff push and ready to dominate again should the Royals achieve them.

Starting tomorrow the Royals get to resume taking the Wild Card race into their own hands as they face the Tampa Bay Rays for a three game series. This weekend they’ll play three more against the Twins. Yes, these losses count and they sting. But if the Royals win both of those series they’ll continue to be in the thick of the race, at least. It’s worth noting that the Royals have won their last three series against teams who aren’t using racist logos - including a very good team in the Colorado Rockies.

It has been said many, many times but the rest of the teams in the race for the second Wild Card aren’t good, either. The Mariners committed five errors in the first inning of their game, today; the Rays, Rangers, and Twins all sold at the break; the Angels have Mike Trout, Andrelton Simmons, some bubble gum, and a piece of string. The Royals were so bad for so long that it seems like an awful shame to give up on a team that is still in playoff contention, even if it’s as much by virtue of other teams being terrible as it is them being decent.

I’d also like to take a moment and remember that there is more going on in the world than baseball. Hurricane Harvey continues to do serious damage to Texas and the flooding in Houston is pretty terrible. Here are a couple links for people who want to help:

And if you can’t help, please try to avoid making things more difficult for the people looking for help: