The Royals offense sputters as the Reds score a bunch of runs, so you can guess that outcome

Quick! What happens when five of your nine hitters have a career on base percentage of under .310, three of whom have an on base percentage under .295? If your answer is “that lineup would struggle to score runs,” then you would be correct.

That’s the situation that the Kansas City Royals are in right now, and frankly it’s a surprise that they’ve scored any runs at all this year. For the second third fourth fifth sixth night in a row, a slumping Royals offense scored two or fewer runs. I guess? They could score more runs in the bottom of the ninth, but it’s not going to matter. I just watched Adam Duvall hit a grand slam to give the Cincinnati Reds a 7-0 lead, so I’m just gonna hit ‘publish’ now.

Fortunately, this is actually a good result for the Royals, even if the on-field product right now is a maddening farce. The Reds are also quite putrid at doing the base ball this year, and are one of only four teams within a 7.5-game striking distance of the Royals as the second-worst team in Major League Baseball. Kansas City ain’t going anywhere this year, and the difference between getting the first or second pick in the 2019 MLB draft and getting the fifth or sixth pick is stark. That’s how you get a Carlos Correa or Byron Buxton as opposed to a Kyle Zimmer. That the Reds won means a better chance of getting a top-three pick for the Royals and a worse chance for the Reds, even if just a little bit.

If you happened to watch this game, God bless your unfortunate soul, you at least got to see Alex Gordon do great defensive things. It’s entirely possible that Gordon could win his sixth Gold Glove in left field this season, because he’s amazing.

Because I am a Generous Recapper, I gift you video of these events that you may watch Gordon’s glory and ignore the rest of the game. First, he threw out Curt Casali at second base with a laser throw.

Then, he robbed Billy Hamilton of a base hit with a nice diving catch:

Jason Hammel pitched for the Royals, and for the second straight night, Kansas City’s starter did quite well. Hammel got tagged for a pair of runs in the seventh inning after six consecutive goose eggs put up by Cincinnati, as Alcides Escobar made an error to allow the inning to continue...

Uh, looks like Adam Duvall just hit a grand slam. It’s 7-0, Cincinnati. Aw, heck, I’m just gonna publish this now. Do a quick edit of the intro to make it make sense. And...done.

The Royals are 22-46, and will play some baseball after this, but those games will probably also go poorly so I’m not gonna bother looking up who they play next.