Royals get walked off by the worst team in baseball

The Kansas City Royals lost to the Oakland Athletics tonight via a walkoff home run by Brent Rooker, sending a tied 4-4 score to its final 6-4 count in the bottom of the ninth inning. Rooker got revenge from his previous club, who had released him in mid-November; with the home run, Rooker raised his triple slash to .243/.328/.465, a line that, if he had played for Kansas City, would be the best on the team.

After an invigorating seven-game winning streak, the Royals have now lost 12 of their last 16 games. During that time, the pitching staff has been unplayably bad, having given up six or more runs in 10 contests during that stretch.

As the bulk man, Alec Marsh was competent even though the home run bug continues to plague him. Marsh has given up a whopping 2.36 home runs per nine innings, and indeed he gave up another two in his 5.2 innings of work. But Marsh struck out nine against one walk, providing a glimpse that there’s perhaps a good pitcher in there somewhere.

Oakland hit two more home runs, one against Taylor Hearn and the aforementioned walkoff shot by Rooker against Dylan Coleman. They would have given up even more but fore some nifty defensive plays, including one by Maikel Garcia, who was back in the lineup after sitting out a couple days.

Offensively, the Royals were decent enough. They scored four runs, coming back to tie the game in the top of the eighth inning. Six different Royals had a hit, with three of them going for extra bases: Matt Beaty, who had a double; MJ Melendez, who had a triple; and Bobby Witt Jr., who tore the cover off a baseball in a home run to straightaway center field.

But when your pitching staff keeps giving up six runs a game, man, there’s not much you can do to regularly win.

The Royals unequivocally suck, and losing to a team that has lost 90 games already is just worse. It’s probably not worth watching the rest of this series—just go to bed, y’all—but your friendly neighborhood Royals Review team will be here all the same.