The reeling Kansas City Royals return home Monday to face the Seattle Mariners in the first game of a four-game series at Kauffman Stadium.
The Royals have lost six straight games after winning their first two games of the season.
The Mariners, on the other hand, have the best record in baseball at 9-2 after their 12-5 victory over the White Sox on Sunday.
The biggest culprit for Kansas City has been the bullpen. The staff ERA is 5.27, but the starters — Brad Keller, Jakob Junis, Jorge Lopez and Homer Bailey — have a combined ERA of 3.86.
The Royals’ pen has allowed 21 runs on 29 hits and 21 walks in 23 1/3 innings, an 8.10 ERA. The pen pitched two scoreless innings in Sunday’s 3-1 loss.
“If you get frustrated, it just makes things worse,” Ned Yost said following Saturday’s 7-4 loss to the Detroit Tigers, after the bullpen gave up five runs in two innings. “If the players see I’m frustrated, then they’ll get frustrated. And then they’ll start pressing more.
“They don’t like this. They don’t want this. My job is to not get frustrated. It’s my job to lead them out of this, to support them. They’re going to get out of this. It’s a tough period right now, and we just have to keep battling.”
No reliever who has pitched more than three innings has an ERA under 6.23, and only Chris Ellis and Tim Hill (combined 2 2/3 innings) have not given up a run.
“You saw tonight I got two outs and I was ahead in the count. I wasn’t able to make the pitch when I had to,” Royals presumed closer Wily Peralta said Saturday. He has a club-worst 15.00 ERA after five earned runs in three innings across four appearances. “I think that’s been the whole situation for everybody.”
Whit Merrifield has been one of few bright spots for the Royals. He extended his hitting streak to 28 games Sunday, dating back to last season, with a lead-off double in the first. He finished the day 3-for-4 on a day when the Royals had only five hits. He’s hitting .324 this season.
The Mariners, meanwhile, have been hitting on all cylinders.
They are led offensively by Tim Beckham with a .400 average, in home runs by Jay Bruce (5), Beckham, Domingo Santana and Daniel Vogelbach (4 each), and RBIs by Santana (15), Beckham and Ryon Healy (11 each) and Bruce (10). Their 85 runs scored lead the American League by 34 over Oakland and are the best in all of baseball by one over the Los Angeles Dodgers, who scored 12 on Sunday night.
Seattle has scored fewer than five runs in just one of its 11 games.
“We have enough power on this team that when we do get our pitch to hit, we have a good chance to hit the ball out of the ballpark,” Mariners manager Scott Servais said.
Their pitching has been just as good as their offense. Their starting pitchers are 8-0 and have combined for a 3.50 ERA over 64 1/3 innings. Their staff ERA is 3.83.
Ace Felix Hernandez, who is scheduled to start opposite Bailey on his 33rd birthday Monday, gave up just one run in 5 1/3 innings in his first start.
It’s been tough for Hernandez to make only one start in the first nine games for the Mariners. He feels like he has proven that he belongs in the rotation.
“I don’t have to show people what I have to do,” he said after his start on April 1. “I just gotta do it for myself.”
Spring training was not good for Hernandez, as he allowed 13 runs in 7 1/3 innings. If it weren’t for his legacy and $27.5 million contract, he might not be in the rotation at all.
But those are reality, and Hernandez has showed that he still has something left.
“I just go out and make my pitch and give us a chance to win,” he said.