Three winners and three losers as the Royals fall to the Cardinals, 1-0

Jordan Walker hit his third home run of the season in the fifth inning and it was the only run scored by either team all night.

Winners

Noah Cameron was even better in this second start than in his big league debut against Tampa Bay. Yes, he made one bad pitch to Walker, but he only allowed two hits in 6.1 innings and didn’t walk anyone. That’s fewer baserunners than the start against the Rays. With Seth Lugo and Cole Ragans both hitting the Injured List today, the Royals need some pitchers to step up and temporarily fill their shoes. Cameron looks like he can do that for one of them, at least.

Steven Cruz bounced back from a poor outing his last time out to pitch 1.2 scoreless innings. His pitches were sharp and induced both whiffs and poor contact once again.

Angel Zerpa pitched for the second straight night, and for the second straight night, he had a scoreless outing.

Losers

Jonathan India committed his eighth error of the season for the only baserunner Cameron allowed through the first 3.1 innings, got spiked in the knee on the ensuing double play, failed to get a sacrifice bunt down in the eighth inning, and didn’t reach base in this one. Prior to tonight, India had a 119 wRC+ in the month of May so declaring the trade to acquire him a disaster is probably premature, but it was another rough night for sure.

Bobby Witt Jr. also went hitless and continued his season-long stretch of being absolutely awful in high-leverage plate appearances. He was also hot before tonight’s game, but when you’re the MVP candidate on a team that got shut out and you didn’t get hits in key situations, you didn’t do your job well enough.

Salvador Perez failed to reach base and generally looked like he was behind even the low-mid-90s fastballs he was seeing from Mikolas. In short, he looked old or hurt. It’s probably about time to move him down in the order, at least temporarily. I know he’s the captain, and I know no one else is hitting except Maikel Garcia, but the Royals can’t keep having a black hole in the middle of their order.

One of the reasons they succeeded last year was that 2-5 did pretty well. Right now they have got any hitters who are doing their jobs spread out and that means every rally that gets started immediately dies.

Of course, the Royals mustered only four hits and two walks as a team all night. So there wasn’t much to see in terms of begun rallies, either. They did have runners at first and second down by one in the eighth inning and failed to score any runs thanks to Jonathan India and Bobby Witt Jr being able to do anything against reliever Kyle Leahy. But it was just another terrific night for Royals pitching and another awful night for Royals hitting.

Kansas City will try to avoid being on the losing end of a series sweep for only the second time this season tomorrow afternoon. Michael Wacha will pitch for the Royals; Matthew Liberatore will go for the Cardinals. Neither team is likely looking forward to facing that pitcher. Game time will be 1:10 CDT, and it will be simulcast on KSMO as well as the usual FDSNKC and Royals Radio Network.

P.S. It’s easy to get down when the Royals are going through these losing stretches, but even after tonight’s game, they’re on pace for 86 wins and a postseason berth. It’s also still early in the year. I’m not saying things will definitely improve, but it’s also far too early to write them off entirely.