KANSAS CITY, Mo. _ In 2015, the Royals proved that a baseball team can win big without dominant starting pitching. The rotation posted a 4.34 ERA that season, good enough for 12th in the American League. The team still won 95 games and a second consecutive pennant anyway.
So perhaps you can win without a collection of aces. You can rely on a bullpen and ride your offense and get just enough from a serviceable group of starters. The Royals have thrived on this formula before.
Yet across 18 games in August, they have also proven another baseball maxim: Some baseline level of pitching performance is required for a team with postseason aspirations.
Where that level falls is a matter of debate. It must be higher than what a group of starters have offered in the last three weeks. The latest sub-par outing came in a 5-0 loss to the Cleveland Indians on Saturday night at Kauffman Stadium. Starter Jason Vargas yielded four runs before exiting after throwing 96 pitches in just 42/3 innings. The Royals lost for a second straight night as a pivotal series against a division leader turned into evidence of the natural hierarchy in the American League Central.
On Friday, Ian Kennedy was battered for five runs in a clunker that lasted just 22/3 innings. On Saturday, Vargas labored through a night that featured seven strikeouts, three walks and too much traffic on the base paths.
Cleveland's Jose Ramirez ripped an RBI double to center field in the top of the first. Catcher Roberto Perez pulled a two-run single to left field on a 1-2 changeup in the fourth. The runs were essentially decisive.
The latter came just moments after Vargas struck out Brandon Guyer for the second time with the bases loaded and one out. The 3-0 lead would prove insurmountable as the Kansas City offense came up empty against Indians starter Trevor Bauer.
In two nights at Kauffman Stadium, the Royals (61-61) dropped back to .500 and 7{ games behind the first-place Indians. They have been outscored 15-1. In 18 games in August, the starting rotation is 3-9 with a 5.99 ERA
The struggles have come with starting catcher Salvador Perez on the disabled list, rehabbing a strained intercostal muscle in his right side. Yet as Royals manager Ned Yost sat inside the Royals' dugout on Saturday afternoon, celebrating his 63rd birthday, he sought to squash that narrative. If pitchers execute pitches, he said, it does not matter who is catching them.
In that case, the issues can be placed at the foot of the Royals' starting rotation, which entered Saturday with a 5.90 ERA in August. On the other end of the spectrum, Cleveland's starters had posted the best ERA in baseball this month, beginning the day with a 10-1 record and a 2.31 ERA.
Bauer, the quirky right-hander, lowered that mark as the Royals were shut out for the first time since Aug. 2. He was aided by a touch of good fortune as Eric Hosmer twice smashed a line drive at Indians first baseman Carlos Santana with runners in scoring position.
The first line-out came in the bottom of the first inning. It would have tied the game at 1-1. It landed in the glove of Santana.
It set the tone for the night.
