Jeff Passan

And at the end of the day.

I think you're exactly right.

It comes down to did you win the game or not?

And you can look at teams that have flaws, like the Tampa Bay Rays, for example, who have only three hitters in Yandy Diaz, Junior Cabanero, and Jonathan Aranda, who have been consistently above league average with their OPS.

And

You look at their rotation, and it's actually pretty similar with a couple of effective pitchers.

I know Nick Martinez has been out of his mind this season, and Shane McClanahan's been very good.

But I'd say the rotations are pretty similar, and the bullpen, like, the race has been solid.

But if you look at it top to bottom, I wouldn't say that it's clearly, definitively, totally better than the Royals.

And yet...

they have almost opposite records.

And so what does it come down to?

When you have a paucity of talent compared to the best teams in baseball, I think there are some intangibles that are really difficult to quantify, and that's something that the Royals are clearly missing right now.

It's got a very simple explanation, Curtis, which is that a quality start, you need to go at least six innings and give up three or fewer runs.

And three runs is not enough.

Like, this offense, it just doesn't consistently score four-plus runs.

And so those are games that you're going to lose when you're putting up zero or one or two.

And, you know, what the Royals are going to do about their offense at this point, I don't know.

I mean, J.J.

Piccolo said pretty clearly we feel like we've got the right staff in place.