A lot will probably be made of the fact that Angel Zerpa gave up five runs in the eighth inning, but, honestly, that doesn’t matter. The Royals scored 11 runs all week. They were shut out for only the third time all season today and, as was true with Glasnow and the Dodgers’ bullpen on Sunday, there’s no shame in being shut out by Jon Gray and the Rangers’ bullpen. But having it happen twice in one week while not scoring runs in the other games is less than ideal.
I could go on and on about how even good teams have bad stretches, how the Rangers lost a bunch of games last year, how the Royals still hold a playoff spot, how they’re still projected to earn a playoff spot more than half the time Baseball-Reference, and all kinds of other positive ways to spin this.