Considering their wretched 8-17 start, the scenario looked ripe for another Royals unraveling and yet more squandered starting pitching in the sixth inning on Wednesday night at Kauffman Stadium.
In a scoreless game, you couldn’t help but wonder what would do them in this time.
Especially into the sixth and seventh innings, when they’d been outscored 40-10 this season.
Especially given that their latest scoring drought was at 15 innings.
So when Nate Karns struck out Yolmer Sanchez for what would have been the third out only for him to sprint to first on a wild pitch and when Sanchez then stole second, the paranoia that this team has conjured made it easy to picture the only run of the game being scored by a guy who’d struck out.