SportsBeat KC: Royals are a team of extremes, and they’re trending in wrong direction

Another slump for the Royals has them losers of nine of their last 10 ... and their latest setback was especially painful. In Monday’s 10-3 to the Detroit Tigers, the Royals went 1 for 14 with runners in scoring position and left 13 runners on base. In all, they had 18 base runners off 14 hits and still lost by seven runs.

In this episode of The Star’s daily SportsBeat KC podcast, beat writer Lynn Worthy and columnist Sam Mellinger join host Blair Kerkhoff in breaking down what’s going wrong: start with a lack of clutch hitting, inconsistency among the club’s young starting pitchers and a pile-up of injuries. You’ll also hear from manager Mike Matheny and infielder Whit Merrifield.

Story links:

“It’s just a bad run,” Royals fall behind early to Tigers, never recover

Mellinger MInutes: More normal, more Royals struggles, and we get deep

Option for Royals fans who have cut the cord is advancing but it may be costly