Through the first month or so of the season, the Royals have been, by most measures, one of the worst teams in baseball. Heading into Tuesday night's games, Kansas City's nine wins are the third-fewest in the league, and the team's offense is among the worst in almost every major category. Speaking to 610's Cody and Gold on Tuesday, general manager JJ Picollo spoke on what is going wrong, and what the team's internal reaction has been to the slow start.
"Well I think clearly it's been a disappointing start to the season," he said. "And it's not something we expected or anticipated or predicated. We feel like we should be competing at a higher level, at a better level. There are some things we have to look at right now and try to right the ship and get this thing moving in the right direction.
"Like a lot of teams that are going through some struggles, it seems like when you score some runs, you have a let down on the pitching side, or vice versa ... it's a combination of things, but if you look at our offense right now, I think it's one thing if you're not swinging the bat well -- we didn't think we were going to be a team that was going to hit a bunch of home runs -- but we did expect to be a team that will execute at the right time. So when you're not swinging the bats well, but you manage to get some timely, get some two out hits, man on third, less than two outs, you scratch a couple runs across, you'll win more ballgames. But right now we're not swinging the bat well and we're not getting the timely hits or executing situationally."
You can listen to Picollo's entire interview (26:00 mark) in the player below: