Royals manager Mike Matheny will be the first one to tell you that this season hasn't gone as expected. Currently in last place in the AL Central with one of MLB's worst records, the tone of conversations around this year's team has turned in apathy as fans begin to tune out and start thinking about 2023 any beyond. Speaking to 610's Fescoe In The Morning on Wednesday, Matheny was up front about what his message to disillusioned fans would be.
"Well, we've still got a long way to go," he said. "That's my message. And my message to the guys is that we've just got to continue trying to find ways to get better. We know that we're a better team than what we've shown, and we know that there's more in the tank. The frustration is real, I get it, but we've got a long way to go. This thing can turn around in a hurry. We have yet to play good baseball for even just a short period of time, where it's complete baseball -- from our starting pitching, to our defense, to our base-running, to our timely hitting, and then to our bullpen. And when we get all those components -- we've seen them each of them individually -- but there's no reason why we haven't seen them all collectively. And it's only a matter of time. And when it does, this thing's going to turn around in a hurry. We're digging a bad hole. It's enough to remind the veteran guys in this room of how much we love this game, but we hate when it's going like it's going. And then it's also to tell these young players that this is not what it looks like. This is not what we expect of ourselves and what you should be expecting of yourselves. It's not good enough to just be in the Major Leagues. We're here to win. We're paid to win. And we're going to fight until we figure it out. That's it."
You can listen to Matheny's entire interview in the player below:
