The Royals opened this extended, 10-game road trip by getting swept at the hands of the Texas Rangers. They broke a six-game losing streak in the series opener against the Cincinnati Reds, but then were walked off the next night after they carried a 3-2 lead in the ninth. Halfway through, they were just 1-4 and firmly in the grip of a death spiral.

From there, though, they won the next night to take the series against the Reds and then rolled into Minnesota to take three of four off of the Twins. With Sunday's hold-on-to-your-seats 6-5 victory, they finished the trip with a 5-5 record. It’s not great, but given the unreliability of the bullpen, we can agree that it’s a decent result.

Sunday’s game was a bit of a microcosm of the entire trip. The Royals put six runs on the board with the bulk—four runs—coming in the fifth inning via a Maikel Garcia RBI single and a Starling Marte three-run bomb. It was the fifth time in the trip where they plated five or more runs in a game. They’ve averaged 4.7 runs per game over the last 10.

Yet after holding an advantage for most of the afternoon, they were very much in danger of throwing it away in the ninth because the bullpen is allergic to success.

With the Royals ahead 6-1 in the ninth, Beck Way was summoned to secure the victory. Easy, right? Ahhh….not so fast!

Way walked the leadoff hitter, Orlando Arcia, on four highly uncompetitive fastballs, triggering the Denny Mathews Axiom. Way barely threw a strike to Kody Clemens, dusting the extreme lower edge with a cutter and then getting a favorable call on a 2-1 pitch that was well below the zone. We saw enough of Clemens in this series. Any Clemens is too much Clemens. He singled on a 2-2 pitch out of the zone. All those two plate appearances did was set up a Josh Bell bomb. It was detonated, traveling an estimated 442 feet at 112 mph off the bat.

Here we go again...

With the Royals advantage sliced from five runs to two, Matt Quatraro stuck with Way. He got an out and then surrendered a double to Trevor Larnach that brought the tying run to the plate. With that, it was Lucas Erceg time.

Are you uncomfortable yet? I'm sweating just writing all of this down. And I know the result.

Prior to Sunday, Erceg had mercifully been dislodged from the closer role, blowing his three previous save attempts going back to the last homestand. He showed some moxie appearing in the seventh inning in Saturday’s victory, pitching a scoreless frame, but the seventh inning in a 3-1 game is not the same as a ninth inning appearance with a runner on and the tying run at the dish. Not even close.

It was, as the kids on Twitter used to say, time to hold on to your butts.

To make things extra-nervy, Erceg delivered a middle-middle fastball to the first batter he faced. Luke Keaschall could only loft into center for the second out. So close to getting out of this. Pinch-hitter Victor Caratini then bashed one back up the middle that Erceg deflected with the ball winding up in center field. Larnach scored and the Twins cut the deficit to one. Yikes.

Just like the deflected ground ball against the Yankees a week and a half ago, I’m left thinking that the shortstop—who was positioned close to the second base bag—could’ve made the play and secured the final out. There was an extreme feeling of ninth inning deja vu that had just about derailed this entire trip.

Erceg was an interesting—and perhaps the only—choice to relieve Way. The current high-leverage-ish relievers—Alex Lange, Matt Strahm and Daniel Lynch IV—all pitched on Saturday and Thursday. Over the previous three days, Lange had thrown 48 pitches, including 28 in closing out Saturday’s win. While he’s closed out the previous three victories, the elevated pitch count on Saturday likely rendered him unavailable on Sunday. Meanwhile, Strahm had thrown 26 and Lynch 24 over their previous two appearances. It’s not a heavy workload, but enough that the Royals wanted to avoid using them if possible. And with a five-run lead late, it looked like they would be able to. By the time Way was scuffling, John Schreiber and Mason Black had already thrown in the game. That left just Erceg and Steven Cruz as the relatively fresh arms in the bullpen.

Erceg allowed another single to put runners on first and second to really crank up the nervous system. He then retired Brooks Lee on a warning track fly ball to left to lock down the win.

Whew.

Win achieved. Crisis averted. For the moment.

While the focus has been on the wretchedness of the bullpen, let’s take a moment to appreciate Noah Cameron.

Last season the lefty made 24 starts, threw 138 innings and pitched to a 2.99 ERA. He struck out 20.5 percent of all batters faced and walked 7.7 percent. Add it all together and Cameron finished the ’25 season with a solid 1.8 fWAR and some down-ballot Rookie of the Year consideration.

While it was a very good season, I had my doubts he could replicate that success. The strikeout rate wasn’t high enough for my liking, but the thing that alarmed me the most was his strand rate of 84 percent. That was something that was likely to come crashing down. Also, his .241 batting average in balls in play was just far too low and was bound to jump higher.

Guess what? His strand has crashed down. All the way to 66 percent this season. And his BABIP has gone up. It's now at .291, 50 points higher from where he finished last year. Yet Cameron has improved.

His strikeout rate is up to just a tick under 23 percent. His walk rate is down around 6 percent. And his ERA is up to 3.84. Yet in half the innings he threw last year (he’s at 65.2 innings pitched in 2026), Cameron owns a 1.7 fWAR, just a tenth off what he finished at last season in double the work.

Yep, Cameron has gotten better. That was something I did not think possible.

Sunday was the first time the Royals won a game in his last seven starts. In his previous six outings, he had thrown 33.1 innings, walked just eight and struck out 33 while pitching to a 3.51 ERA. In those starts, the offense has supported him with a grand total of 11 runs scored.

He threw what has become for him, a typical Noah Cameron outing on Sunday:

6 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 7 SO

He finished with a Game Score of 71, the third time in his last four outings he topped 70.

According to Baseball Savant, Cameron dropped his arm angle this year, delivering pitches at a 51 degrees this year compared to 58 degrees last summer. His fastball has found more spin, allowing it to play up a bit more. His cut fastball in particular has a bit more velocity and quite a bit more movement. He’s also found a little more horizontal movement on his change.

Hitters are still making contact. Sometimes, it’s quite loud. Yet his .291 BABIP is up from last year’s .241 BABIP and the ERA is up but he’s going deeper into games and doing just enough to keep his team in the games. It’s absolutely wild to watch him do his thing.

Back to the bullpen, Is Lange the new closer? Probably! He saved three games in his last three appearances. Of all the relievers currently on the roster, he has the most prior experience as an annointed closer, securing 26 victories for the 2023 Detroit Tigers. That always means something to a ballclub. Particularly one searching for bullpen answers in early June.

Can we expect Lange to be the closer for the rest of the season? I doubt it, although stranger things have happened. I figure the closer role is his until he hits a speedbump or two. Erceg will probably get another chance if he puts together a decent string of seventh inning apperances. It’s even possible Carlos Estévez could return, although that’s increasingly falling into the see-it-before-I-believe-it category.

Since moving to a more higher-leverage role in late May, Lange has thrown 7.1 scoreless innings, allowing two walks and nine strikeouts. He seems to have found his footing after a few early season blips that saw him surrendering 10 runs (nine earned) in his first 9.2 innings.

The job seems to be Lange’s. For now.

Bobby Witt Jr. struck out three times in Sunday’s game and committed an error at short, leading to Cameron's unearned run. Witt exited the game in the seventh inning with what the Royals said was a sore right knee. He said it was bothering him when he woke up on Sunday and he wasn’t able to get through the pain. It was thought an extended, nine-pitch at bat in the third inning probably made the ache a little worse. Witt is hopeful Monday’s day off will see him improve enough that he can be back in the lineup on Tuesday.

He's the latest position player to feel the aches and pains of a baseball season.

Salvador Perez missed the action this weekend after taking a wild pitch off his right thumb that resulted in a cracked nail. It’s officially a “severe right thumb contusion.” Sounds painful. Swelling in the thumb made it difficult for Perez to grip a bat.

Meanwhile, Jac Caglianone was out of the lineup on Sunday after exiting Saturday’s game in the fourth inning. He collided with the outfield wall on Friday night, which caused a bit of shoulder discomfort. That discomfort did not abate in Saturday’s game which led him to coming out for a pinch-hitter mid-game.

Maikel Garcia was back in the lineup over the weekend after missing almost a full week with a strained hamstring. He came up hobbling in the Rangers series and missed the entire three-game set against the Reds. He pinch hit on Thursday and Friday and was the DH in Saturday's game before taking the field on Sunday. He started the game at third and then slid over to short after Witt left the game.

Lefty Kris Bubic, currently on the IL with left elbow soreness, saw his name surface in a trade rumor over the weekend with Bob Nightengale (I know, I know) speculating that the Sacramento A’s are interested in his services.

I drop this here even though I have extreme skepticism given…everything.

For one thing, Nightengale has a poor track record when it comes to this sort of thing. The A’s are looking for pitching and the Royals are scuffling in the standings and have a good pitcher (when he’s not on the IL) who is a few months from free agency. The pieces do fit, I’ll give him that. But it’s early June and the American League is a hot mess with every team that’s not the Los Angeles Angels thinking they’re a hot streak away from contention. And while Bubic is throwing bullpen sessions and is reportedly on track to return, he’s going to need to go on a rehab assignment to get back into starting shape. He last appeared in a game on May 14. I would think that the last week of June is the most optimistic of timetables for his return to the majors. There's not a club in the world that would trade anything of value before the lefty gets back on a major league mound and makes multiple starts, proving his health.

I’m certain teams are checking in with each other, doing their preliminary diligence, but there will be plenty of time for trade rumor speculation as we get closer to the August 3 deadline.