Road blues: Royals continue slide away from The K

ARLINGTON -- The Royals’ road struggles made their way to Texas.

An inconsistent offense and a shaky bullpen led to a 6-2 loss to the Rangers on Friday at Globe Life Field. Kansas City has now lost 10 of its last 14 road games and is four games below .500 (17-21) on the road. At home, the Royals are 11 games over .500 (25-14).

“I don’t know what most teams do or any of that, but I know our guys feel really good at home,” manager Matt Quatraro said. “Our crowd has been great this year. The way they’ve supported us, we’ve had a lot of big comeback wins at home, so that’s part of it.

“I think we’ve played some really tough games on the road, really close games and competitive games and the numbers don’t lie. We’re below .500, so we’ve got to do better.”

As Quatraro said, the numbers don’t lie and it doesn’t paint a pretty picture away from home for the Royals.

Offensively on the road, the Royals have a .224 average (28th in MLB), scored 152 runs (22nd), walked 98 times (27th), hit to a .650 OPS (26th MLB) and average 4.00 runs per game.

At home, meanwhile, they have a .271 average (MLB best), scored 210 runs (2nd), walked 123 times (14th), slugged to a .778 OPS (2nd), struck out 235 times (least in MLB) and average 5.38 runs per game.

Those road woes were showcased once again Friday with the only two runs scored being produced at the nine-hole spot.

Kyle Isbel belted a solo home run into the right-field seats in the third inning to give the Royals a 1-0 lead after Rangers starter Nathan Eovaldi started the game by setting down the first eight batters.

“Obviously, Eovaldi has really good stuff,” Isbel said. “Got a pitch I could handle and put a good swing on it.”

Unfortunately for Isbel, he exited in the fifth inning with lower back tightness, a move that was deemed more precautionary than anything else. Garrett Hampson stepped into Isbel’s place and delivered a pinch-hit RBI single in the fifth to put the Royals up 2-1.

However, the Royals didn’t get any offensive production from the top of the lineup. The top five batters combined to go 2-for-19 with seven strikeouts.

On the pitching front, the Royals received a solid start from Brady Singer, who threw five innings of one-run ball. Singer worked out of a bases-loaded, one-out jam in the fourth inning, striking out Travis Jankowski before getting Leody Taveras to bounce into a fielder’s choice.

“Felt good. Struggled there in the fourth, threw a lot of pitches and kind of drove my pitch count up,” Singer said. “Driving that pitch count up kind of took away from getting deep in the outing.”

Added Quatraro: “[Singer’s] stuff was good. That’s a tough lineup, especially with all the good lefties in there. Slider looked good today, both sliders were good. He executed a lot of them. His [velocity] was up in the beginning of the game, so there were a lot of positives there.”

As it tends to go in these types of stretches, though, the Royals couldn’t find a way to lock down a one-run lead. Instead, the Rangers took control with a five-run sixth against Royals relievers John Schreiber and Sam Long.

“Schreiber has been so good for us, just didn’t execute tonight,” Quatraro said. “Again, that’s a tough lineup.”

It’s the way things have been going for the Royals, especially on the road. They now have scored three runs or fewer in three straight games and in five of the seven games during this road trip.

The silver lining for the Royals is they are starting a stretch in which they will face teams .500 or below in five of the seven series (including Texas) until the All-Star break. Yes, Kansas City has started 1-3 in this stretch after dropping two of three at Oakland (29-49) and the first of a three-game set against the Rangers (35-40), but the Royals are still 30-16 against teams currently below .500.

And with Michael Wacha’s return expected for Saturday, maybe his presence back in the rotation can start to shift things for the Royals. Wacha is certainly ready to get back and help the team turn it around.

“Overall, body is feeling good and ready to go,” Wacha said pregame.