KANSAS CITY -- A week ago Monday, the Royals were sweeping a doubleheader in Cleveland. The next day, they were tied for first place with the Guardians in the American League Central.

A lot has changed in one week.

Since the win that brought the Royals into a tie for first place, they’ve lost six consecutive games, including a 4-2 series-opening defeat to the Guardians on Monday at Kauffman Stadium.

The third-place Royals are now 4 1/2 games behind the Guardians but still have a 4 1/2-game lead in the Wild Card race. Despite the season-long six-game losing streak with 23 games to go, panic has yet to enter the clubhouse.

“We’re just not swinging it well,” second baseman Michael Massey said. “We’ve done this before and come out of it. It’s obviously not the time we want to do it, but we’ve got plenty of time to get it right.”

Kansas City scored just two runs on Monday for the fourth game in a row, and it’s hard to ignore the glaring hole in the offense that first baseman Vinnie Pasquantino’s thumb injury has left. Several Royals, including Pasquantino himself and general manager J.J. Picollo on Monday, have stressed that the key to getting past Pasquantino’s injury and the subsequent hole in the lineup is to “do the little things right.” Get on base. Move runners over. Keep the line moving. Situational hitting is what Pasquantino was best at: He slashed .360/.374/.583 with runners in scoring position this season.

The Royals did cash in on two opportunities with runners in scoring position Monday. The problem was Kansas City only recorded two hits the entire game, with hardly any opportunity to even score runs.

Maikel Garcia recorded the only hit off Guardians starter Gavin Williams in seven innings, a double that scored Yuli Gurriel after he walked and went to second on a wild pitch.

Gurriel’s double in the eighth was the second and final hit for the Royals. After Gurriel exited with right hamstring tightness, Garcia’s flyout moved pinch-runner Freddy Fermin to third, and Kyle Isbel’s sacrifice fly cut the deficit to two runs.

“There are certain times of the year when, for whatever reason, things just don’t go your way,” Massey said. “And you got to find a way in those stretches, when you’re not getting the big three-run homer, when you’re not getting the big hit with runners in scoring position, to get guys on base. Grind out a walk. Even something as simple as not chasing a guy out of the zone.

“When you’re struggling as a hitter, get on time for the heater. Once you get on time for the heater, you hit a line drive in the gap, you start feeling it again. Now you can go back to all the other stuff. But you have to go back to the basics to get it right.”

Massey has been the Royals’ No. 3 hitter for the past two days, a left-handed hitter sandwiched between two righties in Bobby Witt Jr. and Salvador Perez. That will likely change as the Royals mix and match their options based on their opponent.

“With Michael, we just need him to take competitive at-bats like he’s done all year,” Picollo said. “He doesn’t need to do anything different. And that goes for everybody in the lineup. We don’t need Salvy to try to hit more home runs. We don’t need Bobby to try to do more. Just do what we know they can do. When we have guys in scoring position, understand the situation, take advantage and push a run across.

“That’s how we’ll make up for Vinnie’s loss. It’s a loss. You can’t deny that. But I believe the team's success is not because of that one individual. It’s what everybody has done all year long together. You just got to believe that.”

The Royals’ early lead vanished in the fifth when starter Michael Wacha gave up a two-run homer to Lane Thomas on “the only cutter that didn’t really do much today,” Wacha said. That came during a 27-pitch frame that ended Wacha’s outing at five innings.

A two-run homer from Josh Naylor in the sixth inning off reliever Kris Bubic provided all the insurance runs the Guardians needed.

“We could maybe pay attention a little bit more to the small details,” Wacha said. “Just continue to compete the way we know how, keep continuing to prepare the way we know how. We know we’ve got the guys in this clubhouse to get the job done.”