Royals suffer within the thralls of Cardinals, losing 1-0

Record: 25-22 (L4)
W: Miles Mikolas (3-2, 3.77 ERA)
L: Noah Cameron (1-1, 0.77 ERA)
S: Ryan Helsley (9)

The one good thing about this game is how quickly it went by. The St. Louis Cardinals shut out the Kansas City Royals in one hour and forty-nine minutes. It was a non-riveting event full of hitters failing to do much of anything as two quality starting pitchers navigate through both lineups relatively stress-free. The Royals’ Twitter timeline about sums it up:

The Royals continued Champions Weekend or whatever where they celebrated the 10th anniversary of the year 2015; despite my unenthusiastic sarcasm it was nice to hear familiar voices on the broadcast such as Ben Zobrist, but this article is supposed to be about the game that was played on the field which was a largely unfulfilling experience. The best part of it, aside from being so mercifully time-efficient, was Noah Cameron making his second career start and picking up right where he left off in Tampa (or wherever Steinbrenner Field is).

Cameron tonight was even better than when he had a no-hitter going in Tampa, as this time he didn’t allow any walks and his only run was scored off a Jordan Walker home run. Cameron confidently attacked the zone for a healthy 36% share called strikes and whiffs. Statcast still thinks some of his cutters are sliders (and maybe the Cardinals did too).

With today’s news of Cole Ragans and Seth Lugo hitting the IL, Cameron immediately turning in another excellent start is a solid confidence-booster for Royals fans. That said, it does nothing to help the dismal hitting.

It was another 0-fer day from Salvador Perez while Vinnie Pasquantino went 1-4 with a single. Jonathan India and Bobby Witt Jr. were also unable to collect hits or walks (India in particular had another horrible day at the plate and at second base) as St. Louis played perfect defense the entire night, stifling whatever rare rally the Royals could conjure up.

Not much else needs to be said. It was a quietly miserable game in front of a nearly sold-out Kauffman crowd that was cheering on the boys in red by the end of the night. The Royals have lost four straight games, six of their last seven, and have fallen to fourth place in the AL Central. They finish the series tomorrow at 1:10 PM.

This article is titled with a lyric from the MONUMENTS song ‘Cardinal Red’.

Image credit: Orlando Ramirez (USA TODAY Sports)