Revamped KC Royals fizzled on Opening Day, but that reveals little about season ahead

When the Royals took the field against Minnesota for Opening Day on Thursday at Kauffman Stadium, it was with precisely two players standing in the position they were a year ago: starting pitcher Zack Greinke and catcher Salvador Perez. Two other players, Bobby Witt Jr. and Hunter Dozier, started in different roles.

In the dugout was first-year manager Matt Quatraro, bolstered by virtually an entirely new coaching staff. Watching from upstairs was J.J. Picollo, presiding over the operation for his first Opening Day.

Amid those winds of change, the attached sense of rebooting and anticipation after a seven-year postseason drought and an average of 98 losses in the last four full seasons was enticing enough to lure a crowd of 38,351 for the first sellout here since 2018.

“It was awesome,” said second baseman Michael Massey, experiencing his first Opening Day in the big leagues. “It’s pretty cool to feel that environment and kind of get a glimpse of what it could be here.”

But for all the pomp, which included recognition of players from the first Royals team to play in this stadium 50 years ago and the naming of Perez as just the fourth captain in franchise history, the circumstance was a deflatingly familiar dud.

In their first game after a 65-97 season compelled chairman and CEO John Sherman to make sweeping changes, the Royals lost 2-0 while mustering all of two hits — none after the fifth inning.

At least the new pitch clock and pace of play met the moment, coming in at 2 hours 32 minutes to minimize the duration of exasperation.

It seems that new manager Matt Quatraro is a patient man who’ll have much to be patient about.

If, that is, you want to base that notion on one game or even one series.

Here’s the real thing about all this, though.

As much as we might want to think of the clean slate of Opening Day as a surefire tone-setting indicator of the next 161 games — especially when it’s supposed to be part of some new world order — the reality is that we’re all prone to exaggerate and warp its meaning no matter how it goes.

Consider the start of the last three full seasons (not including the pandemic-shortened 2020 season):

The Royals opened 2019 by beating the White Sox 5-3.

They opened 2021 by dramatically rallying to beat the Rangers 14-10 after trailing 5-0 in the first inning.

Last year, they beat Cleveland 3-1 with rookie Bobby Witt Jr. driving in the go-ahead run in the eighth inning.

In varying ways, each of those inaugural episodes seemed to suggest a certain something about those teams and the seasons ahead.

As it happened, those games almost couldn’t have been less prophetic. The 2019 Royals lumbered to a 59-103 finish. The 2021 team fizzled out at 74-88. And last year, as noted above, they trudged in at 65-97.

The point here isn’t that this makes Thursday any less of a disappointment. Or, conversely, that the Royals season is somehow destined to go opposite of the way their opener played out.

It’s just to say it’s too bad they squandered the moment and, with that, created some halting instant impressions about the capacity for consistency of such a youth-dominated lineup.

Immediate impressions that could just as easily be fleeting as revealing.

Because for all the leadership changes and reimagining and tweaks to the processes, this season remains one of flux and transition … not to mention one that is in its embryonic stages.

Heck, after manager Matt Quatraro dropped the kids off at school and arrived at the ballpark on Thursday morning, he was in a sense on the first day of his job in earnest and still trying to figure out his routine.

Not to mention how he and his pitching staff would work the bullpen for the first time.

Moreover, we’re in the preliminary stages of observing how Quatraro’s serene default demeanor might ultimately help engage and nurture players guided the last few years by the more openly intense Mike Matheny.

Before the game, Quatraro called that approach natural but smiled as he referred to “the symbolism of the duck” churning beneath the surface even as it appears to glide.

There are certainly times, he added, “where I’m not calm on the inside. But so far in my career and my life, … I don’t see any benefit (to) letting that out and showing panic to everybody else, you know?”

That attitude may or may not be challenged in the near future.

But now’s certainly a time where it figures to serve him well to maintain perspective, project faith and continue promoting a culture that players have regularly described as liberating.

Regardless of how it might seem from the outside looking in, such as via social media gripes about this edition being the same old Royals and such.

No, this wasn’t the start anyone would have drawn up — unless you mean the one 39-year-old Zack Greinke had in allowing two runs (including a runner inherited by Amir Garrett) in 5 1/3 innings.

Meanwhile, the Royals generated all of two threats … that went pffft in particularly frustrating style.

With two on and nobody out in the fourth, Vinnie Pasquantino and Franmil Reyes struck out and Massey popped out.

In the fifth, they loaded the bases only for MJ Melendez to tap into a home-to-first double play — punctuated by Melendez getting gridlocked around the throw and stopping in his tracks before resuming running.

Much like Thursday’s game overall, that scene looked worse than it was upon closer review.

So Opening Day was a bummer of a snapshot, sure.

But it also was one of just 162 — no matter how easy it is to overreact to it as we wait to learn the true essence and direction of this team.