Royals recover from lousy start

Well, look at the Royals now. After a 10-20 start, some looked ahead to trades and retooling. Following Salvador Perez’s go-ahead grand slam in the eighth inning Wednesday night boosted Kansas City to a 6-4 victory over Boston, the Royals are 35-36 and just 3 1/2 games back of AL Central-leading Minnesota.

“We’re playing like we know we can and we’re moving in the right direction,” second baseman Whit Merrifield said, “and hopefully we can keep that up and keep making progress.” A third AL pennant in four seasons remains possible. General manager Dayton Moore is in the most precarious positions as July looms, saddled with a club that has restored winning baseball to Kansas City but is poised to scatter into the wind after the season. Eric Hosmer, Mike Moustakas, Lorenzo Cain and Alcides Escobar are poised to hit free agency, all of them a crucial part of the 2015 championship team, along with left-hander Jason Vargas, who has bounced back from Tommy John surgery to tie for the major league lead in wins.

So it made sense when the Royals were scuffling that fans wanted a sell-off. Better to rebuild the farm system than get nothing from them should they sign elsewhere in the off-season. But with the Royals back in contention, going unbeaten in their past six series, Moore must gauge whether this is merely a hot streak. Should he begin formulating a plan for the trade deadline that involves dealing away what’s left of his depleted prospect base to fortify a big league club with plenty of warts? Or should he keep the lines of communication with other clubs in case the Royals take another nosedive?

The reality is Moore will probably straddle until the last possible moment.