Vinnie Pasquantino knows the Kansas City Royals have not figured everything out.
But after a 6-5 win over the Minnesota Twins on Sunday to close a 10-game road trip at 5-5, the first baseman sounded like someone who sees this team starting to come together.
“Everybody knows their role,” Pasquantino said after the game. “Which I think is good. We’ve started to move the lineup a little bit around, trying to find the best matchups. We’re just trying different things as a team, and right now it’s working, because the pieces are fitting where we want. We’ve started to put together complete games, where both position players and pitchers are doing their jobs.”
The comments feel pretty important given how the trip started.
Kansas City got swept in Texas to open the three-city swing, dropping three straight and extending a losing streak to six games.
From there, things turned.
The Royals took a series from the Cincinnati Reds and won three of four in Minnesota to pull the trip back to even.
Pasquantino’s Rough Season
At 27-39, the Royals still sit at the bottom of the AL Central, and Pasquantino is a big part of why the offense has fallen short.
The 28-year-old is hitting .220 with six home runs and 29 RBI, a steep fall from a 2025 season where he posted a .264 average with 32 homers and 113 RBI.
Kansas City signed him to a two-year, $11.1 million extension expecting him to anchor the lineup behind Bobby Witt Jr. and Maikel Garcia, and for most of this year he has not been that player.
Starling Marte homers and the @Royals take three of four in Minnesota! pic.twitter.com/rcLVkBhYeG
— MLB (@MLB) June 7, 2026
To his credit, Pasquantino has been upfront about his struggles and has not tried to dodge it either.
On Sunday he acknowledged the power has not shown up for him and that the team has had to lean on situational hitting to get runs across.
There were signs on the road trip that his bat might be waking up, though.
He hit .333 over the final week, and his two-run homer off Reds rookie Chase Burns in Cincinnati was one of the biggest swings of the trip.
Something to Build On
Sunday’s finale offered more than just Pasquantino’s words.
Noah Cameron threw six innings of one run baseball with seven strikeouts and zero walks, continuing a turnaround that has dropped his ERA from 5.55 to 3.84 over his last several starts.
The offense did enough to survive some shaky bullpen work from Lucas Erceg late in the game.
Vinnie Pasquantino in his last 10 games: (including his AB so far tonight)
.282 BA
11 H
6 RBI
1 HR
2 R
4 XBH
7 BB
0.3913 OBPShowing some life. pic.twitter.com/wwiM0tsrah
— Royals Muse (@KCRoyalsMuse) June 6, 2026
Bobby Witt Jr. left with right knee soreness, though manager Matt Quatraro described it as nothing serious and more about general wear.
For a team sitting 12 games under .500, the road trip does not change anything.
But Pasquantino talking about complete games and everyone knowing their role feels different than the conversations Kansas City was having two weeks ago.
Whether the results follow is still an open question, but for the first time in a while, the Royals at least sound like a team that believes they can play together.
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