I will go to my dying grave believing that defense wins championships.

In baseball you can add another word to that phrase: defense and PITCHING wins championships.

While I believe defense and pitching win championships, what the 2022 Kansas City Royals are showing us is that while pitching and defense is crucial, you still need to have some offense.

In football and wrestling, defense alone can win. In football, if you have a good defense, your defense can score points and keep the other team off the scoreboard. In wrestling, defense can earn you reversal points and keep you in control of your opponent the entire time.

Basketball and baseball are slightly different. Defense in both baseball and basketball are still vitally important, but your defense in baseball or basketball will not score you anything. Thus, in those two sports you still need to have at least some offense. How good your defense is determines how much offense you need.

Thus far, in 2022, the Royals have shown they don’t have very much offense yet.

That should give Royal faithful hope that this year will turn into some good things as the season progresses.
Offense, in baseball at least, is an approach that can be improved on throughout the season. There’s no doubt that once the weather starts warming up, balls begin flying out of ball parks on a more frequent basis.

Pitching and defense, are God-given abilities that can be improved when you focus on it, but you either have the ability to make plays or you don’t. This year the Royals have filled their lineup with players who can cover territory and make plays. Additionally, Zach Greinke is continuing to work with and mature the Royals’ young pitching corp.

It’s obviously a long season and we are only a couple weeks in, but nobody in the American League Central, or throughout all of baseball, has raced out of the blocks and made me give them the trophy yet!

Major League owners should be happy with the way things are going so far. Nobody has gotten off to incredibly fast starts and nobody has just struggled out of the gate. Every team still has a chance at winning their division, or at the very least qualifying for the expanded post season pool in 2022.

We’re only a couple of weeks in. Things in baseball can and probably will change before the month of April is complete. I’m still seeing the Royals playing in October in 2022.