In 2018 the Kansas City Royals began using a combination of John Jay, Whit Merrifield, Mike Moustakas, Salvador Perez, Chesler Cuthbert and Lukas Duda at the top of the lineup. Jorge Soler moved up and John Jay moved into the middle of the lineup as April went along. They did reasonably well once the deep freeze was over.
Danny Duffy, Jason Hammel and Eric Skoglund staking their opponents with 3 to 5 runs to start a game were the biggest factor for most of the early losses. We won’t even get into the bullpen woes. Believe it or not, Ian Kennedy was pitching well at that time as was Jakob Junis.