There is no mystery here - the Royals offense to start the season has been bad. The position players rank dead last in fWAR. After the first week or so of games, I noted that the Royals had been launching the ball straight up into the air to no avail, and it was killing the offense. With a small sample size, we all expected that to correct (and it has a bit - more on that later). But there’s another issue that is also holding the offense down.
First pitch strikes.
According to the Royals’ own GM, the goal of the pitcher is to get strike one.