Kansas City Royals: Current 12-Game Stretch Will Make or Break 2012 Season

Let’s dream a little shall we?

Imagine that the Kansas City Royals never suffered that nauseating 12-game losing streak earlier in the season.

While it is impractical to parade around as if that brutal stretch never happened, a 21-16 record with it completely wiped away from the record books relentlessly haunts Royals fans with the “what if” game.

What if closer Jonathan Broxton hadn’t melted down in Oakland on April 11, the game that launched the slide? What if Eric Hosmer, Alex Gordon and Jeff Francoeur hadn’t begun the season as if last year’s offensive output was more coincidence than custom?

What if the Royals had just gone 6-6 during that span, making their record a very sound 27-22 and only one game out of first place in the American League Central?

Though all that would be nice, the fact that the Royals only sit seven games behind the Chicago White Sox for the division lead is actually pretty amazing if you think about.

Typically, a 12-game losing streak this early in the campaign would have already sunk the season, forcing fans to jump ship on yet another lost year, one more removed from their last playoff appearance—the 1985 World Series.

However, a lights-out bullpen and just enough offense, while playing in MLB’s weakest division, has the Royals just one extended string of wins from keeping everyone’s attention for the entire summer.

Starting tonight at home, the current 12-game stretch for the Royals against the Oakland Athletics, Minnesota Twins, Pittsburgh Pirates and Milwaukee Brewers will make or break the 2012 season.

While the Pirates hover around .500 baseball with a 25-25 record, these are all the types of teams that, if the Royals are to be taken seriously and take that next leap forward as a contending franchise, they need to consistently win against.

Since the Royals and their fans indeed can’t expunge that 12-game losing streak from earlier in the year, what if they could at least level it out a bit?

What if Broxton enters the ninth inning of tonight’s game and blows through the A’s hitters one, two, three? What if Gordon and Hosmer begin to permanently put the Mendoza Line in their rear-view mirrors and Francoeur continues his hot streak? What if the Royals win their next 12 games, finding themselves in the thick of a pennant race deep into the summer?

Let's dream a little shall we?

Contact Jeremy at [e-mail], on Twitter @KCPopFlyBoy and at popflyboys.com.