Those reports are still unconfirmed.

1. Not everything about 2016 immediately got thrown out the moment the Royals stepped onto the U.S. Cellular Field grass, it took at least an hour. Jose Quintana faced the minimum over the first five innings, and popped his fastball brazenly in the zone like the days of old (i.e. the last six weeks).

Then the sixth inning came, and nothing worked again. More specifically, Quintana started hanging curveballs and got punished for it. He gave up back-to-back doubles to the bottom of the Kansas City order, as Omar Infante and Paulo Orlando evened the score at 1-1, and when Tyler Saladino couldn’t rob Alcides Escobar a third-straight time on a groundball deep in the hole to first, it deepened the jam with Lorenzo Cain up.

Quintana started Cain off with a center-cut fastball that the all-world center fielder thought he could handle, and cursed himself for fouling off. Cain immediately rectified the situation by tracking and scooping a curve off the bottom part of the zone and into the left field corner for a go-ahead RBI double. Quintana somehow retired Eric Hosmer, the best hitter in the Royals lineup, before Kendrys Morales drilled another curve to right to put the Royals up 3-1. An ill-advised return for the seventh inning sealed Quintana’s worst outing of the year, as he gave up back-to-back singles to lead off the frame, and got charged with a fourth run over 6.1 innings when Zach Putnam allowed an inherited run to score.

2. Quintana’s early-game dominance blotted out that the White Sox struggling lineup was having equal trouble doing anything with rotation fill-in Dillon Gee. There isn’t a ton of stuff in the former Mets hurler’s right arm anymore and he struggled with control early. He plunked Brett Lawrie and walked Alex Avila to wade into a bases loaded jam in the second, but escaped with just a single run on an Austin Jackson sacrifice fly.

He stranded two more runners in the third when he struck out Lawrie looking, and escaped first and third situation in the fourth when he got raging house of fire Adam Eaton to ground out weakly to end a threat. After squeezing five good innings out of him, the Royals got Gee right up out of the game after taking the lead in the sixth.

3. The Royals bullpen has been merely murderous this season rather than their normal vaporizing selves, but the Luke Hochevar, Joakim Soria, Kelvin Herrera and Wade Davis combination still spun four shutout innings with just two hits allowed. They are still good.

4. The Royals went 6-for-11 with runners in scoring position for the night while the Sox went 0-for-6 and struck out looking a whopping seven times out of their 10 total strikeouts. Punched out while holding his bat to close out the night, Eaton decided he had finally had enough, and went ballistic on home plate umpire Hunter Wendelstedt, becoming the rare player ejected after the final out of the game.

5. Matt Purke made his major league debut in four outs of scoreless relief during garbage time. He flashed some nice movement on his curveball and struck out Alex Gordon, although his lack of command got him in trouble with right-handed hitters and needed a lineout to left with two runners on to escape damage in the ninth.

If he was able to hold that trend for a bit, he would be an interesting enough LOOGY candidate when opportunities allow.

Team Record: 25-17

Next game is Saturday at 1:10pm CT vs. Kansas City on CSN

Lead Image Credit: Caylor Arnold // USA Today Sports Images

Quintana takes the mound leading the American League in ERA+ (255), FIP (2.19), and HR/9 (0.2). If you had told White Sox fans after 2013 that three years into the future Quintana would have only given up one home run by May 20 of the 2016 season, they would have laughed at you as soon as the shock of time travel wore off. But other than his lone solo shot to Hanley Ramirez at the start of the month, no one else has managed to take him deep this year. And with the Royals currently tied with the White Sox for 13th in the AL in home runs with 37, that number has a good chance of not going up Friday night.

The reining World Champions got off to a good enough start this season, but a five game losing streak to end April has seen them no higher than two games over .500 since the start of May. 20-20 isn’t the record they were hoping to have at this point, but it’s better than where their Pythagorean record says it should sit (18-22).

So why are they struggling so much? Their offense has been terrible. The popular narrative that the Royals were so successful with great defense, great pitching and just enough offense is kind of like the Ozzieball narrative from 2005: true to a point, but mostly gimcrack and bunkum. The 2014 and 2015 Royals’ offenses ranked ninth and sixth in the AL, respectively, in R/G. The 2016 model is 14th, sitting a mere 0.02 R/G ahead of the anemic Twins. When Mike Moustakas returns from a thumb injury on Saturday, he’ll join Eric Hosmer as the only regular in the lineup having a better than league average season.

Former Mets back of the rotation stalwart Dillon Gee takes the bump for the Royals in what will be only his second start of the season. The Royals had been using him out of the bullpen until the rest of the rotation collapsed in a miserable heap of injury. At first glance, pitching out of the bullpen seems to have agreed pretty well with Gee. But that’s a lie. He’s out-pitching his peripherals considerably with a 4.87 FIP lurking behind the facade of his 3.12 ERA. His .274 BABIP and 88.8 percent LOB can’t hold up forever though, so it’s only a matter of time before his lack of stuff and mediocre control catch up to him.

Great news for fans who like lineups that aren’t groan-inducing: Jose Abreu is batting second! In a move that would lead to at least five innings worth of Hawk Harrelson complaining, Robin Ventura seems to have finally realized that maybe inserting Austin Jackson, Carlos Sanchez, Tyler Saladino and Jimmy Rollins in the two-hole no matter what is a poor strategy. Friday’s lineup is one of the more palatable ones we’ve seen all year and looks one bat away from being a pretty good one.

White Sox Lineup:

1. Adam Eaton- RF
2. Jose Abreu- 1B
3. Todd Frazier- 3B
4. Melky Cabrera- LF
5. Brett Lawrie- 2B
6. Avisail Garcia- DH
7. Alex Avila- C
8. Austin Jackson- CF
9. Tyler Saladino- SS

Royals Lineup:

1.  Alcides Escobar- SS
2. Lorenzo Cain- CF
3. Eric Hosmer- 1B
4. Kendrys Morales- DH
5. Salvador Perez- C
6. Alex Gordon- LF
7. Cheslor Cuthbert- 3B
8. Omar Infante- 2B
9. Paulo Orlando- RF

Lead Photo Credit: Denny Medley-USA TODAY Sports