Royals sticking with .184-hitting rookie Mike Moustakas

Several of the prospects called up by the Royals this season are playing well, but Mike Moustakas isn’t one of them.

Moustakas has hit just .184 with one homer and a .473 OPS in 51 games since being called up in mid-June, but manager Ned Yost explained to Bob Dutton of the Kansas City Star that the Royals are sticking with the 22-year-old third baseman:

He’s playing spectacular defense at third base. So, he’ll figure it out here. You go through these things. That’s why we brought him up now. So he could go through it now. It’s what we keep talking about. These kids all go through this. This is nothing new. He’s good enough that he’ll figure it out.

I think that’s absolutely the right approach for a rebuilding to team to take with a top prospect and former first-round pick, although it would have been nice if the Royals had shown similar patience with Alex Gordon in past seasons.

Moustakas will probably wind up pushing his overall OPS above .500 by season’s end, but if not he’ll become the first 22-year-old to play at least 50 games and post a sub-.500 OPS since Luis Ordaz for the Cardinals in 1998. Ordaz went on to play just 136 more games after 1998 and 126 of them were for the Royals.