The Arizona Diamondbacks lost a disappointing home series to the Kansas City Royals after dropping the final contest in lackluster fashion on Sunday.

The Diamondbacks continue to slide further under .500 at 44-46, while the Royals seem to be getting out of a recent skid, improving to 43-48.

Here are three takeaways from a letdown of a series at Chase Field:

Coming into Friday's opener, the Royals had not won a series since June 18. They had lost nine of their last 12 games, and six straight between June 21-27. They had fallen all the way to 41-47.

Upon Kansas City's arrival in Phoenix, the Diamondbacks promptly lost two of three, including a 9-3 blowout in game one.

Arizona now sits 4.0 games out of a Wild Card berth. Despite facing two well-below-.500 teams in the Marlins and Royals and a scuffling Giants club, they went just 3-7 in their 10-game homestand.

While there is still time to get back into contention, that time is starting to tick away as the season progresses.

The D-backs need to be able to take care of the struggling teams on their schedule, especially playing at home. If they want to remain in the playoff picture and force their GM to buy instead of sell, they simply have to take care of business against the teams they should be able to beat on paper.

To say the Arizona Diamondbacks have struggled with pitching in 2025 is a severe understatement. But on the other side, the Royals' offense had been equally, if not more deficient.

The Diamondbacks' team era currently ranks 25th in MLB at 4.72. Their bullpen ERA is 5.06, 28th in the majors.

Meanwhile, the Royals came in with MLBs worst run-scoring and home run-hitting offense. Their team OPS was also last coming into the series.

So what happened when those two met?

The Diamondbacks surrendered 27 hits over three games. If not for a brilliant start by right-hander Ryne Nelson in game two, the results would have been even worse.

Arizona allowed nine runs in game one. Granted, they allowed just five over the next two contests, but Kansas City's OPS actually shot up three spots to 27th at .664 following their three-game face-off with D-backs pitchers.

As always, you can't predict baseball. Even the best pitching staffs can be knocked around by poor offenses on occasion. But the fact that the D-backs struggled so heavily with the Royals is a concerning look.

Yes, it was already well-known that Arizona struggled with pitching, but if their staff had difficulty keeping MLB's worst offense down, that speaks volumes about their ability to compete with true contending clubs — particularly in the National League.

If the D-backs' pitching staff can't hold a struggling offense down, they'll be hard-pressed to suppress MLB's more elite lineups in hopes of pulling back into contention. Even if they get into the postseason, how ugly will those results be?

On the flipside of those rankings, the Royals' pitching staff is fourth in all of MLB with a 3.48 ERA, while the Diamondbacks sport a top-five offense in nearly every category.

But Arizona's lineup only put together one good game over the course of the series — game two.

They won 7-1 in that game, going 5-for-16 with runners in scoring position while racking up eight hits and six walks.

However, they only managed three total runs between games one and three. They were shut out in game three, only recording three base hits (one for extra bases).

The Diamondbacks have not had a problem scoring runs in general, but they looked like an entirely different team in Sunday's finale — whiffing early, handing out efficient outs, and failing to stack together at-bats.

That was not isolated to the Royals, either. Arizona had previously allowed Giants left-hander Robbie Ray to throw a complete game on Thursday, prior to their meeting with Kansas City.

Arizona's lineup has been very feast-or-famine, and has also depended heavily on home runs. While they can score for volume, they haven't displayed much consistency in that department, and they'll need to find a way to balance patience and aggression at the plate as the season wears on.