Jose Abreu and the Kansas City Royals are tied for the MLB lead in homers - MLB

We’re about 20 percent of the way through the season and rookie White Sox first baseman Jose Abreu leads baseball with 12 home runs, which is also the same number of home runs the Kansas City Royals have combined to hit as a team. Seriously.

Abreu has 12 homers in 141 plate appearances.

Kansas City has 12 homers in 1,109 plate appearances.

Here are the league leaders if we pretend for a moment that the Royals are one individual person who just weighs a lot and has 50 sets of limbs:

Jose Abreu           12
Kansas City Royals   12
Albert Pujols        10
Giancarlo Stanton    10
Jose Bautista         9
Nelson Cruz           9
Adrian Gonzalez       9

To put the Royals’ lack of power in some team-based context, consider that the Rockies have hit 44 home runs and the average non-Royals team has hit 28 home runs.

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ST. LOUIS — Miles Mikolas is sticking with the St. Louis Cardinals.

The right-hander signed a three-year, $55.75 million contract on Friday that will carry through the 2025 season.

The new deal replaces a $68 million, four-year contract signed in February 2019 that covered the 2020-23 seasons and was set to pay $15.75 million this year.

Mikolas will receive a $5 million signing bonus payable July 1 and will make $18.75 million in 2023 and $16 million in each of the following two seasons. Mikolas can earn a $250,000 bonus for winning a Cy Young Award, $50,000 for All-Star election or selection or winning a Gold Glove, $100,000 for League Championship Series MVP and $150,000 for World Series MVP.

Mikolas is scheduled to make the second opening-day start of his big league career next Thursday when the Cardinals host Toronto. Mikolas went 12-13 with a 3.29 ERA last season while helping St. Louis to the NL Central title.

“Miles stands among the top pitchers in the game today, and has continued to provide a steady presence for us both in the rotation and inside the clubhouse,” St. Louis general manager John Mozeliak said in a statement.

Mikolas is 45-40 with a 3.79 in 143 games with San Diego, Texas and St. Louis. He recently pitched six shutout innings in two appearances for the U.S. in the World Baseball Classic.