The Kansas City Royals, and Yordano Ventura? And mayhem? Again? Admittedly, some things seem to just keep coming up, but this time around, it didn't have anything to do with Ventura or anything he did, nor did it involve an angry opponent doing something particularly stupid. But when Indians flamethrower Danny Salazar hit Royals shortstop Alcides Escobar in the face with a 96 mph fastball in the fifth inning of the Tribe's 7-5 win Wednesday, it does get you to asking questions about how the next five months are going to play out as far as Royals-brand baseball.

Nobody seems to think Salazar hit Escobar on purpose. If anything, the young righty seemed visibly shaken in-game and contrite afterward, for as much as that means. Escobar left the game with a bruised cheek and was reportedly getting checked out for a concussion. For the Indians, the game delivered all sorts of happy tidbits: Salazar's third win in three starts, as well as Jason Kipnis' first home run of the season as the second baseman tries to get his career back on track after a disappointing 2014 season.

But for the Royals, it's cause for question about the price of all of this mayhem, and ultimately, if it's really something of their own doing or something that has grown out of a combination of things: winning a pennant, playing the game their way and apparently having too much fun doing it, and the way in which Ventura has become a lightning rod.

The first of those three things is entirely the Royals fault. They won, it was fun and now they're top dogs until something takes them down a peg. And the way they play doesn't really seem like that big a deal. That seems like an understandable symptom of a clubhouse peopled with guys still under age 30 who've been playing together for four or more years in the majors and who finally delivered on big expectations and won something. It's more fun to watch that than someone like Jeff Kent mechanically going through the motions and then telling you he hates his job. If you don't like watching the Royals play and win their way, there's a reliable antidote: Beat them and let them mope about it.

As for the Ventura phenomenon, he doesn't even lead his league in hit batsmen. He's tied for second with three HBPs, tied with Drew Hutchison of the Blue Jays, Kendall Graveman of the A's, Felix Hernandez of the Mariners, Wei-Yin Chen of the Orioles and Mike Pelfrey of the Twins. They're all behind Angels reliever Jose Alvarez. You haven't heard about the game's huge Jose Alvarez problem yet, have you? Yeah, I expect that we won't, not anytime soon.

It's worth noting that while Ventura is on that leader board, he's also responsible for half of the Royals' six total hit batters, while the league has pegged 20 of K.C.'s men. That's a total that ties the Texas Rangers for total guys pelted at the plate and net hit batsmen suffered versus inflicted. At minus-14, the Royals have been on the receiving end of this kind of thing far more often than they've dished it out. But sure, #YordanVentura. Putting all of that on him certainly seems like a steep price to pay for one talented, emotional and perhaps immature kid. Is that about the Royals or Ventura, or is that about everyone else?

I ask because another question is this: Now that the Royals have become a topic of this kind of conversation, because of Ventura's trio of on-field spats and because the Royals play the game their way and maybe simply because opponents don't like the cut of their jib, Kansas City has its stack of suspensions to deal with. However long it takes to sort those out, pending appeals, can the Royals really protect themselves on the field in the meantime? Whether that's chin music and purpose pitches or flat-out beanings, can the Royals respond in kind, or do they have to hold back?

Which brings up an even broader question here: Do umps have to come into every game with a clean slate, no matter who's playing or who is on the mound? Should they? Is this really just about the Royals, or about everyone else and how they play? At what point is it the responsibility of umpires and of the industry as a whole to look at whether or not people are going after Royals?

Either way, player safety is paramount, and what we have is the appearance of disproportionate response. The Royals are beating people and beating them their way, and it certainly seems as if the game's collective answer has been to beat them up.

And I'll say this, because baseball is an entertainment and a game and a sport and a business all wrapped up in one: The Royals are fun and fun to watch. If the reaction formation of the game's competitive makeup is to try to sand that down -- and maybe make losing to the Royals just a little more palatable to the loser -- that's one thing. But if people are getting hurt, that's another, and it's something that takes away from the game itself. There are only so many Royals players.

We should all want to see the Royals triumph or get taken down a peg because of what happens on the field playing baseball, not because people get deleted by mayhem and injury from the proposition that the Royals might just be this good. If they win and celebrate it because you've got a stack of guys under 30 just flat-out enjoying that they're good enough to win, it's on everyone else to beat them if they don't like it.

Christina Kahrl writes about MLB for ESPN. You can follow her on Twitter.