11 Walks? The Royals?

A team that doesn't draw walks drew a lot while Daniel Lynch shoved.

Three big things happened last night:

1. The Royals won a baseball game.

2. Daniel Lynch shoved.

3. Royals hitters walked 11 times.

All of those carry some importance in different ways. The win ended a four-game skid. Lynch was outstanding and has now not given up a run since that ill-fated slider he threw to Andrew Knizner more than two weeks ago. And the 11 walks were…well crazy.

I want to start with Lynch because, ultimately, that’s the most important thing that can happen for the Royals. It doesn’t have to be Lynch figuring it out, but it has to be someone and he seems to be the guy taking that next step to start the 2022 season. He threw six shutout innings and if not for all the early foul balls, he could have gone seven or eight pretty easily. Those foul balls were part of the whole story, but he did seem to figure some things out as the start went on.

Maybe that’s a good place to show where I was the most excited about what Lynch showed last night. He was obviously good all night, but I love that he got better as the game went on. Look at his first inning as an example. He started the game by getting Tim Anderson swinging on a slider that was great from the start. And then he got Andrew Vaughn on one pitch. It took five pitches to get the first two outs. Then Jose Abreu came to the plate and just gave him an incredible battle. Lynch missed with a first pitch fastball before Abreu fouled off two sliders.

He fouled off six more pitches that at bat and ended up singling on a softly hit ball that just found some grass. And then Yasmani Grandal gave him a similar-ish battle with an at bat lasting seven pitches that included two foul balls before he got Grandal swinging to end the inning. I didn’t mention that Anderson fouled off the first two pitches of the game for Lynch as well. So in the end, Lynch threw 24 pitches and the White Sox fouled off a ridiculous 12 of them. He got four swinging strikes in the inning, all on the slider, but he was having a tough time putting hitters away. In fact, here are the pitches he gave up a foul ball on.

He seemed to try just about everything and maybe was slightly fortunate on a couple of those sliders. But the White Sox only fouled off three pitches in the second. Then seven in the third was a bit high, but better than 12. And then it was two in the fourth, three in the fifth and four in the sixth. So what changed? Well for one thing, he started throwing a ton of sliders and the White Sox just couldn’t do anything with it. I’ll get back to that.

What he did was he went to the changeup. He threw 20 changeups total in his first two starts. But last night, he threw 17. And he started using it as a putaway pitch as soon as he came back out for the second. He got a two-pitch out on AJ Pollock when Pollock hit a weak grounder on the changeup. He was 0-2 on Jake Burger and instead of him fouling off a bunch of pitches, Lynch went directly to the changeup and struck him out. And then he got a popup of Adam Engel on the changeup. It looked dirty last night.

The White Sox swung at six of his 17 changeups, missed the one above and put five in play. The hardest hit was a routine groundout. And going to that changeup absolutely changed the way the fastball played. The White Sox swung at nine fastballs in the first and didn’t miss a single one of them. Then they whiffed on five of 16 once the changeup came into play. It’s the difference maker for him. I loved the way he used his fastball too.

You all know how much of a sucker I am for a high fastball. You can see where he got in trouble with it too. Not serious trouble, of course, but foul ball trouble.

The swinging strikes, with one exception, were at the top of the zone and the foul balls filled the zone. They only actually put two of them in play all night, which is pretty crazy.

And that brings me to his slider, which was so good last night. I think it actually took a backseat to the fastball later in the game, but he had nine swings on the slider in the first and four whiffs.

I wish he’d avoid the middle a little more with it. On a better weather day, he’d have given up a home run to Burger on one of those over the middle, but look how good it looked early.

At the end of his outing, he had gone six shutout innings with just two hits and two walks allowed and seven strikeouts. And now through three starts, he has a 3.38 ERA with a 23.5 percent strikeout rate and 5.9 percent walk rate. This is what we’ve been waiting for. There are a lot of reasons to still want to see more, but he is showing why so many have thought he has the highest upside of those 2018 draft picks. I’m still a little curious where all the grounders are, but that might be a function of working up in the zone more, which I love.

So that’s the part of last night’s game that matters the most for the long-term. But in the short-term, the Royals did something they haven’t done in a long time. They worked 11 walks, which is just insane. Let’s look at some facts about how unlikely that is for this organization.

• It was their first time drawing 11 or more walks in a game since May 11, 2011 when they drew 11 and beat the Yankees 4-3 in 11 innings. The last time they drew 11 walks in a nine-inning game was September 21, 2009 when they beat the Red Sox 12-9. Willie Bloomquist, Mitch Maier, Mike Jacobs and Miguel Olivo each drew two in that game.

• It was just the 19th time in franchise history that they’ve ever worked at least 11 walks in a game. This was their 8,360th game as a franchise, which means they’ve walked 11 or more times in just 0.2 percent of all games they’ve played.

• It was also only the fifth time in franchise history they’ve walked 11 or more times in a game with three or fewer strikeouts. In fact, if you lower the criteria to eight or more walks and three or fewer strikeouts, it’s only the 50th time in franchise history that has happened.

• They entered the game with a 6.4 percent walk rate as a team and left the game with a 7.9 percent walk rate. Some of that speaks to a small sample and some of it to the ridiculously low walk rate before the game, but an increase like that in game 15 is pretty insane.

• The 11 walks represented 25.6 percent of the total walks they’ve drawn this season.

This is an anomaly. They didn’t suddenly become an extra patient team on the flight from Seattle to Chicago. But it doesn’t mean it isn’t fun and it doesn’t mean it isn’t something we shouldn’t celebrate. I liked that they actually benefited from the walks. I feel like there are times that the offense is so inept that they don’t score those walks and they deliver the wrong message to themselves.

Obviously all 11 didn’t score or else they’d have scored, well, more than six runs, but they did take advantage of opportunities, even without actually hitting especially well. In the fourth, they scored two runs without a ball leaving the infield. Salvador Perez reached on an error, Carlos Santana walked, Hunter Dozier grounded out moving them to third and then the Royals put the ball in play. Bobby Witt Jr. hit a dribbler down the third base line that Burger couldn’t do anything with, so that scored a run. Then Adalberto Mondesi grounded out. That scored a run.

In the sixth, their biggest inning of the year, Witt started with a double and then Mondesi bunted his way on. Witt scored on a sacrifice fly. I know it’s easy to rag on the broadcast for touting productive outs, but the Royals haven’t even been making those. Think about that 12th inning on Sunday. Then Andrew Benintendi lost a hit because of a weird bloop that ended in Nicky Lopez getting forced out at third, but that scored a run. And Santana picked up the big blow, knocking in two with a single to right.

Yes, they could have scored more. No, this doesn’t mean the offense is “fixed.” But it was a good start. The weather is going to be a huge drag on offense the next two days, it looks like, but they showed they can work a count and that they can move the runners. They need to show they can actually hit at some point, but I’ll take the baby steps for now.

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Crown Jewels

Mondesi Hurt…Again

If you had game 15 in your when does Mondesi get hurt pool, you’re the big winner. This one was bizarre to me, but it probably wasn’t all that weird on the field. I just don’t remember a guy simply walking off the field and then into the clubhouse without even stopping to chat with a trainer or anything. But that’s what Mondesi did after he went back into first awkwardly on a pickoff attempt. I know there were and likely are going to be a lot of jokes and anger at his expense, but I feel for the guy given all the issues he’s had. He wants to be out there and his body just doesn’t let him enough.

Now, I think the Royals are complicit here. They talked last year and all off-season about how they need to manage his workload and get him days off and all that. And here he was in the team’s 15th game playing his 15th game. I’m all for keeping him out there, but he wasn’t exactly playing well and the team has both the depth and the versatility to give him the days he needs. Would a day off on Sunday have changed anything? I don’t know. Would sitting him on a cold night where injuries were more likely have changed anything? That much I can say yes, though it might have just delayed it. Either way, it’s good news for him that it doesn’t seem to be a big issue with his knee. I hope they go back to the plan to keep his workload a little lighter, though.

Great Tune From Singer

Oh man, I hadn’t had a terrible music pun for Brady Singer yet this year. It felt good off the fingers. The Royals used Singer once in their first 11 games and now have used him twice in the last four. He only faced two batters on Friday night in Seattle, but I thought he looked pretty darn good with his sinker getting up to 97. Then last night in Chicago, he was outstanding. He got whiffs on both his pitches, was throwing strikes and was working quickly.

He struck out two in two scoreless innings of work. But the question now is what does it all mean?

I wrote on Monday that he seems to be an obvious choice to go down when the rosters decrease to 26. That changed a bit when the league said that the maximum number of pitchers would be 14 and not 13. But also, it’s changed in that he’s looked like he can be a dominant force in the bullpen. For me, I never doubted that the stuff can play up. Obviously, a sinker that moves like his does and then a slider can be a weapon in short relief. But I still fear what happens when he gets into some higher leverage spots and something doesn’t go his way. He’s struggled with men on base. He’s allowed a .663 OPS with a 24.1 percent strikeout with the bases empty in his career compared with an .845 OPS with a 20.6 percent strikeout rate with runners on. The stuff is absolutely reliever quality, but the head is what I’m worried about and we haven’t had a chance to see that yet. I still think it’s somewhat likely he goes to AAA to start when the roster sizes drop, but him as a reliever is at least intriguing.