A Bad Sixth and a Bad Offense Doom the Royals
It was another night where scoring runs felt like pulling teeth, but they had a lead and couldn't hold it.
Before the season, I wrote about how difficult the first 23 games of the season would be. In seven series, the Royals are facing six playoff teams from last season and one team that was in playoff position basically all year before a late-season collapse and is arguably the most talented team in a division that sent three teams to the playoffs. I wrote that 11 or 12 wins in those first 23 would be solid and anything less than 10 would require a long winning streak at some point to overcome. Well, here we are with five games left and the Royals need to go 2-3 on the road in order to get to 10. They’re not in a terrible spot, but games like last night are games you think about all season long.
The big story is the sixth inning. The Royals were up 2-0 and Michael Wacha had thrown just 58 pitches through five innings. I’ll get to the offense, but it was sort of feeling like even without the bats doing much, the Royals could lock this game up if Wacha could just get through the sixth without trouble. It certainly wasn’t an easy task with Aaron Judge leading off and then Cody Bellinger (even though he’s been pretty terrible), Paul Goldschmidt and Jazz Chisholm Jr. if anyone reached base.
The inning began with an Aaron Judge ground ball up the middle that Michael Massey made an exceptional stop on, but bounced his throw to first. Salvador Perez didn’t pick it cleanly and Judge was on.
I saw some conversation about this play and while you’d love to see a first baseman get that pick, it wasn’t exactly routine. Often on a short-hop, the throw comes in on much more of a line and takes a true hop. Massey did everything he could to get up off the ground and get as much on that throw as he could, but it looked like he threw more of a changeup and so the hop ended up being a bit different than most short hops. So while it’s frustrating that they didn’t get Judge on a ball he didn’t crush, I think you can chalk this one up to one of those things that just sort of happens.