A Whole Team Win
It took pretty much everyone in there to get this win for the Royals.
Games like last night have been much more common for the Royals on the road lately, but that doesn’t make them any less refreshing to watch. After putting up a familiar performance on Monday night in the series opener, they had a run-of-the-mill win that we just haven’t seen much of from them at all this season. They scored early. They scored in the middle. They scored late. The starting pitching was fine, though a little short-lived. The bullpen was mostly great. They won a game. For a day, for a moment, it’s nice to just enjoy a win and not think about the return that any of a handful of players can bring back in a sell-off.
That is not to say that they are fixed. They’re still six games under .500. They’re still ahead of just three teams in the American League (and eight total). But when they win a game like that, you realize they’re capable of it, and I’ll be honest, some nights it doesn’t seem like they are. When they scored nine on Saturday against the Dodgers, it was great to see and fun to watch, but there was some element of fool’s gold to it because of how they won. The 5 through 9 was 3 for 22. I don’t know what it is, but there is something so satisfying about the entire lineup contributing in some way. Last night, only John Rave didn’t score a run or drive one in and even he had a hit.
That’s something that I feel like has been unmentioned in the difference between last year and this year with the offense. Yes, the obvious is true and the biggest reason. Vinnie Pasquantino and Salvador Perez have struggled, particularly with runners in scoring position. Bobby Witt Jr. is merely a very good hitter this year instead of approaching all-time great territory. Those three players haven’t been what they were last year and even with Maikel Garcia’s emergence and having a much better leadoff hitter (people bash Jonathan India, but they had a .270 OBP out of the leadoff spot last year and he’s at .326…the Royals, as a team, are at .333, which is 13th in baseball), they are struggling because of it. But there’s more.
MJ Melendez may not have been especially good overall, but he had a pretty long stretch of being solid. Hunter Renfroe wasn’t good overall, but he had a two and a half month stretch of slugging .500 with an OPS of like .880. Nelson Velazquez got hot for a couple of weeks. Freddy Fermin was hot for a bit before he had to play too much. Michael Massey was a bit better than league average overall, but he got hot. Sure, role players didn’t hit that great, but they had players outside of their big three step up throughout the year. And what was crazy is it often would be that one would start to struggle and another would pick it up. It’s not happening this year. Last night, though, they all contributed.