Almost Perfect

The first 21 were retired. The last six were too. It was the two in the middle that cost the Royals history, but they still won a game.

On a beautiful holiday afternoon in Kansas City, a team circling the drain has to do something pretty special to hold people’s attention. Okay, not me because I’m a glutton for punishment apparently, but generally, people need a real reason to tune in right now. And for some reason, the idea of a Josh Staumont opener followed by bulk innings for Mike Mayers probably didn’t do it off the top. Mayers was coming off a very good start against the Tigers his last time out, but it just doesn’t carry the weight that, say, a team that has won more than 30 percent of their games would.

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But every so often, something happens that can captivate a growingly apathetic. It starts with a 1-2-3 first and then it’s getting through the lineup one time without a runner reaching base. It was with two outs in the bottom of the fifth that I started to actually think it could happen. That was the point when they likely only had to go through the top five in the lineup one more time. Then I really believed it could happen at the end of the sixth. Every no-hitter seems to have a defensive play that keeps it alive and when Tommy Edman hit a flare to center, I thought it was about to end. Drew Waters had other ideas.

I thought that was THE catch. At this point, Mayers had thrown six perfect innings with three strikeouts. He came into the game in the bottom of the second to face Nolan Arenado, Willson Contreras and Brendan Donovan. Those three were the ones he’d face to start the bottom of the eighth inning. Why do I bring this up? I think you know, but let’s go through the exercise anyway. The idea of the opener is that it allows them to get through the top of a lineup a third time for the game but only the second time for the bulk pitcher. Ultimately, the number of pitchers used is no different, but it can get a game to the late inning for a bullpen without any pitcher facing the best hitters more than twice.

But Mayers went out there in the bottom of the eighth having faced each hitter twice, meaning he’d face these particular hitters for a third time. This is where the controversy set in. I both read and heard people talking about this. Why not take out Mayers and go to Taylor Clarke to face these righties? It’s what I would have done. And, when looking at the decision in hindsight, it obviously didn’t work to leave Mayers in there. The game wasn’t a technical blowout yet, but I don’t think it was really in doubt. But as far as the perfect game went, the decision ended up being the wrong one.

It’s so easy to see that Clarke, when he came in after Mayers allowed two hits, got the three hitters he faced. Then Amir Garrett got all three he faced in the bottom of the ninth. So that’s two perfect innings from the bullpen. The logic is simple. We’ve all seen enough baseball to know that what happens after a certain event may or may not have happened if the previous events didn’t. Clarke has been outstanding in May with just one run allowed in 11.2 innings heading into yesterday’s game. But he’d also faced 16 consecutive hitters without a strikeout. How would that play against Arenado? Or Contreras?

My point here is that there is no guarantee Clark would have done to Arenado, Contreras and Donovan what he did to Donovan, Paul DeJong and Alec Burleson. So the Royals were six outs from history and, boy did I want those six outs to come. I disagreed with the decision to put Mayers out there in the eighth, but I understood it too. He had thrown 70 pitches through six innings after throwing 84 in his last outings against the Tigers. I think Matt Quatraro was sort of in a damned if he does, damned if he doesn’t situation. If he pulls Mayers and Clarke gives up a hit to Arenado, he’s criticized. He didn’t pull Mayers and Arenado gets a hit and he was criticized. We all know what happened, so we can very easily see what didn’t work, but that doesn’t mean something different was guaranteed to work.

It’s kind of a bummer that this is the conversation after a resounding 7-0 win against the in-state rivals and how the pitching staff held them to two singles, but here we are. The truth is, it was a a fun game in the end, and led me to wonder a few things. The first is about Mayers and if the Royals have something, even if he’s a short-term fix. He’s now thrown 13.1 innings in the big leagues across three games against the Padres, Tigers and Cardinals. In his first outing, his control was an issue, walking four and striking out just three. But in his last two outings, he’s struck out 11 and walked one in 10.2 innings. Across all three outings, he’s given up just two total runs.

So what is Mayers? I mentioned a guy like Jeffrey Springs for the Rays after his last start against the Tigers, and this outing did nothing to make me wonder if this staff has unlocked something different in Mayers. I’m not ready to say they have. We’ve seen plenty of pitchers have a couple of good starts in a row (and yeah, I’ll call this a start to make it easier). But he has changed his pitch mix just a bit. In yesterday’s game, he was using his fastball and slider similarly to past seasons, but he’s throwing a sinker now that he hasn’t really used in the past. And it’s a small sample, but he hasn’t allowed a hit on it yet.

While I don’t know what to make of this just yet, I do know that with all the issues the Royals have had on their pitching staff, Mayers has absolutely earned the opportunity to throw multiple innings every fifth day. I say it that was because I actually really like him with an opener, but I’m not opposed to him getting a traditional start either. And if it doesn’t work? Oh well. They hit the second third of the season at 22 games under .500. Mayers likely isn’t a part of the future and maybe isn’t even a part of the second half of this season, but what’s the harm in giving a guy who has been so successful a chance to find out?

It may be sort of hard to see it right now, but the pitching has actually been a bit better. They had a brutal April with a 5.49 ERA. In May, it’s down to 4.68, which is still bad but considerably better. Since May 6 (yes, another arbitrary endpoint), it’s 4.02, which actually ranks right in the middle of the pack. They’re only 9-13 in that time because they’ve still had far too many blowups. And, hey, they’re 9-9 in games Jordan Lyles didn’t start and their non-Lyles ERA is 3.47 in that time, so at least there’s some show of progress outside of that disaster signing.

As for how the rest of the game played out, the offense gave us plenty of reasons to be frustrated early with a little help from home plate umpire Mark Wegner. Adam Wainwright didn’t appear especially sharp. The first two batters reached in the first inning and neither scored. They got on the board in the third with back-to-back doubles from Nick Pratto and Vinnie Pasquantino, but it could have been a much bigger inning. With two outs, MJ Melendez walked and Michael Massey reached on an infield single to load the bases, but Freddy Fermin couldn’t get the run home.

In the fourth, Nicky Lopez singled to lead off the inning and never got to second. But then things turned around and you hope that it’s a jumping off point for this group. Salvador Perez singled to lead off the fifth and, with one out, Melendez split the outfielders with a line drive.

But with Perez on first, could he get the triple he deserved? Salvy doesn’t score from first often. He’d only scored twice from first on a double even since 2018. But he was on his horse and made it ahead of the throw to give the Royals a 2-0 lead. We’re all sort of waiting for Melendez to catch fire, but in the month of May, he’s hit .247/.340/.427. He has six walks in his last four games, so maybe he’s seeing the ball better and it’s about to start. You feel like with how hard he hits the ball that if he keeps seeing pitches the way he has that he can put in a big week to 10 days at some point. Maybe that’s coming soon.

After a Massey walk, Fermin was up again in a big situation and, wouldn’t you know it, he put down another great bunt to score the third run of the game for the Royals. They tacked on a run with a clutch two-out single by Pasqantino before they were able to break it open in the top of the ninth.

The inning started with Bobby Witt Jr.’s tenth homer of the year.

With his 16th steal earlier in the game and this, his 10th homer, Witt finds himself on pace for 29 home runs and 47 steals. Could the 30/30 season be within reach? It’s hard to argue with the pace.

Then another Melendez walk led to Massey hitting his fourth of the season.

Massey continues to show that he’s put April behind him. He fell to .115/.111/.135. He very easily could have been sent down. Maybe he should have been sent down. But he wasn’t. And he had two hits the next game he played. He had two more the next game and two more the game after that. It’s an admittedly arbitrary endpoint, but since the first two-hit game, he’s now hitting .309/.389/.468. He has a 9.3 percent walk rate in that time. His strikeout rate is a bit elevated but even that’s way down over the last couple of weeks. His defense has been good too. If he can keep with this approach, the Royals have an answer.

They did still leave the bases loaded in the ninth, so the woes aren’t completely over and they ended up leaving 14 men on base. Still, it was a nice performance that showed what the offense is capable of doing. It doesn’t really feel like they’re firing on all cylinders right now, but they’ve still been pretty solid for a while now. It’s what makes the pitching so frustrating because we see what the team is capable of when they get a performance like this. Maybe someday we’ll see a week or two where the hitting and pitching get fully in sync. Maybe that started yesterday. I guess we’ll see soon enough.