Back and Forth Game Ends Predictably

The offense fought a little longer than Monday, but in the end, the result was the same as it's been for awhile.

On the bright side, the Royals offense has found a little something in Boston in the first two games of this series. They’ve hit three home runs in each of the first two games, including two each from Whit Merrifield and Michael A. Taylor. Last night, they had three doubles in addition to two steals, both in the eighth. So they put together an offensive game that should win most nights.

Unfortunately, last night wasn’t most nights. Or maybe it actually was with the way the Royals pitching staff has crumbled over the past few weeks. I’ll get to the offense, but I just have to talk about Brad Keller first as he had yet another start where he just gave up way too much and hurt his team.

It looked for a time like Keller might have figured some things out. From May 7 through June 4, Keller made six starts, throwing 33.1 innings and striking out 35 while walking 13. His ERA in that time was 3.78, which you will absolutely, unequivocally take. Then the struggles started and after allowing six runs on 10 hits in five plus innings last night, he’s now gone 25.1 innings in his last five starts and has posted a 9.24 ERA with 17 walks and 16 strikeouts.

The Royals and the broadcast talked about pitching to contact and how important it was for Keller to get ground balls like we saw from him so much in the last three seasons. In the first inning, after hitting the first batter for the third time this season (that’s crazy in itself), he got four straight ground balls, which the broadcast would lead you to believe was good. But they all found holes and the Red Sox wiped away Merrifield’s leadoff home run and took a 2-1 lead. And then to reinforce bad opinions, he got a double play to end the inning. So that’s five ground balls on five batted balls. Pretty good! But not really because it was two runs on four hits.

I’m not saying ground balls are bad, but I am saying that pitching to contact is a concept that is silly as a philosophy in 2021, especially with a pitcher who has next to no command. Sometimes it is absolutely better to get an early at bat out, but the batting average on strikeouts throughout history is .000. I’m sourcing common sense on that. It’s not that players can’t reach base occasionally on strikeouts, but that’s not even worth an argument. If you see the stretch mentioned above where Keller was good, you’ll notice he struck out more than a batter per inning. If you see the most recent stretch, you’ll notice he’s struck out 16 in 76 total outs and has given up 40 hits. Not so good!

And last night was Keller’s piece de resistance. He didn’t strike out a single batter and walked five. With the 10 hits allowed and the hit batter, he allowed 16 base runners and recorded 15 outs. That took him 102 pitches. It was the 393rd game in big league history with 16 or more base runners allowed in five or fewer innings. That seems like a lot, but in the 121st season of records kept, that’s not too many. But when you add in the criteria of no strikeouts, it was the 62nd game. Ever. To Keller’s credit, it was just the seventh with fewer than seven runs allowed. So that’s a feather in his cap or something. Here’s the 25 “best” performances from that group:

To wrap up Keller’s start, he threw those 102 pitches and somehow only got four swings and misses. He once again simply didn’t know where the ball was going.

I don’t know what the answer is. The bigger problem is that Keller has publicly said that he doesn’t either and neither does his pitching coach. I’m not going to keep harping on the fact that his pitching coach needs to go. You all know that. But the halfway point of the season is coming on Friday. It’s not early. This isn’t a tiny sample. It’s time to do something because what they’re doing and have done simply isn’t working.

I appreciate their thinking outside the box with how they are using some of their pitchers, but that doesn’t change that almost every single person they put on a mound has the same issue that they can’t throw with control and they can’t throw with command. When something like that starts permeating the entire staff, a change has to happen and the fish stinks from the head.

But at least the offense had some positives, though they were once again shut down by the Red Sox bullpen. I mentioned the first inning homer by Merrifield, which was estimated at 343 feet, but I’m skeptical. This was a Fenway Park home run around the Pesky Pole.

I’m going to take this opportunity to take total credit for Merrifield’s resurgence. I wrote on May 25 about what was wrong with him. Since that date, he’s hit .333/.359/.507 with eight doubles, two triples and four home runs. You’re welcome.

The other two home runs came from big games from two highly criticized players. I’ll start with Michael A. Taylor, who had one of his best games with the Royals. He went 3 for 3 with a walk, but also had a fantastic assist, throwing out a runner at third. It was just his second three-hit game of the year, following up on his Opening Day gem. It was the first time he’d reached base four times in a game.

And finally, Ryan O’Hearn continued his assault on opposing pitchers since he came back from Omaha. He’s now hitting .333/.333/.606 with three home runs. This one to dead center gave the Royals the 6-5 lead that Keller and Jake Brentz would cough up.

But I might have actually been more impressed with this single off Darwinzon Hernandez, who had allowed a .194 average against lefties and .133 for his career. And while the fastball was in the middle of the plate, he took it to left at 103 MPH. That was a nice piece of hitting.

I’m not sold because there’s too much evidence for 33 plate appearances to wipe all that way, but I have to say that I’m at least happy with what I’ve seen from him. If only he and the Royals can produce a few runs on the random day where the pitching doesn’t completely implode. Ahh to dream.

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Crown Jewels

Spin Zone, Week Two, Night Two

Brad Keller

Jake Brentz

Greg Holland

Well once again, the Royals certainly can’t be accused of much. At least Keller wasn’t using sticky stuff before, though? Small victories or something.

Nick Pivetta

Yacksel Rios

Darwinzon Hernandez

Adam Ottavino

Matt Barnes

The Red Sox continue to flash spin rates that plummeted like crazy from their season totals. I know, I know, it’s hard to believe that a team with Alex Cora managing them would possibly do something against the rules, but I’m here to say they probably were using the sticky stuff a little too much.

The Soler Experiment, Night Two

The Royals made a big lineup shift before Monday’s game, moving Jorge Soler to the number two spot in the lineup. It was met with criticism, and rightfully so given his numbers. But as I wrote, I also sort of understood the thought process in trying to get him to alter his approach. And yesterday, you could see a huge difference with all four of his batted balls going to the right side and an absolute effort to do so. That lasted all of one game.

He swung over a hanging curve for a strikeout in his first at bat. He was given a golden opportunity with two men on in his second at bat when he got a slider on the outer edge. And what did he do? He hit a lazy fly ball to left field instead of going with the pitch to right. If this was game was Monday night, I actually think he’d have dropped in a single to right. In his third at bat, he worked a hitter’s count and then swung at a pitch at the bottom of the zone that wound up as a double play grounder. That wasn’t a pitch to hit. It was a pitch to take and still be up in the count.

His fourth at bat was okay, but in his last at bat, with the tying run on third and the lead run on second in the eighth, he saw this sequence:

That last pitch, which was prime to plug the gap in right center was hit on the ground to third base and he was thrown out easily to end the inning.

I mentioned on Monday in the Weekend in Review that I’d just cut bait now, and I stand by that, but I really do believe this is the last ditch effort for the Royals with Soler. They now have 12 games before the break and if things don’t change, I wouldn’t be too surprised if this is a Soler-less team when they get back from their four days off.