Big Hits and Big Brad Keller Get the Royals a Sweep

It felt like April all over again.

Baseball is such a funny game. The Royals struggled to even keep up with the Orioles over the weekend after they won the first game in a rout. Then they go to Milwaukee to face a team that was 32-14 in their last 46 games and they not only beat them in both games, but it sort of felt like they were generally in control, or at least the Brewers weren’t in control at any point. It’s cliche, but you truly can’t predict baseball. I just hope for the Brewers sake that they don’t find themselves a game behind the Mets (or whoever wins the hellscape that is the NL East) and costs them the homefield advantage in the NLDS because they went 0-4 against the lowly Royals.

Keller Back?

Brad Keller has now gone 20.2 innings over his last three starts with a 2.61 ERA. He’s struck out 25.9 percent of batters he’s faced and walked maybe a few too many, but it’s still okay at 10.7 percent. Let’s first mention that Keller has struck out at least 20 percent of the hitters he’s faced in half of his 20 starts now. Let’s compare the numbers:

This should absolutely be filed under “no duh” but the way the broadcast often talks about Keller, I felt this needed to be pointed out. Here’s the reality of pitching. Getting strikeouts is good. Not getting strikeouts is bad. A guy can have a great game without striking guys out and a guy can have a terrible game with a bunch of strikeouts, but the fact is that getting the guaranteed out is always better than having to count on the ball to find a defender and then for that defender to make a play. Oh yeah, and if you’re going to make an argument about strikeouts keeping guys from going deep into games, look at the innings and games. He averages just under six innings per start when he strikes guys out and just more than four innings when he doesn’t.

Okay, now that we have that out of the way, he had his third straight very good start, as I mentioned above. It’s probably not a coincidence that for the third straight start, he used his slider more than anything. It wasn’t used nearly as heavily as his last two starts, but he had it going early. He threw it on four of his first five pitches to Kolten Wong to start the game and froze him on one down the middle.

In total, the Brewers were just 2 for 8 on the slider with a sacrifice fly. They fouled off eight of them, hit seven in play and eight were either called strikes or whiffs. It was a good pitch for him with the hardest hit ball from the pitcher, Eric Lauer, on one that he did hang a little bit.

One area the broadcast mentioned he was working on was working the inner third and even a little farther to right-handed bats. If you’re looking for something that he’s still not there on, it’s definitely that. Here’s where all his pitches to righties were yesterday:

Looks like he only got in there four or five times, so that’s not ideal. But overall, it was very nice to see him put together another quality start and get outs beyond the sixth inning because that’s been rare for the entire staff.

Advantageous and Timely Offense

I don’t have to tell you that the bats haven’t exactly been inspiring this season. We’re not even a week removed from Matt Harvey throwing six shutout innings. But yesterday’s game was one that I thought was enjoyable to watch, which is a rarity for Royals games over the past few weeks. It started off with Lauer throwing three perfect innings, which sort of gave a “here we go again” vibe, but the fourth inning started with Whit Merrifield hitting a sharp ground ball to third that Luis Urias…struggled with the throw that got Merrifield to second base with nobody out.

Carlos Santana and Salvador Perez struck out and it sure looked like another missed opportunity for the Royals, but then Andrew Benintendi took a pitch over the middle and shot it down the left field line, landing just fair to give the Royals their first lead and their first unearned run.

Then Hunter Dozier came to the plate and fell behind 0-2 almost immediately with two swings and misses on admittedly good pitches. Coming into the game, Dozier was 3 for 60 with one double when the count started 0-2. That’s not a typo. But he battled. He fouled off a ball up. Then he took a cutter away and fouled off a fastball above the zone. And on the sixth pitch, he blooped a single to left that scored Benintendi for the second unearned run.

It felt bigger than just a single for Dozier. He added another RBI single later and he’s now hitting .328/.389/.484 in his last 18 games. That coincides with the start of the Boston series which saw him get his doubles stroke going a little bit. His average of .196 is at its highest point of the season. His OPS of .629 is at its highest point of the season. All of these facts are very sad, but you have to start somewhere, and it’s good to see him succeed.

But back to the offense in general, they did something to the Brewers that it feels like has been done to the Royals all year. In the bottom of the fifth, Keller gave up three runs to give the Brewers the lead. And the Royals got them all back the next half inning. And they did it by taking advantage of the Brewers defense once again. It started with a single from Santana before Benintendi hit a ball to first base that was sort of tough for Jace Peterson, but also a play that needed to be made. He didn’t.

Dozier’s second hit scored Santana and Jorge Soler hit a fly ball to Christian Yelich in left. At this point, Ryan McBroom got the call to pinch hit for Michael A. Taylor, who was not traded but rather hurt his wrist (of course) and he hit a knuckler beyond the bag that Kolten Wong, who is outstanding defensively, couldn’t field cleanly. It was called a hit, but that seemed generous.

Nicky Lopez came up with the bases loaded and on the second pitch smoked a ball over Avisail Garcia’s head that scored two to get the Royals all three runs back.

It was tied for the hardest hit ball of the season for Lopez, who also hit a foul ball at 104.8 MPH on April 23. It was the third hardest hit ball of his career. And it gave the Royals a lead they wouldn’t give up.

Oh and because I love a good home run, Soler went deep for the second straight game.

It’s the first time he’s hit homers in back-to-back games since the last two games of the 2019 season. It really is amazing what the Royals look like when Keller is giving them six plus innings, Soler homers and Dozier drives in a couple runs. It’s almost like it finally worked the way they planned when the season started.

And that’s a wrap on the season series with the Brewers. The Royals won them all. The first two came when the Royals were playing well and the Brewers weren’t. The last two came when the Brewers were playing well and the Royals weren’t. It might be meaningless in the grand scheme of things because of the way they played from early June through the break, but it’s just nice to watch some good baseball again, even if just for a couple days.