Bottoms Up

The Royals once again struggled against the bottom of a lineup and it cost them...once again.

There are some games that are tough to pinpoint the culprit on and others that are super easy. This one was super easy. Don’t get me wrong, scoring just one run isn’t going to set a team up for much success, but the Royals pitching staff gave up three runs and not a single one of those would have come across the plate if the Royals could have handled the eight and nine hitters in a Guardians lineup that isn’t what you’d call good, especially once you get past about the fifth spot in the batting order. And what’s especially disappointing about it is that it kind of jaded a very nice Kris Bubic start, which was his second in a row with good results, but the best he’s looked in general in awhile.

The first bit of damage came in the top of the third inning. Bubic had retired six of the first seven hitters and the one he didn’t get out was caught stealing on an absolutely perfect throw from Salvador Perez to catch him stealing. That brought Austin Hedges to the plate. He came into the game hitting .181/.260/.270. Among hitters with at least 250 plate appearances, Hedges had the fourth-worst average, 11th-worst on base percentage and fifth-worst slugging percentage. And Bubic had him on the ropes. He had him at 1-2, challenged him with a fastball that was fouled off and then didn’t throw another pitch in the zone. He walked him.

The very next batter was Myles Straw, who was hitting .199/.273/.243. In the slash stats of the same list above, he ranked 14th-worst, 28th-worst and worst. That’s out of 277 hitters, which I guess I should have said before. And on an 0-2 pitch, Bubic put a changeup on the edge, but probably should have put it about three to six inches outside and Straw singled up the middle. Those two hits didn’t score a run, but they turned over a lineup that that, as I said, doesn’t have much outside of the top half of the lineup. With a lineup like that, as important as it is to prepare for an handle the good hitters, it’s almost more important to take care of the bottom because the top is going to get their hits. And, predictably, Amed Rosario and Jose Ramirez came through with a single by Rosario to load the bases and Ramirez with a two-run single.

And those two did the damage again in the seventh inning. This time it wasn’t Bubic on the mound to face them, but he allowed an infield single to Tyler Freeman, the Guardians number seven hitter, before giving way to Jose Cuas. You know how I feel about the idea that a reliever is put in a bad position, but when it’s two of the worst hitters in baseball, I dislike it a little bit less. And, sure enough, Hedges singled through the hole on the right side on a 1-2 pitch to put runners on first and third and then Straw came through again with a single up the middle to drive in the third run of the game.

This is a bad trend for Royals pitchers. Take a look at the numbers for what Royals pitching has done against the bottom of the order compared to the league, heading into last night’s game.

Let’s go spot-by-spot too.

Hitting Seventh

Hitting Eighth

Hitting Ninth

I honestly don’t know what to make of this. It’s easy to assume this is just because Royals pitchers aren’t very good and are going to be below average against everyone. And they sort of are, but they have allowed a lower OPS to fifth and sixth hitters than to nine hitters. Which is just crazy. In these situations, sometimes you ascribe a theory to match your preconceived notions, and that’s exactly what I’m doing here. I simply don’t feel like Royals pitching is prepared for an entire lineup. They let down when facing hitters they “should” get out and they end up getting hurt.

Their numbers against the top two (.266/.356/.419) are worse than league average (.254/.325/.411) but not as drastically as that bottom third difference. And their numbers against three through six (.277/.346/.444) are worse than league average (.246/.317/.410) but not as drastically as that bottom third difference. No, this is a bad pitching staff, but there’s something about the bottom of the order that shouldn’t be as big of an issue as it is and fixing that would go a long way toward inching back to respectability as a staff.

Another move back to respectability would be to figure out how to bottle up September Bubic and get him to access that throughout the year. In 2020 and 2021, Bubic had a 2.47 ERA in September (and October) in 54.1 innings with 48 strikeouts and 19 walks. That’s a good sign that he can finish well. It probably meant a fair amount less in a 60-game season in 2020, but last year in his first full season, he finished with a 2.20 ERA in 32.2 innings with 26 strikeouts and nine walks. So when Bubic went out and gave up three runs on six hits in 6.1 innings with four strikeouts and just one walk last night, it probably shouldn’t have been a surprise.

He also deserved slightly better. The hit he allowed to Freeman that brought on Cuas was just a well-placed chopper to the right side. Nick Pratto fielded the ball and Freeman simply beat Bubic to the bag. And then he came around to score when Cuas failed to contain the eight and nine hitters, but we’ve discussed that. I really thought Bubic had it all working last night. The Guardians simply don’t swing and miss and he got 10 whiffs against them, which isn’t great, but it’s also the 30th-most in a game against them by a starting pitcher out of 133 starts, so it’s in the top quarter, which is solid.

I liked his fastball, thought his curve was pretty good, but I was really digging his changeup and thought he could have finished that seventh if he had used it a little bit more. He threw 23 of them, got 14 swings and six whiffs. Six balls were put in play and their exit velocities in order were 77.3, 74.2, 91.1, 90.1, 84.0 and 77.2. I think we make a little too much about exit velocities sometimes, but if you’re allowing that kind of contact, success will come. The Guardians were 2 for 8 with two strikeouts, a walk and a hit-by-pitch on the changeup. One of the hits led to Andres Gimenez getting thrown out at second by Drew Waters. It was just so good. Take a look at a couple of my favorites:

But I just wish he took advantage of a pitch that was clearly giving the Guardians a lot of trouble. There were two at bats that I wish he had gone to the changeup in addition to just wanting him to throw it a little more. The first came in the third inning when he gave up the two runs. It’s easy to say this in hindsight, but I think Ramirez was geared up for something up after he took a very good curve for strike one. Bubic located the fastball about exactly where he wanted it, but Ramirez is so good that he was able to do damage on it anyway. I would have liked to see him get that fastball either higher to set up a changeup or just go directly to the changeup.

The second time was in the second at bat for Hedges. It ended in an out, but I would have doubled up on the changeup after the third pitch. He threw a fastball that was out of the zone, but he had just thrown a changeup down but in the middle third of the plate that Hedges fouled off. Knowing his tendencies, my theory is that Hedges would have swung over the top of it and he could have saved three pitches. Maybe that doesn’t change much, but maybe an extra three pitches buys him another shot at Hedges and Straw in the seventh inning.

The results, in the end, were a quality start that probably should have been better than it ended up, but I think there was just so much to like from Bubic in this one other than his struggles in the third against bad hitters. He threw 72.6 percent strikes, which is the highest rate of his career in any start. He seemed to be generally in command without too many of the wildly non-competitive pitches that we see too often from him. I’m interested to see what he can do the rest of this season and if he can continue his trend of being very good in September. Now in 10 September starts, he’s had a game score of 51 or higher in nine of them. That’s pretty good.

But again, it probably wouldn’t have mattered anyway because Shane Bieber was just bonkers good. The Royals had one scoring opportunity other than the time they scored and that inning ended with a double play grounder from Hunter Dozier because who else could it be? Even as one of the most ardent Dozier supporters over the last couple of seasons, I have to say he needs to be playing less. The contract has been given out and it’s not nearly as bad as some want to make it out to be, but he just isn’t getting it done, which is very disappointing because the Royals really do need a right-handed bat to help balance out the lineup, but he simply can’t be playing in place of young players right now.

But the team was bailed out of a shutout because of their stalwart, Salvador Perez.

That’s 20 for Perez, which is the sixth time he’s done that in his career. It’s the 83rd season of 20 or more home runs from a Royals hitter (which, yes, that’s sad in their 54th season) and he accounts for 7.2 percent of them. Only George Brett has more season of 20 or more home runs in team history with eight. Mike Sweeney also had six, so Perez is in rarified air in terms of team history there, which shouldn’t be a surprise given the fact that Perez is second in franchise history with 220 home runs.

And of course he did it on a pitch that wasn’t a strike. We just went through this, but that’s his 12th home run on a pitch that was not a strike since the start of 2020, which is the second-most in baseball in that time. It was his 33rd since his first full season, which is third-most in baseball and that includes a season he didn’t even play a game! The man is ridiculous and very fun to watch, even when we sometimes curse him for the swings he takes.

Tonight, they get a crack at a Guardians starter who isn’t a Cy Young candidate and get their one-time Cy Young, Zack Greinke, back. If they can find a way to silence the bottom of the order for once, maybe they can salvage a win in this series.