Brady Singer's Rebound

You will certainly take the results all day, but I still have questions about the Royals righty.

The Royals won a series yesterday for the first time since their third series of the year (against another sub-.500 team). It was a weird game. Maybe it was the rain delay to start the game and then the rain that was falling during the start of the game. Maybe it was that it was School Day at the K, which always seems weird. Or maybe it was just one of a handful of games throughout the season that seems weird. But it did seem weird. Weird in a win is fun. Weird in a loss can be frustrating and annoying. Thankfully yesterday was fun. The way the game ended was certainly different and fun, but first I want to talk about the most important thing going yesterday, Brady Singer.

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Results, in a small sample, can be misleading. We all know that. While people are sick and tired of hearing about “the process,” the reality is that the process is more important than the results. So when Singer, who had given up five or more runs in five of his seven starts coming into yesterday, throws six innings with one run allowed on five hits with two walks, you want to get excited that he’s turned things around. And, look, a good result can be important no matter how someone gets there because of the mentality behind it. So I don’t want to minimize what actually happened, but I think in the big picture, the process is what’s important.

I tweeted yesterday that I’m not 100 percent sure I was thrilled what was behind the results. And I don’t know who saw that and took that to mean that I didn’t like what I saw, but I honestly didn’t know if I was thrilled or not. So let’s find out together!

First, let’s look at the good from yesterday’s outing beyond the results. He was keeping the ball on the ground, which is something he’s done well throughout his career, but not this season. For the year, including yesterday, he has allowed a 41.1 percent ground ball rate. He was at 49 percent last year and it was the lowest of his career. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that he’s now made three starts where he’s allowed fewer than five runs (and it’s actually been exactly one in all three) and those three starts are the only three starts with a ground ball rate of 50 percent or higher. He’s also allowed homers in four of his eight starts. Yesterday and his other two good starts are three of the four. So there’s definitely some correlation there.

He also had his fourth-highest first-pitch strike percentage of the season and highest since his third start. I really like to see that from him because when you aren’t doing a lot to fool a hitter as to what’s coming, it’s important to be ahead, so they have fewer pitches left to guess right. And I feel like his release points were at least in line.

Okay, now why am I still a little concerned? Maybe it’s more than a little, to be honest. First, the velocity continues to be down, which is a trend we’ve seen this season from him. Here’s the chart for the year:

It was actually the first game of his career that he’s averaged lower than 92 MPH. I think it’s reasonable to look at the numbers and wonder a little if the weather had something to do with his velocity being down. His opponent, Mike Clevinger, saw his velocity sit 1.2 MPH lower than his season average as well. So maybe that’s not a huge deal, but even if Singer was 1.2 MPH than this, he still would have been almost a full mile per hour below last season’s average velocity. He gets so much benefit from hitters giving up on his sinker that when they have even a split second more to decide, it helps them.

Also, his extension remained consistent with earlier this year. Maybe it’s by design since it keeps happening, but he’s releasing his sinker about five inches closer to home plate than he did last season. It’s moving similarly, but I wonder a little bit if that’s causing some problems. It’s also not consistent with his other pitches and still wasn’t yesterday. That makes it much more difficult to confuse a hitter. His trademark is that his sinker backs up and his slider, well, slides. If a hitter can’t pick up which is which until late, they may have already made a decision one way or another and if they’re able to see it sooner, they can take more sliders that are balls and swing at more sinkers that are strikes.

And finally, his location was still just…off.

I’ve written about this before, but when he’s filling up the middle of the zone, he’s likely going to find trouble. He’s probably pretty lucky that the White Sox are a mess. You just see far too many sliders in the middle of the plate and far too many sinkers too. The one thing that I’m loving is that his changeup looked great yesterday.

So there’s much more to evaluate with Singer, obviously, but I’d say I’m very happy he had success and not so sure pitching like this against the Padres will replicate that success. Still, I think there is also value in a positive result, so I’m not going to say that this start wasn’t a net gain for him and hopefully he can take the good result and work that into a better process next time out.

It was a good thing he had those good results too because the bats were a little quieter than they had been recently. I maintain that it was just a bizarre game from the start, but even with that, the offense did a few things well. They got the scoring started with Michael Massey hitting another home run.

But then they got a little quiet. I thought Mike Clevinger was just okay but the Royals seemed maybe a little more homer happy than they had in previous games. I’m certainly not going to tell you what you’ll hear from Ryan Lefebvre about how a home run can be a long-term problem because I hate that, but I do think they were trying to hit a lot of balls about 500 feet. I don’t know why, but that led to a lot of lazy fly balls and popups in the game. Thankfully, Maikel Garcia didn’t have that mindset.

After a single by MJ Melendez started the fourth, Edward Olivares did almost hit a home run with a long flyout. Nick Pratto walked and that brought Garcia to the plate. Now, I will say that I’ve been slightly worried that he’s slumping because it might give the Royals a reason to send him back to AAA when Nicky Lopez gets healthy (more on that shortly), but he has continued to give some very good plate appearances, and this one was no different. I do think he missed a couple pitches in the at bat early that helped get the count to 0-2, but then he took a very good slider off the plate, fouled off a cutter that was designed for weak contact and took a fastball just beneath the zone that had been called a strike at times, so it was a risk. But then on the seventh pitch, he got a cutter on the inner third and he just put a beautiful swing on the ball.

Things were generally pretty quiet for the offense after that. They had two on and two outs in the seventh, but it wasn’t a real threat and didn’t score. Then Aroldis Chapman came on in the eighth with a 3-1 lead, got two outs quickly and gave up two soft singles and a handsy double by Luis Robert. I don’t think he pitched poorly, and I don’t think it impacts trade value. As long as Chapman is throwing 99+ and throwing strikes, teams aren’t going to not trade for him because he gave up two soft singles and a well-placed double. So that’s the good news. The bad news is that the lead was gone.

Scott Barlow was outstanding in the bottom of the ninth (more on him below too), to lead to the Royals getting a shot in the bottom half of the inning. Nick Pratto started things with a great plate appearance that led to a walk. Then Matt Duffy, in the game for defense, repaid the favor to the White Sox with a soft single to right that got Pratto to third and it led to Freddy Fermin coming to the plate. Now, I will say that I was screaming at the television to pinch hit with Salvador Perez, but before I could finish my sentence...

It was the first walk-off bunt for the Royals in decades. What?!?! Look, I’m no fan of bunts, but I sure loved this one and I really enjoyed this series for the Royals. And even with just four runs on six hits, the Royals still are pacing all of baseball in wRC+ by a lot, so things are just fine. They’ll get Corbin Burnes tonight, so it’s a real test, but I feel much better about it than I would have three weeks ago.

Crown Jewels

Roster Moves Coming

The Royals are going to have some decisions to make soon. Drew Waters is currently on a rehab assignment in AAA Omaha. He hasn’t played back-to-back days yet. Until he does, he isn’t coming back to the big leagues. But once he does, he’ll be on the fast track back to the big leagues. This isn’t a terribly difficult decision to make for the team, but there are a couple of options. I thought when Kyle Isbel was healthy that Jackie Bradley Jr. would see his end with the big club, but with Isbel out, I think they keep him around for his defense. My guess is that we see Nate Eaton go back to Omaha, which is too bad for Eaton, but he needs to get away from the numbers on that scoreboard.

But there’s more. Daniel Lynch will be back sooner than later. He starts tonight for Omaha and I’d imagine he’s back in the big leagues after that start. It works out well that the Royals are in need of a starter in that spot, so I would guess he takes that next spot. They’re currently running with four starters and nine relievers, so someone from the bullpen will find the end to their time in the big leagues, at least for now. The easy answer is Max Castillo, but I think he’s got a little time to make that decision hard for the team. And with a starting staff that has, at times, struggled to give innings, maybe he sticks around as someone who can give multiple innings. If that’s the case, I’d guess Jose Cuas goes.

And then finally Lopez returning from his appendectomy is the one everyone is waiting for. I am pretty well convinced that it will mark the end of Hunter Dozier’s time with the team. But Garcia has a lot to say about that. He hasn’t put up great numbers since he was called up, but he has played excellent defense and looks like he belongs with some great plate appearances in his time. I think as long as he continues to look like he belongs that he will stay and Dozier will go. But there is always a chance that he goes into a deep slump or something like that. I think we all hope that doesn’t happen. And, of course, this is baseball. Every time you think it’s all set up for one thing, something else happens that makes every previous discussion moot, so there’s always that to worry about.

Bullpen Thriving

Before the season, I thought the rotation would be suspect, the defense would struggle, the offense would score pretty well and the bullpen would be great. I couldn’t have been more wrong during the first few weeks of the season. The bats were ice cold, the rotation pitched pretty well, they caught the ball reasonably well and the bullpen was a tire fire. That has settled a bit and reality has come into play. It’s probably a little bit weird to write this the day after the bullpen blew a late lead, but I can’t control what I started to write before the game even started, okay?

Bullpens are going to give up runs. I know that’s still tough to comprehend after we watched the Royals bullpens of a decade or so ago, but it happens. I’ve been following the Royals bullpen numbers since the start of their last road trip and it’s been a lot better. They have a very reasonable 3.62 ERA, but more impressively, they have a 28.2 percent strikeout rate and 9.4 percent walk rate. The walk rate may seem a little high, but it’s actually middle of the pack in baseball while the strikeout rate is toward the top of the league.

Some of this is that Barlow has gotten his mojo back. He’s thrown 7.2 scoreless innings since April 21, including a scoreless easy ninth last night that led to the win. But they have five pitchers - Barlow, Josh Staumont, Carlos Hernandez, Josh Taylor and Taylor Clarke - with a strikeout rate above 30 percent. The best bullpens strike guys out. The Royals bullpen now strikes guys out. I’m very happy with what I’ve seen.