Bubic and the Bats Bully the Brewers
The letter grade for the Royals yesterday is...A.
It’s always easier when you can take a breath right away. It gets even easier when your starter goes out and gives you six shutout innings. And it gets even easier when the offense tacks in in the late innings to take a comfortable lead to blowout territory. All in all, it’s tough to ask for more from a game. What’s impressive to me is that it sure feels like there’s more to ask for from this team and they had a great game against a team that won 93 games a year ago (though they sort of look like a shell of that team right now).
I love when I don’t know the best place to begin because it generally means there was a lot to like. I’m going to start with Kris Bubic because I think his return to the rotation and what he did yesterday is super important and deserves top billing. The line tells as much of the story as you need to know, but of course I’m going to tell you more.
6 IP
3 H
0 R
8 K
2 BB
15 Whiffs
1 Hard-Hit Ball
Okay, I threw some Baseball Savant stats in there because it’s just so impressive what he did yesterday. I know the Brewers lineup hasn’t exactly been killing it to start the season (outside of scoring nine when they gave up 20), but let’s not pretend like it’s a lineup without talent. Bubic’s first inning featured 12 pitches and three strikeouts and he was off and running.
He struggled some in the second inning, but it wasn’t from a lack of quality pitching. He did walk Sal Frelick, so that was on him, but then he got BABIP’d to death a bit with a couple of infield singles, but he escaped. And then he wasn’t really in any trouble the rest of the way. He did walk a guy and hit a batter in the third, but was never in trouble. He gave up a soft single in the fifth, but otherwise retired 10 of the last 11 hitters he faced and picked up the first quality start of the year for the Royals.
How did he do it?
His fastball was a monster. It is absolutely wild to me that the guy who had the fastball that he had early in his career has developed that pitch to be as good as it is. In 2020, he gave up a .299 average and .464 slugging percentage on his fastball with a 23.4 percent whiff rate. In 2022, he gave up a .348 average with a .587 slugging percentage and a 20.2 percent whiff rate. Yesterday, though? Oh my. He carried over what he did with the fastball out of the bullpen in a big way.
It’s no surprise that his velocity dipped some. He averaged 92.5 MPH on the fastball compared to an even 93 last year, but that’s okay with the movement he has on it and the location. He filled the zone, but the Brewers just couldn’t do much damage on it all.