Early Inning Carelessness and Late Inning Ineffectiveness Ends a Winning Streak
The Royals wasted another very good Brad Keller start with a leaky bullpen and leaky baserunning.
The Chicago White Sox are a very good baseball team. I’m not sure if they’re a great team, but they’re very good and there is no shame in losing to them. But when you have an opportunity to beat them and you throw it away, it hurts more because the Royals had a second straight win over the White Sox and seventh straight win overall in their grasps after a fantastic Brad Keller outing gave the Royals their sixth good start in their last seven games. I promise I’ll get to Keller because his last four starts have been reminiscent of his 2020, but first let’s talk about the mistakes that led to the Royals loss in nine days.
I thought Dylan Cease looked good, so when the Royals were able to get something going in the second inning against him, they really needed to capitalize. A leadoff walk by Jorge Soler was followed by a single by Andrew Benintendi, putting runners on first and third. Ryan O’Hearn had a good battle with Cease, but it ended with him overpowered by a good fastball on the outer edge. While it was a long at bat, the first big mistake the Royals made was made by O’Hearn by swinging at a pitch way out of the zone on 3-2 on the sixth pitch. If he takes that pitch, the bases are loaded with nobody out.
Hunter Dozier picked up O’Hearn with a sacrifice fly on a pitch on the bottom edge of the zone to give the Royals the first run of the game. Obviously you can’t assume the same things will happen if previous events change, but just hypothetically, the Royals could have had runners on second and third with one out if O’Hearn had taken that 3-2 pitch. So the next batter, Michael A. Taylor hit a ball to right field that Andrew Vaughn simply dropped. It would have been the third out in reality, so the Royals got their out back but not their base runner.
This is when the second mistake occurred. Benintendi scored on the error and Taylor was able to steal second base. I think Cease made a mistake to Nicky Lopez on a 1-1 pitch and put a changeup on the outer edge when Lopez didn’t look like he had much of a chance to pick up the fastball. Lopez got another hit, but for some reason, Vance Wilson sent Taylor home. It, uh, wasn’t close.
I sort of get the thought process. Eloy Jimenez in his second game back and first game in the field has never exactly been known for his defense. His first throw back could be a problem potentially. But the problem is that the ball was hit so shallow and Jimenez was playing so shallow that even that thought process is tough to keep up with. Would Wilson have been so eager to send Taylor if there was one out? Probably not. And we’ll never know what would have happened.
The second mistake came in the bottom of the fifth inning. With the score 3-1, Whit Merrifield singled to left center and tried to stretch the single to a double. It also wasn’t especially close.
Carlos Santana then grounded out to second so it might have been a double play, but I just don’t see the need for that aggression with the 2-3-4 hitters coming up next with nobody out. I don’t know if they would have scored there, but we obviously have no way of knowing that they wouldn’t have. A mistake on the bases robbed them of the chance to find out. I will say that this is the mistake I’m least frustrated by because it took a perfect throw and getting in scoring position for the heart of the lineup isn’t a bad thing, but also it just seemed unnecessary.
Then in the seventh, the final mistake from the offense happened. Dozier walked to lead off the inning. If you can’t hear Denny Matthews talking about leadoff walks in the late innings, then I don’t know what to tell you. But on a slider low and away, it sure looked like the Royals were hitting and running with Dozier and Taylor. I can’t say I don’t understand why they were trying to get things moving with the bottom of the order, but Taylor may be the worst person in the lineup to do it with. He just doesn’t make that much contact. And of course, it wasn’t particularly close at second and Dozier was out.
That’s three outs on the bases against a good team. The Royals are now tied for the seventh most outs on the bases in baseball. They have the fourth most outs at second and 11th most at the plate. I get being aggressive, but aggression is only good when it’s calculated better. They didn’t get another runner on the rest of the game.
And of course, that was important because the bullpen, led by two pitchers riding shotgun on the struggle bus were brought in to protect the lead. I don’t think it was necessarily a mistake to start the eighth with Jake Brentz, but he hasn’t pitched especially well in awhile. He did have five straight scoreless outings heading into the game, but over his previous 16 games, he’d given up 12 hits, walked nine and hit four more in 13.2 innings. Yes, he’d put up a ton of strikeouts (18) in that time, but he hasn’t been very good for awhile.
He gave up a double, then hit another batter and then uncorked a wild pitch before getting Tim Anderson to ground out to Dozier. With runners on second and third and one out, he got a ground ball from Yoan Moncada that scored the White Sox second run and the Royals turned to Kyle Zimmer, who heading into this game had a 7.62 ERA in 13 innings since MLB started cracking down on the sticky stuff. I’m not saying he was using it, but the anecdotal evidence doesn’t look great.
The final mistake, both in hindsight and at the time for me anyway, was walking Jose Abreu to get to Jimenez. I know who Abreu is and what he’s done, but outside of his MVP season last year in a shortened season, Abreu has been a good, not great hitter. Yes, he has a knack for driving in runs, but I’d take my chances with him because his reputation is better than the reality. But they did walk him, and Zimmer simply couldn’t make the pitch.
His first pitch was a fastball up that Jimenez fouled off. That was a mistake he got away with. He wasn’t so lucky on his second pitch. Jimenez didn’t miss the slider right in the happy zone. He hit it 459 feet and the White Sox had a 5-3 lead they woudn’t relinquish.
Way too many mistakes.
And it’s so frustrating because Keller was really good once again, giving the Royals seven more innings of one-run ball with just four hits allowed. I don’t think he actually looked as good as he had in his last few starts, but he was getting back to doing mostly what we’d seen from him over the past few seasons. He threw a ton of sliders and while he didn’t get the whiffs he had been over his last couple starts, it was good.
He set the tone early with a good first inning once again, which has become a trend after some of his brutal first innings earlier this year. He got in a jam in the second that highlighted his progression throughout the year and goes back to something I discussed after his last start in Milwaukee. If you’ll recall, I pointed out the differences in his start when he struck out at least 20 percent of the batters he faced vs. the starts where he didn’t. Now, that didn’t fully hold up in this one as he only struck out four, but in the second with runners on first and third and one out, he went to work.
First, it was Brian Goodwin, who he started with a good fastball, but then went after him with sliders. He got him swinging on the fourth pitch.
Then it was Leury Garcia, who got three pitches that ended with Keller’s hardest pitch of the night at 96.2 MPH. He got out of the jam, and I’m honestly not sure if he does that even a month ago. It was a very impressive performance in the second. He gave up a runner in the third, but he was wiped out by a double play. He gave up a walk in the fourth and then got another double play before allowing a long home run on a mistake.
The White Sox didn’t get another hit until there were two outs in the seventh. It was a ground ball up the middle from Vaughn. Keller absolutely deserved better than the fate of the Royals last night. But his last four starts have been pretty impressive at least.
All good things must come to an end, but it sure felt like the Royals lost a lot more than they actually got beat last night and that’s frustrating.
Crown Jewels
Hosmer Homecoming?
The talk this week is all about the trade deadline and an interesting topic has emerged with the Padres trying to continue to add to their team while they’re approaching the luxury tax line. With Eric Hosmer making an average annual value of $18 million and hitting like we pretty much all expected four years into his eight-year deal, the Padres seem pretty eager to move him to shed his salary and stay below the luxury tax. Just how eager are they? It sure sounds like they’re willing to attach one of their top four prospects to him (CJ Abrams, Luis Campusano, Mackenzie Gore and Robert Hassell) for a team to take on the rest of his money.
I said this on Monday when the talk started about the Padres wanting to move Hosmer and I stand by it. But that said, the Royals are in desperate need of someone to slot in as their center fielder for the next five or six years. CJ Abrams is out for the year, and I’m not as high on him as the rest of the baseball world because I don’t love the lack of power, but many believe he can be an impact defensive center fielder who can hit. I still don’t think it makes sense if the Royals believe in Nick Pratto, and I’m pretty sure they do, but the addition of an elite prospect makes you at least consider the possibility. I also think I’d feel a lot better about the idea if I knew the Royals would find a way to get the top prospect and flip Hosmer while likely eating a good chunk of the money. I think we all know that wouldn’t happen, though, so I have to say I’m not a fan of the idea.
Good Things Down on the Farm
After a frustrating and annoying loss, it’s nice to have a palate cleanser of talking about some of the better Royals prospects. Don’t look at the scores, but Bobby Witt, Jr. seems to be taking a liking to AAA pitching. He went 2 for 4 last night with his third AAA home run. It was an opposite field shot, which is super impressive. He also had his second double. If you want to find a criticism of his first 34 AAA plate appearances, he hasn’t walked yet, but a 20.6 percent strikeout rate isn’t bad at all. Oh yeah, and he’s hitting .382 with a .706 SLG. Luckily, it wasn’t just Witt yesterday. Oh and here’s his home run:
MJ Melendez hit his 24th home run, which now ties him for the lead in all of the minors. He really needs to get up to AAA after winning player of the week for the third time in four weeks last week and working on his fourth in five this week already. Nick Pratto hasn’t been great in AAA, but “not great” means he’s hitting .269/.387/.577 with five walks and six strikeouts in 31 plate appearances, so, uh, that’s pretty good. The guy who replaced him in AA, Vinnie Pasquantino, is hitting .375/.412/.594 since his promotion. Dairon Blanco kept hitting with another home run in a 2 for 5 night. He started off slow this year, but since and including the game he hit his first homer on June 1, he’s hitting .341/.404/.549 over 185 plate appearances. There are more positives out there, but that’s a lot of good news to enjoy, so I’ll leave it at that for now.
I'm really hoping they move Michael Taylor. He has been exactly what I expected, a replacement level hitter who plays a good CF. With Isbel hot as fire now, its time to plug him in and see if he can handle CF. Blanco has had an impressive season, but he's 28. Maybe give him a shot, idk but there is no point in Taylor taking up a spot on the 40 at this point. Soler's recent power surge is one of the better developments lately. I can see a team actually parting with a semi decent prospect for him now.