From Young Royals Pitchers to Old, It Was Tense the Whole Time

All it took was the return of Ryan O'Hearn to spark the offense. Just as we all predicted.

In the 2020 season, the Royals faced nine different teams, all in either the American League or National League Central. It’s not that teams like the Cardinals or Cubs don’t have a long history or even the Tigers, but there’s just something different about pitching against the Yankees in Yankee Stadium, even if it’s not the old Yankee Stadium and even if this version of the Yankees actually scores fewer runs per game than the Royals.

So I think it’s fair to be curious how Brady Singer would compete in his first game against the Yankees and only his sixth start against a team he didn’t get to face during his rookie season. It’s also fair to wonder how he would fare after leaving his last start after three innings due to a shoulder issue that was either determined before the game or not, depending on who you ask. And I’ve been pretty critical of Singer for letting his emotions get the better of him and for being unable to evaluate his performance after games at times.

So when he came out in the bottom of the first and got weak groundouts from the first two batters, I thought I’d be settling in to see some kind of performance, but the first pitch to Luke Voit was yet another meatball that he hit at just a touch under 110 MPH and 423 feet.

And then the unraveling started. An infield single sandwiched between two walks and he was faced with a big challenge when Clint Frazier walked to the plate. Frazier isn’t having much of a season, but he had a nice year last year and can still be dangerous. I thought he made a mistake by not getting his sinker up a little bit more, but if you’ve read me for any length of time, you know I love the idea of changing both timing and eye level. And it led to a soft groundout to end the inning. Crisis averted.

And from that point until there were two outs in the fourth inning, it sure seemed like he figured some things out. He did leave a pitch that caught a bit too much of the plate to Kyle Higashioka that led to a second home run, but I really thought he settled down nicely and while the slider just wasn’t there early, he found it with a nasty strikeout of Giancarlo Stanton.

In the third, he found the location for both pitches and got a weak groundout and two strikeouts to end the inning. Then in the fourth, he made some great pitches to get both Higashioka and Brett Gardner to strike out. That was four strikeouts in a row. But when the lineup turned over for a third time, he went to 3-2 on three straight hitters, but all ended up walking. And then it was time for Kris Bubic.

Now, as you know, Bubic has struggled lately. He had a 9.19 ERA in June with eight home runs allowed in 15.2 innings. And he was brought into the game to face Stanton with the bases loaded and the game tied after Ryan O’Hearn tied the game in the top of the fourth.

And he started him with a curve. Why is that significant? He throws a curve just under 11 percent of the time to righties. He starts righties with a curve just under 10 percent of the time. Of the 93 total curves he’s thrown this season, he hadn’t thrown a single one where this one ended up. Of the 16 he’s thrown to righties to start at bats, only six have been in the zone. But the seventh was in the zone and Stanton hit a ball that led Kelvin Gutierrez perfectly to third to end the inning and the threat.

And from there, Bubic might have been the best he’d been all season. He ended up throwing 10 changeups, the pitch that had been giving him a lot of trouble recently, and it was absolutely brilliant. He threw 10, got seven swings and three of them were misses. One was hit foul, three were hit in play and all three were soft contact. He ended his second inning of work with a clinic of an at bat to Clint Frazier. First, see the placement:

Now see the final pitch of that sequence:

It was a bit rockier the rest of the way for Jake Brentz, Kyle Zimmer, Scott Barlow and Greg Holland. The first two gave up three runs between them and Barlow nearly gave up a game-tying home run to Aaron Judge, but it was just a double and then he was able to escape with nothing coming home. Holland allowed a 68.7 MPH exit velocity single to start the inning. Then a strikeout of Gleyber Torres on a wild pitch got pinch runner Miguel Andujar to second base with one out. Holland got another strikeout of Frazier and then they put the winning run on first by walking Gary Sanchez intentionally.

Can I just say that I hated this? I get the logic. Sanchez is hot and he’s much more likely to put one over the wall than Brett Gardner. Heck, he’s more likely to put one in the gap than Gardner. But still, I hate putting the winning run on base, even to face the number nine hitter. So, of course, with all my hand wringing, Holland got Gardner to pop up on the fifth pitch to end the game.

In all, the Royals struck out 10 in the game, walked eight (one intentionally) and gave up three home runs. It was baseball in 2021 in a nutshell. That’s 21 batters out of 45 without the ball in play. But hey, they got the win and that’s what matters.

O’Hearn’s Return

When Adalberto Mondesi went to the IL again on Monday for his oblique injury, the Royals had some options. They could have gone with Bobby Witt, Jr., which would have honestly been fan service more than anything. Also, I’m not entirely sure they would have been able to directly call him up anyway with Covid testing protocols. Aside from him, they could have called up Edward Olivares again or they could have gone with Ryan McBroom, who is slugging homers like crazy in Omaha. Or they could have gone with Kyle Isbel, who isn’t playing especially well. But they called up Ryan O’Hearn.

Look, the guy earned his callup. He went down to AAA after struggling once again in the big leagues and all he did in 19 games was hit .375/.451/.931 with 12 home runs in 82 plate appearances. His strikeout rate of 18.3 percent might have been even more impressive given all the swinging and missing he’s done in the big leagues. Okay, that’s silly. The home runs were crazy. So now he’s up in what I think should be his last shot (but I’m not sure that it is). Luckily, Yankee Stadium is the perfect spot for him with the short porch in right field.

And in his second at bat, Gerrit Cole left a changeup over the middle of the plate and O’Hearn did what he was supposed to do to it.

Fast forward to the top of the eighth inning. Whit Merrifield started things with a single. Carlos Santana got Merrifield to third with a ringing double to left center. And Salvador Perez took a called third strike to leave both of them hanging in scoring position for O’Hearn. At that point, the Royals had 10 hits in their last 90 at bats with runners in scoring position. No, that’s not a typo. And on a 99.9 MPH sinker on his hands, O’Hearn hit a ball up the middle that new second baseman Tyler Wade fielded but couldn’t quite get enough on the throw and the game was tied.

Then with Jarrod Dyson up after pinch running for Jorge Soler in the seventh inning, he hit a soft ground ball to Wade at second and O’Hearn froze. That made it so Wade couldn’t get the double play and Santana just beat the throw home to give the Royals their first lead of the night.

They would go on to add another on a Hunter Dozier single and another on a Michael A. Taylor single to give the Royals a 6-3 lead with a four-run eighth, but O’Hearn’s presence was felt quickly for the big club. I have to say that I would love for him to prove me wrong.

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Crown Jewels

Spin Zone

Over the next few games, I’m just going to take this space to look at the spin rates from all the pitchers in the games (who have a sample before this week) to see what their spin rates look like compared to their season total with the new check-ins from the umpires to make sure pitchers aren’t using anything they aren’t supposed to.

Brady Singer

Kris Bubic

Jake Brentz

Kyle Zimmer

Scott Barlow

Greg Holland

Gerrit Cole

Jonathan Loaisiga

Lucas Luetge

Duffy’s Return

You probably know by now that the Royals are starting Danny Duffy in tonight’s game against the Yankees. I have to say that I don’t love this at all. It’s not that I’m not excited to see Duffy come back and pitch, but he hasn’t thrown a competitive pitch since May 12. That’s six full weeks. I know that the hitters in Omaha or Northwest Arkansas or wherever aren’t going to replicate big league hitters, but just having the nature of a game that matters is something that I’d love to see him get built up in before coming back to the big leagues, especially in Yankee Stadium against the lineup full of righties.

All that said, we saw how Bubic was able to handle the Yankees when he came out of the bullpen and honestly we saw how Singer was able to use his slider after he got it under control. Both Duffy’s slider and changeup have been big time swing and miss pitches for him this season, so if he can come back with anything close to the same sharpness he had on those pitches early, maybe he’ll have some success against the Yankees. I don’t anticipate him being able to get very deep into the game, which means it’s probably a Duffy and Ervin Santana day. Like I said, it’ll be good to see him out there, but I just have my doubts this is the best way to handle his return.