Hard Hits and Hard Luck

There was more to the loss last night than just some bad luck, but going 1 for 8 on balls hit 100+ MPH is pretty frustrating.

Hitting the ball hard isn’t a guarantee for a hit. But it’s definitely better in the long run than hitting the ball softly. I’m not sure you can tell that to the Royals after last night with a straight face, though. Until the bottom of the eighth inning, the four hardest hit balls of the game were by the Royals. And they were all outs. Erik Gonzalez hit a pesky 108.3 MPH ground ball (also an out) to ruin the quartet at the top, but it was still something you don’t see often. 

In total, there were 16 balls hit 100 miles per hour or harder ranging from Nicky Lopez’s 100.5 MPH lineout to left to Jorge Soler’s 114.7 MPH lineout to, well, left. The Royals had one hit on them, a single by Salvador Perez in the top of the first inning. Hey, at least Perez finally got a hit off a lefty this season. To be fair to the game as a whole, the Pirates had eight batted balls at 100+ MPH and they only ended up with two hits on them, so it was that kind of game. 

Not every hard hit ball is created equal, of course. Some are squared up but hit higher than far. Others are hit on the ground right at someone. But generally if you hit the ball hard, good things will happen, which is the saving grace from a very swift end to a winning streak.

And because baseball is such a crazy game sometimes, there were all those hard hit balls and what ended up being the game winning hit came on the second softest hit ball of the night, a 70.7 MPH single off the bat of Wilmer Difo. The only batted ball that was harder than was a sacrifice bunt by Jakob Junis. Have I mentioned how awful it is to watch pitchers hit? No? Well it is. Oh, don’t worry, I’ll get to Junis, but first I want to look at each of these hard hit balls from the Royals to see just how unlucky they were. 

I’m going to go from lowest xBA to highest because I’m all about building the drama.

Carlos Santana - 5th inning, 106.9 MPH, .320 xBA

After two strikeouts, Whit Merrifield worked a walk when the lineup turned over for a third time. It seemed like a possibility that the Royals were starting to get to Tyler Anderson and Santana hit the ball hard, but just an easy force out here. Maybe if he hadn’t tried to pull the ball, it’d be a different story, but as you can see from the xBA, more often than not, this ball isn’t a hit, so yes it was hit hard, but no, it’s not likely to be a hit too often.

Salvador Perez - 3rd inning, 108.5 MPH, .430 xBA

Another third out here. It’s hard to get too terribly upset with this one. Salvy put a good swing on the ball, but probably would have been better off if he had waited a bit to head to right-center on this pitch, similar to Santana’s above. But, alas, he didn’t and that was the third out. With Santana on first, you can argue that if he had done a better job of waiting back it might have scored another run, but also Santana doesn’t run especially well, so it’s doubtful.

Jorge Soler - 1st inning, 103.0 MPH, .490 xBA

This was another pretty basic groundout and the beginning of a trend of a runner reaching first with two outs and then a grounder that isn’t a hit even half the time. It was hit hard, but placed poorly based on the fact that he tried to pull a ball he shouldn’t have tried to pull. This is another example of Anderson getting the hitter to do what he wanted, even if it resulted in hard contact.

Salvador Perez - 8th inning, 102.9 MPH, .540 xBA

In this lineout with two outs, Salvy changed things up and hit the ball in the air. This was a matter of some poor placement and the ball hanging up just a bit. I think he had the right approach and everything, and the xBA shows that this was some legitimate bad luck, but not as much as what we’re about to get to.

Hunter Dozier - 2nd inning, 109.7 MPH, .630 xBA

I tweeted this a few hours before the game:

David Lesky @DBLesky

Hunter Dozier is 3 for 14 on balls hit 100+ MPH. That's a .214 average and he has a .643 SLG. The league is hitting .585 with a 1.254 SLG on balls hit 100+. He has other issues, but it would be nice if some hard hit balls would fall in.

And on the second pitch he saw, he hit at an absolute rocket directly to Adam Frazier at second base. I guess you can update that tweet to 3 for 15. Dozier has a lot going wrong right now, but he’s also hit into some brutal luck. Bad and unlucky is no way to go through life.

Nicky Lopez - 7th inning, 100.5 MPH, .680 xBA

Okay, come on. When Lopez hits a ball this hard, he deserves a hit. It happens so rarely. But for real, this was a result of his lack of power hurting him as the outfield was playing too shallow for this ball to drop. Still, that’s some bad luck.

Salvador Perez - 1st inning, 100.6 MPH, .880 xBA

I included this for some hope. Salvy hit a ball hard that was supposed to be a hit and it fell for a hit. It was not a sign of things to come.

Jorge Soler - 6th inning, 114.7 MPH, .910 xBA

And this was the one that made me realize it simply wasn’t the Royals night. Soler absolutely blistered this ball. In fact, it was the hardest hit ball by a Royals player this year. If you were wondering, he also has the second, third and fourth hardest hit balls as well, but that’s another story. So yeah, when this ball found a glove, it was tough to see them winning this game.

The offense has some legitimate problems, especially lately, but eight balls that hard-hit with just one hit is one of those things that don’t seem likely to happen again. Prior to last night, they’d hit 121 balls that hard in 21 games. They had 68 hits on those and two sacrifice flies. Is the game different last night if the Royals had four more of those balls fall in? I don’t know the answer, but in a one-run loss, I think it’s fair to assume that it could have been. 

Junis Shoved Again

The good news from last night was the fantastic start from Junis. Sure he took the loss, but he gave up just two runs on six hits in 6.1 innings with nine strikeouts and just one walk. Now, the walk was pretty damaging in that first inning, but he looked fantastic. The movement on his cutter was amazing. Baseball Savant is still having some trouble differentiating between the slider and the cutter, but he had a 50 percent whiff rate on whatever it was that was moving toward the left-handed batter’s box. What little contact Pirates hitters made on it was weak. 

I worry about him averaging just 89.5 MPH on his fastball. With that velocity, he really needs to have pinpoint command, but he does have very good command, so maybe he can survive on that. Still, you’re likely to see some ups and downs from him with his velocity so far below average, but that doesn’t mean he can’t be successful, and last night was a great example of what it can look like when he does have it working. 

I will say that I was a bit disappointed we didn’t see the changeup in this start after he was so happy with it in his last start against the Rays. That’s a weapon he can really use against lefties to get some swings and misses if it’s working. It’s not like he needed it yesterday, getting a good number of swings and misses against them.

I loved the way he worked up to them with that cutter. And because I like you, here’s a look at the whiffs to righties. Look at him just hammering that low and away pitch:

Last night was the second loss of the season, as I see it, in games in that middle 54 we’ve talked about so much. Here’s your updated tally:

Win 54: 8-0
Lose 54: 0-6
Middle 54: 6-2

I’m not entirely sure if it’s something to worry about that they have done so well in games that are up in the air or if it’s a sign of things to come. Either way, it’s been a big part of their fast start. And hey, there are worse things than a loss on a day the White Sox and Twins both lose as well if you’re thinking ahead to a division race. I still think the Twins will be a factor in spite of their drastic struggles so far, so keeping them at a distance is a good thing.

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Crown Jewels

Catching Teams at the Right Time

There’s some deserved questions about whether or not the Royals are lucky or good. They just have a +3 run differential in spite of being six games over .500. With a good bullpen and a sputtering offense, that’s bound to happen somewhat, but their 6-1 record in one-run games might be a touch unsustainable. But something that has gone a bit overlooked is that they’ve faced teams at the right time, both with key players out and teams just struggling. The Blue Jays, for example, still haven’t gotten George Springer back and some of their key players weren’t yet hitting on all cylinders when the Royals faced them. The Angels were missing Anthony Rendon. The Tigers aren’t good, but they were in the midst of a rough stretch offensively.

That’s not to take away what the Royals have done. They’ve handled their business and shouldn’t apologize for anyone on their schedule, but they’re going to have to play better if they want to keep up any semblance of this. They might be continuing to catch a break in some ways as they head to Minnesota next and they’re not playing well, but they should be getting a number of their key players back both from injury and the COVID-IL. After that, it’s a tough homestand against the Indians, with Franmil Reyes on fire, and the White Sox, the current closest competitor. In 11 games, I feel like we’ll know a lot about this team. And we’ll be dangerously close to Dayton Moore’s 40-game mark, so there might be some moves coming.

That’s What Speed Do Team Update

The Royals have prided themselves on speed for some time, obviously, and this year is no different. So far this season they have five players currently on the roster who rank in the 80th percentile in sprint speed or higher. They are, in order of the lowest percentile to highest, Hunter Dozier, Nicky Lopez, Jarrod Dyson, Whit Merrifield and Michael A. Taylor. They also rank first in the AL in stolen bases, so they’re putting the speed to good use.

And this is before Adalberto Mondesi even makes his season debut and Bobby Witt, Jr. even gets called up to the big leagues. Kyle Isbel also ranked in the 81st percentile in speed before his demotion, so the Royals emphasis on speed is definitely easy to see. I’m not sure how many games it’ll win them, but it’s a fun brand of baseball to watch, you know, when they can actually get on base and utilize that speed.