Kowar's Return and Missed Opportunities

Another young Royals pitcher came back from AAA and looked like a big leaguer, but the Royals wasted it.

There were two big stories from last night’s Royals loss to the Indians. One of them was a rousing nod toward the future while the other was a disapproving scowl at the present. In the moment, the scowl at the present is leaving the bad taste in everyone’s mouths, but the nod toward the future is more important than anything else that happened in the game. Don’t worry, I’ll have plenty of criticism toward whatever it is that the Royals tried to pass off as an offense, especially late, but I want to start with Jackson Kowar’s return to the big leagues.

I think we all knew that when he first came up, the moment was simply too big for him. But after seeing Daniel Lynch’s return to the big leagues after time in the minors go so well and after seeing Carlos Hernandez come back to the big leagues and turn into a big part of the future, there was legitimate intrigue with what Kowar could do in his return. The numbers in AAA for Kowar after his demotion weren’t stellar, but he had started working on a slider to pair with his big, but sometimes too straight, fastball and devastating changeup.

In my mind, it was important for him to start off strong. And the very first batter took his very first slider to left-center for a single. A single could be worse, but it also could be better. I will say that I liked the idea of him having to work out of a jam early, no matter how light that jam was. Amed Rosario was up next after going 5 for 5 on Tuesday night and Kowar worked him over with his fastball. After three foul balls, Kowar went right after him with a fastball down the middle, but Rosario couldn’t catch up to it.

Then with Jose Ramirez batting, Kowar picked off Myles Straw and got Ramirez to pop up to end the first inning and you sort of felt like he could breathe.

Overall, his fastball was crisp. He touched 98 MPH on it and averaged 96.2 MPH, which is plenty. Of the 50 he threw, he got 27 swings and eight whiffs with seven more called strikes. It wasn’t all good, though because the pitch was hit pretty hard with an average exit velocity of 98 and a max of 111.1. All in all, the Indians went 3 for 10 on his fastball with three singles. One of the seven that was not a hit, though, was the Andres Gimenez fly ball that I have no clue how Taylor tracked down, but then he also dropped it.

But you can see how good a pitch it can be.

While there are other concerns with Kowar, one of the biggest ones through the minors is that his fastball can be a little straight and that can cause some problems. I mentioned that the pitch did get hit hard, so there are some concerns, but I thought it looked more lively than I’ve seen in both the minors and in his first stint in the big leagues. That’s a good thing. But his bread and butter is his changeup.

Now, I’m a little concerned that Baseball Savant is misclassifying some of them as Mike Matheny mentioned in postgame that some of the changeups were actually sliders, but his changeup is really nasty and I’m going to go with what they have listed on there. He threw 34 in total and got 14 swings and five whiffs with four more called strikes. One did get hit hard, but overall, the Indians simply couldn’t figure it out.

Take a look at how he attacked lefties with it:

I just love the locations there. I mentioned with Brady Singer that they seemed to ride up and away a little too often and we saw some of that with Kowar, but boy, when it’s good, it’s really, really good.

His strikeout of Franmil Reyes in the second was a really, really good one. I know I was talking about changeups to lefites, but I love when pitchers throw same-side changeups and this one was great.

This one to Bobby Bradley in the third set up a fastball up and then another changeup back down that he watched for strike three.

But my favorite of the night was this one that struck out Reyes on the fourth inning.

When it was all said and done, Kowar went six innings with just two runs allowed on four hits. Neither run was earned due to Taylor’s error, so he was able to cut his ERA by more than half and get it below 9.00. He struck out six, walked three and instilled a lot more confidence in him moving forward. Once he was pulled from the game, the rest was largely irrelevant because getting him on track to find some big league success meant more than anything. And it’s really good that the rest of the game was largely irrelevant because…yikes.

The Royals left runs on the field all game long. In the first, they had two on and nobody out and then the bases loaded with one out and scored just one. It really felt like that should have been a big inning.

In the second, the return of Adalberto Mondesi was felt immediately. He singled to lead off the inning and moved up to second on Hanser Alberto’s single. Then with Nicky Lopez batting, he got such a good jump trying to steal third that he stopped for a second because he thought Logan Allen would stop his delivery. But he didn’t, so Mondesi kept going and ended up scoring on an errant throw.

But the Royals couldn’t do anything more, even with a runner on third and one out.

And in the fourth, Mondesi struck again, hitting his fifth home run in 11 games this season to give the Royals a 3-0 lead.

But after that, it got really ugly. Allen retired the next nine hitters before walking Hunter Dozier in the seventh. I looked up at the start of that seventh inning and Allen had thrown 65 pitches through six innings. He threw 23 in the first, so that made it even more ridiculous. And after getting Alberto to ground out for the second out, Allen’s day was done before he could face a lineup a fourth time.

But against the Indians bullpen, it was generally more of the same. Merrifield did work a walk but Lopez grounded out weakly to end the inning. They went 1-2-3 in the eighth and finally got their first hit since the fourth in the bottom of the ninth, but it was just a two-out Dozier single before Ryan O’Hearn pinch hit and literally hit a ball two feet.

But the pies de resistance was the bottom of the 10th inning. Edward Olivares pinch ran for Emmanuel Rivera, who came into the game for O’Hearn. Merrifield started off by reaching on an error and then taking second on defensive indifference. Lopez walked, basically intentionally to set up a game winner for Salvador Perez, who came up with the bases loaded and nobody out. What followed was one of the worst sequence of at bats you’ll see.

Perez struck out, swinging through two pitches that it really feels like he should have smoked and then through one way out of the zone. Carlos Santana was eaten up by a fastball on the inner third at 90.2 MPH and popped up. Then on a 2-0 pitch, Taylor went after a pitch that he probably was never going to do damage on and popped it up.

It was a terrible at bat from Perez, but with all the big hits, you give him a bit of a pass. Matheny was right in his postgame comments that you simply can’t count the same guy to do it every single night. But I’ll also tell you that I was surprised when he didn’t. But Santana? I think it’s reached the point that he’s unplayable. He has three multi-hit games since the All-Star break. He’s hitting .176/.241/.248 since then. His walk rate has cratered to 7.8 percent. He literally is doing nothing well right now. His defense isn’t even spectacular to make up for it. I don’t especially care if they bring up Nick Pratto to get him some experience, but I’d at least like to see them give Ryan McBroom some time because Santana is completely useless to this team right now.

And then, it’s no surprise that the Indians capitalized. It was a 60.2 MPH bloop over Santana’s head that gave them the ultimate winning run, but that game was lost when Salvy, Santana and Taylor collectively wet their pants. Ultimately, as I said at the top, nope, it doesn’t matter. I wrote about the importance of winning on Tuesday and I think it is important to get wins, but games that are decided with Ervin Santana on the mound and Carlos Santana and Michael A. Taylor at the plate don’t matter.

What matters is what we saw from Jackson Kowar. What matters is what we saw from Adalberto Mondesi. The future played well. The present didn’t. There isn’t much more time for those two to not be the same, but it still is at this moment, which is definitely a good thing to rid ourselves of last night’s bitter taste.

---

Crown Jewel

Salvy’s MVP Chances

There has been so much discussion about Perez as MVP even with him having a couple rough games. The MVP is typically given to one of the best players on a playoff team. Occasionally, a team can miss the playoffs and have a player so good they just can’t be denied. That’s likely going to happen this season as Shohei Ohtani and his ridiculous year both on the mound and at the plate will be rewarded. So because of that, Perez has basically no shot at the MVP. But I was thinking the other day that Ohtani might really be what’s standing between him and at least an outside shot at some consideration. Before you scoff, think about the fact that in the absence of a great candidate on a playoff team, voters often go to the best story, consciously or subconsciously. And there aren’t a lot of stories as good as a catcher two years removed from Tommy John Surgery setting a career high in home runs and playing almost every game.

Look around at the American League playoff teams. Brandon Lowe is the Rays best player and he’s very good and will get votes, but I don’t think he’d win even in the absence of Ohtani. Aaron Judge should get some votes, but he’s weirdly not talked about much in spite of having a great season. Jose Abreu won it last year and is having another excellent season, but I feel like (again, consciously or subconsciously) the bar gets really high for repeat winners. Carlos Correa is probably the Astros most valuable player, but he doesn’t feel like an MVP. And Matt Olson should get consideration, but I just don’t see it. It’s not that I think Salvy is the most deserving because I don’t, but I really wonder how much hype he’d be getting right now if it wasn’t for Ohtani leading the way. I just thought that was interesting to think about it because I really can see a scenario where he wins with the “great story” vote in another world. But in this world, I’m guessing he finishes higher than ever before but doesn’t get a single first, second or third place vote.