Kris Bubic Was Great...Until He Wasn't

It's a trend with Royals pitchers, but something both Bubic and the team can learn from.

It feels like so long ago that the Royals won three games in a row and things felt at least sort closer to good. Another loss gave them four in a row for the sixth time this season. It’s kind of amazing that they haven’t lost more than six in a row. With pitching this bad, you’d almost expect the massive tailspin that we’ve seen so much of in previous seasons. But hey, the year is young, amirite? But anyway, last night’s game was kind of one of the four or five games the Royals always play on repeat.

Think about it. You have the standard blowout. Then there’s the game where the Royals fall behind early, keep it relatively close throughout by scoring a few runs here or there while the other team also adds on. Then there’s the game that the Royals get a lead and keep it through most of the game before giving it up later, often in heartbreaking fashion. And then there’s the game that’s close until a pitcher hits a snag and gives up a couple of runs in the middle innings. Sometimes that game is accompanied by the Royals going like 1 for 12 with runners in scoring position. And there’s the random win that we get to see every so often. It’s also usually stressful. This one was the close game that fell off the rails in the middle innings.

Kris Bubic looked quite good to start things off, and I think the positives from the first five innings outweigh the negatives of his sixth inning by a fair amount, so I’m going to focus on those to start because at 20-41, development is king and there is quite a bit to build off for both Bubic and the way the Royals handle him moving forward. I want to go inning by inning with him.

First Inning

My attention was grabbed immediately when Bubic threw his third pitch of the game at 95.5 MPH. You may recall that I’ve mentioned many times that if he can up that velocity on his fastball, he can find a lot more success. It’s a pitch that’s been hit and been hit hard, but he’s also shown that he can touch as high as 97 and can sit for a few pitches at a time around 92-94. The problem is that he came into the game averaging 91.3 MPH with it. He had thrown 35 of his 233 fastballs this season at less than 90 MPH. For a guy who hasn’t shown pinpoint command, that just doesn’t play.

But he averaged 93 MPH with the fastball last night and, as I said, hit 95.5 on his third pitch. He finished that first at bat with a nasty curve.

After a four-pitch walk, I thought he got away with a couple against Joc Pederson. His first fastball was down the middle, but that added velocity showed what it could do as he got Pederson to swing through one at 93.2 MPH. He wasn’t far behind it, so maybe half a mile per hour slower and that’s a ball flicked into left field with a runner on first.

So that was a first inning with 14 fastballs and three curves. He didn’t even throw his changeup, which has been his best pitch and actually is something I noticed from Daniel Lynch the other day when he didn’t throw his best pitch at all in the first inning either. That’s something that, if you can get away with it, can allow you to have a new weapon as you turn a lineup over.

Second Inning

Bubic unleashed his changeup for the first time on an 0-2 pitch to Evan Longoria and it was a dandy.

He had a longer battle with Brandon Crawford for the next batter, but threw his second changeup on a 1-2 pitch that was very close and you have to give credit for Crawford taking it. But he went back to that well on the 2-2 pitch, but put it in a better spot.

Boy do I love a left-on-left changeup.

Then he started humming his fastballs a little more. After his third swinging strike on a changeup on three swings, he threw a 95.3 MPH fastball for a ball and got Thairo Estrada on a 93.6 MPH fastball to end the second.

So he’s introduced the changeup and it appears he has everything working. He threw seven fastballs, four changeups and two curves.

Third Inning

Bubic really started to go to his changeup here in the third and I thought it looked good, but the Giants just weren’t biting on pitches that I thought were pretty sharp. They’re a good, patient and smart offense, so it probably says more about them than it does about anything Bubic and the Royals were doing, but I thought it was interesting that after getting a look at the changeup and struggling, they just didn’t get fooled by it, at least in the way of swings and misses.

But still, it got him his first out on a groundout and then got a called strike three on a changeup that was a call Adam Hamari was giving pretty much all night (and one I was worried he wouldn’t give to Bubic).

All in all, I thought this was his best inning of the night.

Fourth Inning

Bubic walked the leadoff hitter, Wilmer Flores, for the second time of the game. In that plate appearance, his fastball ranged from 92.6 to 94, but after the walk, he took a lot off it to face Joc Pederson and while he got him on a fastball, you got the impression that Pederson just missed it. Did he take some velocity off to make sure he threw strikes with it? I don’t know. The fastball was back a bit to Darin Ruf and then he got him to ground out on a good changeup. It was a pretty fancy double play.

Fifth Inning

This was the inning I think I found the most interesting because he ended up giving his first hit during the inning, but I think you could see his command start to waver. Longoria hit a lazy fly ball on the first pitch, but Brandon Crawford caught a changeup that missed over the plate and hit a ball hard into right field for a single.

Bubic got the next two outs, but the very next batter was Estrada and he hit a fastball that Bubic left out over the plate.

No damage was done. The ball was hit at 95 MPH but was never in danger of even falling for a hit. Kyle Isbel tracked it down with no issues. But it was at 91.9 MPH and I would guess Estrada was not happy with himself as he went back to the dugout. Maybe I’m being unfair because he did a great job of staying on the edges against Austin Wynns to get the third out and his fastballs in that at bat were at 93.2 and 94.6, but looking back, I just see those couple of pitches that were left over the plate in the inning as a bad omen.

Sixth Inning

This is where the wheels fell off a bit. The inning started with a fastball to Luis Gonzalez that was basically in the same spot as Estrada’s flyout from the inning before. The difference was that he found grass and was on second base with nobody out. While Bubic did get Slater for a third time, he missed badly over the middle of the plate on the first and third pitch of the at bat.

Good for Bubic for not getting hurt on that, but like Estrada, I’m guessing Slater is going to be pretty upset when he watches video from this one.

But the luck ran out there. Wilmer Flores got a changeup over the middle of the plate and hit a hard single to left for a run. Pederson did get a lucky hit with a slow roller to third, but Bubic left another fastball over the middle to Ruf and that brought home the second run.

Dylan Coleman couldn’t strand the runner on third, giving up a sacrifice fly and an outing that looked so promising from the start ended up in just kind of meh numbers for Bubic.

He went 5.1 innings, gave up three runs on five hits with six strikeouts and two walks. There was honestly a lot to like from him, but those command issues that he’s had reared their ugly head in a game where the Royals offense didn’t support their pitching giving up much of anything. But I think there are some takeaways for Bubic from this outing.

The Takeaways

For one thing, I really liked him incorporating his changeup a little bit later. I think that helped him with his second at bat against Slater where he caught him looking with a changeup. While I’m a huge proponent of using your best pitches more, if you can get through an inning or two without having to flash it, especially against a team you’ve never faced, I think it’s such a nice idea. Obviously there’s a pretty quick way to tell if that idea will work or not and maybe you have to move away from that plan fast, but if you can, do it.

I also loved how hard he threw that fastball. I mentioned all the sub-90 MPH fastballs he’s thrown this year. In this one, he threw 55 fastballs and just one at less than 90. He threw 25 at 93 or harder last night. Coming into the game, he’d thrown 25 that hard all season long. That velocity allows him to be a little less fine with his command because when you pair that with a good changeup, it can make a hitter look silly on a pitch he would think he should be hitting hard based on the location. I would have liked to have seen the curve a little more, especially as the lineup turned over a third time, but that’s something to work with moving forward.

For the Royals, I think you continue to try to work him deeper into games if you can, but also there’s value in a guy being a five-inning type pitcher. No, that guy can’t be the ace of your staff, but I think there’s room for a pitcher at the back of a rotation who you just know isn’t going to pitch into the sixth very often. But I’m also kind of intrigued in Bubic in a different sort of role. I know he’s had his first inning issues this season, but also he showed in his one relief inning that he could hit 97. He showed it again last night a couple of times.

Could Bubic be sort of an extended opener? As teams begin to platoon more and more like the Giants do, I think there’s very real value in starting the game with a pitcher and giving him once through the order or maybe even four innings before turning that over to another pitcher who you expect to give you a few innings but throws with the opposite hand. Pairing Bubic with someone like Brady Singer could be a pretty fun way to either get a team to empty their bench early or get Singer in there against a lot of righties. I don’t know if that’s the answer here, but these are the sort of questions the Royals need to be asking themselves as they use the rest of this season to figure out the best way to eek out a few extra wins in the future when they hopefully matter.

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Crown Jewels

Lopez’s New Role

When the lineup came out last night and I went to send out the tweet that I do on most days, I was typing the names and the positions and when I got to the ninth spot, I typed “Riv” and then realized that nope, it wasn’t Emmanuel Rivera but rather Nicky Lopez in there at third base and hitting ninth. First of all, I thought Rivera could use a day and Logan Webb is a pitcher who I think would have eaten him up, so good job by Mike Matheny to get that right. But I would have expected Lopez to slide in at shortstop with the birthday boy, Bobby Witt Jr., moving back to third. But it appears that Witt is the shortstop now and that’s that, which I think is a good thing. You might remember how I disliked the idea that Adalberto Mondesi would be in and out of the lineup with the shortstop spot rotating often. So that’s good.

But what I think is interesting is what this signals for Lopez. And maybe Rivera. I mentioned on Monday the roster moves that are coming and how I think Lopez might be in a little trouble. It appears the Royals are trying this out for one of two reasons and it might be both. I think they want to see if he can handle the spot as a utility infielder, which makes sense. He played 45 games at third in college, but has only played three innings there professionally. For what it’s worth, he had some chances and I thought he looked solid. But I think the Royals like his ability to make contact at the bottom of the order, so maybe they’re considering making that a regular occurrence when they need to make room for Edward Olivares coming back.

While I’d rather see Rivera there because he actually provides a chance to drive the ball, it’s fair to note that he’s hitting .215/.269/.397. The ISO is solid for the year, but he’s also hitting just .189/.250/.284 in his last 20 games. Of course, Lopez has been even worse in June. His hit in the third inning last night broke an 0 for 15 stretch and he’s still hitting just .216/.289/.254 on the season and just .209/.254/.239 in his last 20 games. So you can’t exactly say that he’s hot right now. After seeing him at third, I have a fear they’re going to send Rivera down soon, but I’m hopeful they’re just getting an idea of what he can do there. I guess we’ll find out soon enough.

Cal’s Visits

A lot has been made of how the Royals fare after Cal Eldred comes to the mound for a visit when they’re struggling. And while I agree that he is wholly unqualified for his job and should have been fired about three years ago (or more), I do think the whole thing regarding his visits has gotten to be a little overblown. Think about the situations when a pitching coach would come to the mound. It’s never when a guy has a 1-2 count after getting the first two batters of an inning on seven pitches. No, he’s out there when a pitcher is struggling. Think of Singer on Monday night when he just couldn’t find the strike zone for a few minutes. That’s when a pitching coach heads to the mound. So it stands to reason that his visits are a lot more likely to precede something bad happening than at other points in the game. And I say this as one of the earliest adopters of calling him out for being a simply terrible coach.

That doesn’t mean people aren’t right. I haven’t looked at other teams and how they do following a coaching visit because, quite frankly, it’s tedious and I’m not even sure how accurate it can be. If you comb through Gameday after a game, all you’ll see is “mound visit” which can be the catcher coming to the mound or the pitching coach or the manager. But where people are right is not that he’s telling his pitcher to do something stupid but rather that he’s incapable of fixing what a pitcher is doing wrong. I know I’ve gone to this well quite a bit, but I can’t get over how it took the Fenway Park camera angle for them to figure out Brad Keller’s mechanical issue last season. Eldred and company simply aren’t good enough or savvy enough to be able to diagnose what is wrong in the moment and fix it fast enough to stop the bleeding. So yes, he has to be fired and the whole thing about them giving up bombs after he visits the mound is funny in a depressing way, but I think there needs to be some context there as well. We can call this organization out for the terrible things they do and are and do it correctly!