Late Inning Heroics Snatch Victory From Jaws of Defeat

After a really bad loss, the Royals might have handed the White Sox a worse one.

It was apparent early on that Lucas Giolito had the good stuff working. From the stands, it looked like the kind of stuff that would keep down the best lineups, so when facing the Royals, he had a chance to do something special. Through three innings, the Royals were hitless. Jorge Soler’s second inning walk gave the Royals their only runner, but he was wiped out immediately with a Ryan O’Hearn double play. It took until there were two outs in the fifth when a 2-2 changeup to O’Hearn above the zone was hit 45.8 MPH on the ground. It was hit so softly that it took Giolito long enough to get to the ball that he beat it out.

Luckily, they were able to get something going in the seventh. Salvador Perez hit a leadoff double on a ball that Leury Garcia absolutely should have caught in the right field corner. And then Jorge Soler showed just how strong he is. He didn’t get all of it, but somehow drove a ball to the left field wall to score Perez. He went to third on the throw and the Royals were down 2-1 in the seventh with nobody out and a man on third.

That’s when they finally got Giolito out of the game, about nine outs before I expected. Aaron Bummer came in to face Andrew Benintendi and got him swinging on a nasty cutter. Hanser Alberto, who had struck out in just 10.5 percent of plate appearances coming into the game just needed to put the ball in play. He did not. And then Hunter Dozier had a chance, but hit a sharp ground ball to shortstop. The opportunity was squandered.

Now fast forward to the ninth and Liam Hendriks, the White Sox overpowering closer, was in the game. If you’ll recall, one of his four blown saves prior to last night was against the Royals back in April when Carlos Santana homered against him in the ninth in Chicago. Santana led off the inning with some solid contact, but not quite enough. Then it was Salvy time.

That’s a massive home run to tie the game. Everyone in the stadium knew it the second the ball hit the bat. It was his first ninth inning home run of the season, but certainly not his first clutch bomb. A flyout from Soler and then a well hit ball by Benintendi ended the inning and gave Kansas City its first extra inning game with the new rules. It was actually the first home extra inning game since July 25, 2019.

The 10th was kind of crazy. Scott Barlow was nails. With the runner on second, he worked the bottom of the zone and got Yoan Moncada swinging. He worked the outer third and beyond against Billy Hamilton and got him swinging. He did walk Garcia, but got Brian Goodwin pinch hitting to fly out to deep left center and keep the White Sox off the board. That’s when the true craziness started.

With Benintendi on second and Alberto at the plate, he bunted and this is one of the few times where I don’t hate a sacrifice bunt. Playing for one run is often a disaster, but when you literally need one run, I don’t have a real issue with it. And it was a great bunt. So then Dozier came up and the infield came in. On a pitch away, Dozier did what he’s done far too often this year and hit a grounder to the left side. It was right at Tim Anderson, which is not ideal.

I think what happened is that they said Benintendi left the baseline. This is a situation where it’d be great if the umpires could explain things NFL referee style. But either way, the almost celebration was not. It was up to Michael A. Taylor, who got three straight cutters from Ryan Burr. Taylor was 5 for 12 on cutters this year without a strikeout before this at bat, by the way. That’s some bad pitch selection.

Dozier scored (that was way closer than I expected; nice throw from Billy Hamilton) and the Royals turned a game that could have been incredibly frustrating into their seventh win in eight games and eighth in 11 games since the break.

Why frustrating? I’m glad you asked.

In the top of the fifth inning, Kris Bubic, who had just escaped a jam in the fourth with some masterful work, was in another one. Andrew Vaughn led off the inning with a single up the middle. Leury Garcia singled to put two on and nobody out for Danny Mendick.

This is infuriating on so many levels. You can’t see everything from this shot, but you can definitely see enough. The throw being offline was the first issue, but that happens. Perez throwing down to second base was not an issue either. That’s when everyone seemingly fell asleep. Mendick got into a rundown, which allowed Garcia the opportunity to bolt for the plate.

And for some reason, Perez got caught watching Merrifield run Mendick back to first base. You can see at the end that he was looking toward home, but nobody was there covering. I suppose Dozier could have followed Garcia down the line, but I don’t think he would have been able to keep up with him. At the same time, Merrifield never once even looked at the plate until after he made the tag. Had Perez been there to take a throw or Merrifield looked, maybe Garcia freezes at third and they don’t get any out and Garcia scores on Seby Zavala’s fly ball.

But maybe he does keep going home and the Royals can cut him down at the plate and keep the game at 1-0. Like with some of the mistakes from Tuesday night’s loss, maybe nothing changes here, but there’s nothing more frustrating than mental errors on the field.

While I knew I had to talk about that play, Salvy and Taylor’s work in the late innings made it part of the story, but not THE story. I’m thankful for that.

Instead, we can talk more about the work that Bubic did. He once again kept hitters off balance by working with all three of his pitches. The 20 curves he threw were the four most ever for him, just behind two games this month and one from last season. There’s still work to do on it, but it was pretty good.

His changeup did the work for him, though. He threw 30 of them, got 17 swings and four whiffs, which isn’t great, but it's not terrible. Of the nine balls in play, the average exit velocity was 80.8 MPH. That’s fantastic. The White Sox were 1 for 11 on it with two of his three strikeouts. It’s so nice to see that pitch back after he struggled so much with it in June.

One single changeup was in the middle of the zone. Aside from one other at the bottom of the zone, every single other changeup was either right on the edge or off the plate. That’s a truly amazing chart. All were thrown to righties, so he stayed away and it was really impressive how he used the pitch. And now in his last three games, Bubic has been great with 18 innings thrown, allowing 13 hits with 12 strikeouts and six walks and a 2.00 ERA. As Alec Lewis would say, that’ll play.

I should note that the staff as a whole has really improved their control since the break with just a 7.7 percent walk rate and 21.8 percent strikeout rate. I still think there’s a problem on the coaching staff and the strikeout rate is actually down a bit, but it’s been nice to see some competent pitching for the last couple weeks.

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Crown Jewels

Dayton’s Team Building

I don’t mean to have such a negative tone after such a surprising win, but something Dayton Moore said the other day has just stuck with me. He mentioned not wanting to build a team and a farm system through trades and I couldn’t dislike that more. And to say that as the Royals are playing the White Sox just seems to miss the mark so badly. Sure, the White Sox have some homegrown talent, but the guy who hit the game winning home run on Tuesday, Eloy Jimenez, was acquired in a trade. So was Tuesday night’s starter, Dylan Cease. And last night’s starter, Lucas Giolito. And so was their flame throwing setup man, Michael Kopech. And their third baseman, Yoan Moncada, too.

I’m not saying it’s the best way to build a team, but if you have assets, I just don’t see what the harm is in building a system that way. The Royals don’t have a Chris Sale or even a Jose Quintana that can bring back the kind of talent that they both did, but they certainly can find some talent for some of their pieces. As I’ve said before, I don’t especially care if the team makes moves for 2022 that don’t impede the years following, but to simply eschew a method to build a better organization just rubs me the wrong way and I really don’t fully understand it.

Struggles at the Top

The Royals are now 8-3 since the break, which is really quite good. It’s a little confusing that two of the three losses are to the Orioles, but that’s another issue. What is surprising is that they’re winning games with the top two guys in their lineup, Merrifield and Santana, really struggling. Since the break, Merrifield is hitting .283/.286/.370, which isn’t terrible, but that includes a 4 for 4 performance in the first game. Since that game, he’s hitting .214/.227/.286. I’m not a big believer in taking out the good game or the bad game to prove a point, but I think it makes sense here given that it was the first one and it’s such an outlier. With his double last night, Merrifield now has an eight-game hitting streak with nine total hits and a .286 OBP during the stretch.

Santana is hitting .149/.184/.298 since the break and while he has one massive home run, he’s been in quite the funk. Two walks in 11 games is pretty rare for him. Also, the 11 strikeouts are a lot for him in a 49 plate appearance sample. He usually is pretty even with those two numbers. My point here, while it probably seems negative, is actually a positive. These are two guys are absolutely better than this and the Royals are still winning with the players getting the most at bats struggling to get anything going. If they’re not traded, they are both likely to be better. Of course, Soler will either drop off or be traded, so they’ll lose that in the middle, but it’s actually kind of encouraging that they’re winning without these two doing much of anything