One Day, Two Wins

After losing 11 straight to the Indians, the Royals pulled off one of the more improbable double header sweeps.

They said it couldn’t be done. But the Royals did the impossible and not only beat the Indians once yesterday. They beat them twice! And they took care of business in the first game against a pitcher who I would say dominated them, but I don’t think dominated is a strong enough word to use for how badly he had beaten the all season.

The Royals had faced Triston McKenzie four times this season prior to yesterday and he was out of this world good each time. In 21.2 innings heading into the first game of the doubleheader, he’d allowed two runs on seven hits to the Royals. He hadn’t given up any home runs and it was pretty much no contest every time out. On top of that, he’d been on a very impressive run. In his last five starts, he’d gone at least six innings and given up no more than one run, no more than three hits and no more than one walk. So yeah, he was going pretty good.

The Royals were attacking right away, though. Whit Merrifield and Salvador Perez singled in the first. Carlos Santana did for a second, but it was overturned. Then in the second, the damage started again. Adalberto Mondesi singled and then stole his 12th and 13th bases of the year. Michael A. Taylor and Ryan O’Hearn couldn’t drive him in, but Hunter Dozier got a fastball up and did damage.

That’s his fourth homer of September and sixth since the break. I’ve written about this before, but Dozier has been pretty much fine for quite awhile now. His start to his season was so brutal that his numbers remain terrible, but if he put up his second half numbers of .264/.338/.431 next season, the Royals would take that. They’d prefer the September numbers of .291/.379/.600, but they’d absolutely take the second half numbers.

The crazy thing about the two-run homer is that it doubled their run total against McKenzie for the season. But they weren’t done. Nicky Lopez led off the third with the Royals fifth hit of the game and then Andrew Benintendi continued his torrid September by taking advantage of a fastball up, just like Dozier.

That’s Benny’s fourth homer of September and his 22nd and 23rd RBI. He’s hitting .456/.484/.737 in his last 15 games with 22 RBI.

Dozier drove in another run in the fourth, but what everyone really wants to see is what happened in the fifth after another Lopez single. As I wrote yesterday, I think Perez was pressing in a big way during that last series and getting away from home would likely be a good opportunity for him to not put so much pressure on himself. His single in the first was just a precursor to the record-breaking home run.

That home run gave him his 31st home run as a catcher this season, which puts him four behind Ivan Rodriguez. But it was his 46th, and that meant he passed Johnny Bench for most home runs by a player who spent at least 75 percent of his time at catcher. That’s definitely impressive. He also passed Mike Sweeney for second in team history. He’s now 119 home runs from tying George Brett, which is really something.

With the score 7-0, we can shift our attention to the biggest story of the day, and that’s the Royals pitching. It started off in that first game with Brady Singer, who looked so good again in Cleveland. He had a bit of a problem in the first inning, but was bailed out by Perez and his arm and then a bit of a wide strike zone. But after he got through that, there really wasn’t much trouble for him throughout the game. He gave up just one single in the second through fourth. He had some trouble in the fifth and gave up two runs, but then got through the sixth and seventh for his first career complete game.

How did he do it? I’m glad you asked. If you’re looking for changeup analysis, I don’t have much for you. He threw two of them. One was taken for a ball and one was fouled off. The one that was fouled off was a bad one that Jose Ramirez fouled off, but the ball was actually one of the better ones I’ve seen from Singer. Ramirez was the recipient of that one too and laid off it, but I just really liked both the spot and the movement.

But he was sinker/slider heavy, which I don’t have a problem with if they’re working and they were both working. His sinker was on point. He didn’t get a ton of whiffs early, but ended up with five on 17 total swings. It was doing some nasty things like this pitch to Owen Miller that got him out of the first.

And he got a ton of ground balls. Of the 21 outs he recorded, seven were via strikeout, 12 were on the ground and he gave up one lineout. He looked about as good as we’ve seen him. He walked just one batter as well, so this was a fantastic followup to his terrible start in Minnesota last weekend before he went on the Covid-IL. Indians lefty bats were 1 for 10 with four strikeouts.

I remember writing after an okay start in April that he was getting too much of the zone and needed to be more on the edge. One thing that would be interesting is if he could utilize the running action on his sinker against lefties like he did on this one against Andres Gimenez:

It’s about location more than anything for him, so his command needs to take a step up to do that consistently, but it’s pretty easy to see how hard that is to hit.

And honestly, this is what frustrates me so much about Singer. I completely understand that he can get by with two pitches when those two pitches are good, but can you imagine what he could do if he figures out a third pitch with the way his sinker moves and the way his slider can just eat up opponents? Maybe we’ll find out next season. It looks like his last start of the season will be on the next homestand against these very Indians, so that’ll be a very good test for him.

The second game had fewer fireworks and was essentially over before the Indians even came to bat, though we didn’t know it at the time. The Royals worked three walks in a row with the last one from Santana walking in a run. They have played 74 full games without walking three times and three straight batters walked in the first. I don’t know what the odds of that were, but I do know that starting Nick Wittgren didn’t work for Cleveland.

The offense did just enough, but the real story in game two was the Royals bullpen game going perfectly according to plan. Joel Payamps got the start and he did give up a home run to Gimenez, but that allowed us to see Domingo Tapia look as good as he’s ever looked. He went 1.2 innings and struck out four of the five batters he faced. He was putting his upper-90s sinker about wherever he wanted.

I know he didn’t exactly hit the target, but painting the corner with that kind of velocity is always fun. And his slider was filthy.

The quintet of Payamps, Tapia, Jake Brentz, Josh Staumont and Scott Barlow held the Indians to two runs in game two, and they struck out 11 and didn’t walk anyone. I know the Indians can’t really hit - they’ve been no-hit three times this year officially and once more in a seven-inning game - but this was an excellent day of pitching overall for the team. When it was all said and done, this is their line as a team yesterday:

14 IP
10 H
4 R
4 ER
18 K
1 BB
2.57 ERA

Any day with pitching like that, a Salvy home run and a doubleheader sweep is a good day for the Royals.