Ragans Somehow Held Them, the Royals Somehow Won

When Cole Ragans gets hit like he did, you generally turn the page and look ahead, but not last night for the Royals.

It depends who you talk with, but many starting pitchers will tell you that they go to the mound with their very best about one-third of the time. They feel generally fine about one-third of the time. And then that last third, they just don’t really have it. It’s very similar to the idea that you win 54, lose 54 and do what you can with the middle 54. Last night, Ragans didn’t have it. He has ridiculous stuff, so there were still encouraging numbers from his start like swings and misses, but he just wasn’t good. And it didn’t help him that the Astros weren’t missing the hittable pitches.