The Bats (and Bullpen) Carry the Day
It's not something we say often about the Royals this year, but the offense saved the game.
Time and time again in 2025, the Royals pitching staff has bailed out the offense. No team has won more games while scoring three runs or fewer than the Royals. Only three teams have a better winning percentage in those games. So it’s only fair that the offense chipped in and did their part. All it took was calling up the most touted rookie they’ve had since Bobby Witt Jr. to help lead the of…what’s that? I’m getting word he went 0 for 5 and the rest of the team picked up the slack? Well that’s certainly new!
Jac Caglianone was the big story of the day. I don’t remember this kind of focus on a player’s batting practice or every movement in a long time, including Witt. I think a lot of it had to do with him debuting on the road rather than at home, so a slew of media traveling that usually doesn’t travel becomes very apparent very quickly. But the scene around him was not one you typically see around a player who hadn’t played a big league game before.
And it didn’t stop with the coverage at Busch Stadium. My wife made sure to stop what she was doing when he came to bat in the second. My two-year old was yelling “Go Jac!” in the car yesterday morning and when she got home. Sure, she was taught that, but even she could feel the excitement in the air.
An 0 for 5 night for Caglianone may have disappointed on paper, but he didn’t do anything wrong necessarily to get to that number. He was a little swing happy, seeing just 10 pitches in those five at bats, but it wasn’t like he was swinging wildly. He saw two pitches that were clearly outside the zone. He swung at one and fouled it off, and with a good swing I’ll add, and took the other for a ball. With two strikes in his first at bat, he got a curve that was dropping away from him and did not make great contact on the ball.
Yes, that’s him not making great contact. Victor Scott made a really nice running catch on that ball, but him not making great contact meant the ball only traveled 390 feet. That doesn’t guarantee success, but it does speak to what I said this week about how even if he doesn’t hit, he’s going to hit the ball out of the park. I’m not going to get into each of his batted balls, but he showed the ability to hit the snot out of the ball with the two hardest hit balls of the game. His second at bat was a 112.1 MPH groundout. His fifth was a 113.9 MPH groundout. He’s going to lift the ball more and he’s going to continue to hit the ball hard. It’s what he does. It’ll be fun to watch some of those bullets find grass and seats.