A Big Inning, Some Bad Baseball and a Win

The Royals looked like they were running away with the game early before they tried to give it away.

One of the more interesting things to watch with a young player and sometimes a young team is how they respond to adversity. I think it was Allard Baird, years ago, who said that he didn’t mind young players failing in the minors because it gave them a chance to see their reaction to that. I might be wrong about who said it, but whoever it was isn’t wrong. The offense, on Monday night in San Diego, faced some adversity. They didn’t get their first hit until the eighth inning and never scored their first run.

So coming out last night, the young (though not the youngest possible) lineup had something to prove. And the first inning could not have gone worse. Bobby Witt Jr. popped up on the first pitch. Then Salvador Perez got caught looking by a curve that he should have been expecting and probably should have crushed. And then Vinnie Pasquantino’s slump continued on a pitch that I’m convinced is a double a week and a half ago, but that was it. They went down 1-2-3 on 11 pitches. Not great!

Apparently, they just needed an inning to get their legs under them because they went to work in the top of the second inning against Seth Lugo. Edward Olivares started things off with a single, putting the thought of another no-hit bid to bed early. Maikel Garcia’s slump continued with a called third strike, but then a wild pitch and an MJ Melendez walk put runners on first and third with one out. Matt Duffy singled, Freddy Fermin walked and Nate Eaton grounded into a fielder’s choice. While Duffy’s hit was obviously important to get the team on the board. Witt’s at bat was massive.

I have plenty of concerns about Witt offensively, but the natural talent is so insane that he’s still getting by a lot of the time. And this plate appearance was pure natural talent. He swung at the first pitch a second time, but fouled this one off. It was a pitch that you’d honestly expect he’d drive and he didn’t. Then he swung over a good curve to fall to 0-2. He fouled off a high fastball before he just sort of threw his hands at the ball and extended the inning with a huge two-out hit.

Then, of course, Perez did his thing and hit an absolute rocket to the wall that scored two.

One night after they had four baserunners in nine innings, they had six in the second inning alone to plate five runs. That gave Brady Singer a big cushion to work with as he continues to try to figure some things out. It was also the end of the good for the offense in a lot of ways. From the second inning on, they were shut down by a parade of Padres relievers, getting just four hits over the final seven innings. The Padres bullpen does have some nasty arms, but you’d expect they’d be able to scratch one across against them to add to the lead.

Also, after the second inning, there was some bad baseball played. The score remained 5-0 into the fifth when the Royals defense reared its ugly head. Ironically, the issues came after another outstanding catch deep into center field by Witt. With two outs and nobody on, Brett Sullivan lifted a popup in foul territory that Maikel Garcia and Olivares stayed silent on, which led both to pull up and watch the ball drop. Of course, Sullivan hit a ball up the middle and then Melendez let it skip past him to allow him to get to second. The inning could have ended on a chopper to second by Fernando Tatis Jr., but Duffy didn’t field it cleanly and then rushed his throw to first for an error to let Sullivan score.

Then, Jake Cronenworth laced a triple into the right field corner to score Tatis and the Padres had gotten two back. An inning later, Xander Bogaerts led off with a single and then Matt Carpenter hit a sinking liner to center that should have been a single but Eaton inexplicably tried to catch a ball he was never going to catch. That let Bogaerts score and got Carpenter to second. You can never assume that what happened next would have still happened next, but a grounder by Rougned Odor that got Carpenter to third was a double play ball easily and a sacrifice fly to score the fourth run could have been the third out with no runs scored.

This seems like a good spot to talk about Singer. He ended up giving up two earned runs over six innings, which could have easily been six shutout innings, so it’s hard to judge entirely. You might remember that last time out when he had good results, I wasn’t convinced. There was just a lot to not like even though the final numbers were very good. I kind of feel the same way about this start for him. The underlying numbers again weren’t great.

I think it’s important to remember the opponent and the Padres are probably not a great matchup for Singer to do what he wants to do. He wants to get the hitter to have to guess which pitch is coming and then he does everything he can to make sure they guessed wrong. The problem is that they swing less than just about anyone, so they are less likely to be chasing his slider. And his sinker, which is still concerning to me, wasn’t in the zone enough to be able to get them into swing mode.

He threw 53 percent of sinkers in the zone, which is well below his numbers the last two seasons. His sinker doesn’t get a lot of swing and miss. Where it works is when it’s being taken for strikes. He needs to be on the edge with that pitch too. Think about some of those amazing starts he had last season and how many pitches just painted the edge. Now look at last night’s sinkers.

He simply cannot cluster his pitches in the middle like that or else he’s going to get hit. And they did hit the sinker yesterday with 11 put in play and six of them hit hard. Last year, he was one of the best in baseball in getting called strikes, and specifically called third strikes. He just doesn’t have it right now. I wrote about this last week, so I know I’m repeating myself, but he needs the sinker to be working in order for the opposition to whiff more on the slider.

It’s also concerning that his velocity was once again down on that sinker, and I don’t know if that’s just him trying to control it better or something else. Singer seemed to be happy with the sinker after the start, and maybe the Padres being so selective is skewing my judgment, but I still didn’t love the way it looked. It’s too bad because I think his slider was better. You can see where he threw them.

Honestly, I like the location for the most part. There are a handful toward the right-handed batter’s box, but I’d say most of these are well-located. The problem is that he just couldn’t get swings against it because I just don’t think it’s working well with his sinker. I was ready to write about the slider not looking so good, but when he got to the second time through the order with it, he threw some really good ones. I think his best of the night was this one that struck out Cronenworth.

I’m especially frustrated with the way the team played behind him because I think it robbed us of a chance to see if he could get going a little bit.

Adversity is part of the game, for sure, but the defense we saw in the fifth and sixth was so bad that it was just a different breed of bad and I think it makes it tougher to really dig into the start for him. Ultimately, it’s another good result for Singer, which is at least something to build on once again. I’d like to see more strikeouts, but it looks like he’ll get the Tigers and Nationals on the next homestand.

I also can’t finish this without lauding the bullpen. Aroldis Chapman, Taylor Clarke and Scott Barlow combined for three shutout innings with five strikeouts. They got some help from the Padres on the bases with both Adam Engel and Rougned Odor getting picked off in big spots, but this continues a trend for the bullpen that I’ve written about before.

On the season, the Royals bullpen has the third-best strikeout rate in baseball. Since the start of the series against the Angels on April 21, they have a 3.58 ERA with a 29 percent strikeout rate. Seven members of their bullpen have a strikeout rate above league average for relievers. That will certainly play and it’s a big reason why they held on to a game yesterday they appeared to be trying to give away.