Royals Force a Familiar Result
The Royals made so many changes in the offseason and, yet, this Opening Day felt a whole lot like the last one.
In so many ways, yesterday just felt different. There was a legitimate buzz in the air. Some of it was the weather, sure. It was absolutely gorgeous at Kauffman Stadium, which feels like a rarity, though I’ll bet if we looked at past forecasts, it happens more than we realize. But a lot of it was a buzz about the team on the field. The stadium seemed as full with two hours to game time as it felt during the game last season. As I walked around the stadium before the game, I heard people talking about contending and not making plans in October and all sorts of things you hear in ballparks of teams that routinely compete for trophies and not for top draft picks.
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But in the end, it was all too familiar. Pablo Lopez was dominant, the Twins did enough on offense and the Royals started the season 0-1. This is the part where I tell you that it’s one game. This is the part where I tell you that if you compare this to a football season, we’re about six minutes into the first quarter of the first game. This is the part where I tell you that things happen in small samples that don’t make sense in the aggregate. And this is the part where you tell me that the second verse felt pretty much the same as the first.
Look, I get it. While it is just one game out of 162, this one game felt an awful lot like so many of the 162 last season, so it’s very easy to say that this is actually game 163 of 324. And if that’s your mindset, I’m probably not going to change your mind, and I’m not really going to try. What I am going to say is that until there is a larger sample for us to view, we just can’t know what is something that just happened for a day and what becomes a trend. I’m also going to say that if you believe the Royals to be a .500 team, there are going to be 80 more of these losses. I predicted 87 losses, which means there will be 86 more. Even if you thought they were a 90-win team, there are 71 more of these to go.
That doesn’t mean the patterns aren’t troubling when coupled with last season. Because as much as we can point to change on the Opening Day roster, the top five in the lineup were all a part of a bad offense last year. Not all of them were the reason the offense was bad, but they were a part of it. The number nine hitter was too. That’s two-thirds of the lineup. So when a team that struggled with runners in scoring position last year goes 0 for 6, you at least get the feeling of “here we go again.” And again, I can’t tell you if it’s going to be different this year just like I can’t tell you that it’s going to be the same this year based on one game. I do get being frustrated by it.
What I took away from yesterday’s game is that the Cole Ragans Cy Young candidacy and 200 strikeout season is off to a solid start. His control hit a few bumps in the road, but if he goes out and gives up two runs on five hits over six innings with nine strikeouts every time out, the Royals are going to end up winning a lot of those starts. Only one starter in all of baseball got more swings and misses than the 19 Ragans got from Twins hitters yesterday. He was getting those whiffs with all his pitches, but his changeup appeared to be particularly nasty.
Twins hitters saw 21 changeups out of the 97 pitches Ragans threw. They swung at 10 of them and only put one in play. They swung through six of them and fouled off three more. What he can do with this pitch is pretty amazing.
It just sort of…disappears. I think he executed the pitch pretty well. A couple got away from him, but you’re generally going to see a lot of his changeups clustered low and in on the left-handed batter’s box when the pitch is working.
It wasn’t perfect, but it was certainly good enough in this one. I thought he also located his fastball and cutter extremely well too. While his fastball got hit a little bit with eight balls in play, just a 22 percent whiff rate and an average exit velocity of 94.2 MPH, the pitch that I felt like was just a bit off was his slider.
Here’s the heat map of where he was locating it yesterday:
A lot of that is what you want, but that big red spot near the middle of the plate isn’t ideal for a pitch that can sometimes work its way into a right-handed batter’s swing. Compare that to his 2023 heat map on his slider:
It’s nothing to worry about, but if we’re breaking down a game, it’s easy to see why that was a pitch that did get hit some. The difference in the game until the ninth was a very slight mistake on the slider he threw to Correa.
It was in no way a horrible pitch, but that’s a pitch that if he gets it down maybe three inches or in maybe two inches, Correa either swings over the top or rolls over it and ends the inning. These are the sorts of things that I would never in a million years dream of criticizing a pitcher for because there are so many moving parts in making a perfect pitch, but it was the difference between the very good outing he had and the great outing he could have had. And even this was, again, not the worst pitch he could throw and came after two soft singles set up the at bat. It happens.
Overall, unless you’re nitpicking like this, you can’t complain about how Ragans pitched. He only made one real mistake and that was in the first inning to Royce Lewis when he put an 0-2 fastball in a happy zone and Lewis made him pay. I don’t know if he’d ever admit it, but I have a feeling that Ragans was feeling it and basically said that he was going to throw a heater wherever he wanted and he dared Lewis to hit it. And then Lewis did.
I don’t know if this was by design, but I felt like there was a little more variability in fastball velocity too, which I liked. For a minute I got a little bit worried because I was seeing some 93 and 94 on the scoreboard, but then he was able to reach back for 97 a couple of times in the sixth inning and it made me wonder if he’s trying to show a slightly different four-seamer here and there. It could be an even simpler answer than that and it was his first start of the year, he was amped up for the Opening Day assignment and simply got a little tired toward the end. That also happens.
The offense simply didn’t hold up their end of the bargain on Cole Ragans Day, which is a big disappointment. It looked early like they might because on the third pitch of the day, Maikel Garcia took a sweeper from Lopez deep.
That’s the second leadoff home run in Royals history on Opening Day with Garcia joining Onix Concepcion in 1984. Concepcion went deep against Ron Guidry to start the scoring for the Royals.
You might recall I wrote about Garcia in the offseason.
The big thing I was looking for from him was more of an effort to get some lift on the ball. I don’t think he necessarily needs to sell out for power and change his game entirely, but the whole issue with Garcia is that he hit the ball hard, but had next to no power to show for it. In spring training, we saw him do exactly what he did yesterday a couple of times, and he was great in winter ball for the second straight year. But I wanted to see him do it in the regular season. With a sample of one game, he’s started off on the right foot.
His three batted balls in this game were:
99.2 MPH, 30° launch angle
101.3 MPH, 30° launch angle
105.2 MPH, 15° launch angle
Two of his three batted balls were considered barrels, so if he can consistency start to put a charge into balls in the air, we might see a different version of Garcia in 2024. That would be quite welcome.
After the first batter, the Royals didn’t score again, so it felt a lot like last year’s Opening Day. Bobby Witt Jr., in his first game with a massive contract, had a bloop double that maybe should have been a triple and a walk, so that’s nice. MJ Melendez smoked a leadoff double in the second inning but never even got to third. Kyle Isbel hit a couple of balls hard and had a hit. Otherwise, the offense was pretty tepid.
I will mention one situation that surprised me just a little bit. In the bottom of the third inning, after the Witt double, Vinnie Pasquantino came up and I had a good feeling. Not all good feelings end up in good results, but I had a good feeling. And Pasquantino put together an absolutely wasted plate appearance. In so many instances, it’s easy to tip your cap to the pitcher, but Lopez threw a first pitch changeup to him that wasn’t even an especially good changeup. Pasquantino just chopped it to third base to end the inning. I’m not inside their heads, but that sure felt like some Opening Day, back on the field jitters to me. I don’t know if it was or not, but I’m hopeful that they got it out of the way and now they can just play baseball.
We, of course, now have the obligatory day off after Opening Day that everyone complains about. We all know why they do it and we hate it when the forecast is for a 75° day with sunshine, but they can’t know that when they make the schedule in August or whenever they make it. The Royals and Twins will be back at it tomorrow with Seth Lugo making his Royals debut against Joe Ryan. Ryan has absolutely dominated the Royals to the tune of a 5-0 record in six starts with a 1.50 ERA in 36 innings with 41 strikeouts and 22 hits allowed. So it doesn’t get easier. I’ll be back in this space on Monday with the Weekend in Review to write all about it and whatever happens Sunday.
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I just liked being at the ballpark again. And delighted by Maikel Garcia! And happy to see Bobby steal and try. I think the wind was a factor, as was the slight chill in the air. Will be missing that chill come July.
Well, I’m not going to complain. It was a solid day. Ragans did what he was supposed to. The bullpen, for the most part, was fine. I can’t say one game means too much. But it did feel a little like a microcosm of what I kinda expect this year. I expect the pitching to be better and the Royals to be in games longer. Some of which they will pull out in the end. Its baseball.
I am however, going to say my concern coming into the year was the offense and they didn’t really do anything calm those. Garcia looked good…if he takes a step that certainly helps. But they just don’t get on base. It’s the same conversation every time. We have some pop…but nobody grinds at bats and takes a walk. Just one game. But yes, offensively it looked pretty similar. I’m still positive overall though.