Something Old, Something New

A veteran on the mound and rookies at the plate got the Royals their first win in five days.

On a day with Michael A. Taylor getting the day off, the Royals lineup skewed especially young. Whit Merrifield at 33 years old and 156 days was the oldest player and Hunter Dozier was the second oldest at 30 years old and 311 days. Everyone else was under 30. In fact, everyone else was under 28 with Andrew Benintendi the third-oldest bat in the Royals lineup yesterday. So it’s no real surprise that the Royals got contributions from their young bats because they’re almost all young bats. But in this one, the Royals had four rookies in the lineup - Bobby Witt Jr., Vinnie Pasquantino, MJ Melendez and Kyle Isbel - and they were huge parts of getting the Royals their two runs.

And then on the other side of the game, the Royals were led on the mound by Zack Greinke. He’s 38 and will turn 39 in October. And he just happened to be making the 500th start of his big league career. He became the 49th pitcher to make 500 starts in a career, which is pretty impressive. Of the previous 48, 32 are in the Hall of Fame with CC Sabathia’s time on the ballot yet to start and Roger Clemens in the situation Roger Clemens is in. So this is no small feat. And what amazes me so much is that he reinvents himself so much.

Here’s his pitch mix prior to his return from the IL:

And here’s what he’s done since:

I wrote about this after his last start against Oakland, but he seems to be leaning heavily on the cutter now. You can see he threw 45 of them prior to the IL and 34 in just two starts since then. That’s kind of crazy to me. It was a very useful pitch for him on Friday night, but I think maybe a little less impressive yesterday. It wasn’t bad, but I thought he was pulling it a little more than he wanted to.

Greinke’s history with the cutter is fascinating to me. He threw it a lot in 2012 and 2013, 274 and 477 times respectively. But then had thrown it five times in the years since. And when a guy throws a pitch five times in eight seasons, it’s likely simply a pitch that was misidentified. And now he’s thrown it 79 times this year and 34 in two games. I don’t have any analysis about that other than that he’s just amazing.

It ended up being a very Greinke game. At least what we grew to be used to early in the year before he was hurt. He went six innings and gave up one run on four hits with three strikeouts and one walk. You can’t do this, but take away the four games where he was hurting and you’re looking at a guy with a 2.36 ERA in 45.2 innings with a 2.2 percent walk rate. I know, I know, you can’t do it, but it would be nice.

I actually didn’t think Greinke had great command yesterday. You can see that he was kind of all over the place and filled the middle of the zone a little more than you’d like.

Those sliders you see in the middle of the zone were not what he wanted, almost assuredly. And the curves that caught too much of the plate were also not the plan. But his changeup was generally where he wanted it and I think he put his fastballs where he wanted them. The one thing that I think you notice with Greinke is that when he misses his spot, he doesn’t miss it in a place where he’s going to get hurt too bad. The one mistake he really made was on one of those curves that caught too much of the plate.

But he ended up throwing five pitches all game with a runner past second base. They were all in the first inning after he hit Corey Seager with a cutter and gave up a double to Marcus Semien on a ball that Andrew Benintendi probably catches 99 times out of 100. But he got a soft lineout to first on the second pitch to Adolis Garcia and got Kole Calhoun to pop out to third on the third pitch. And that was huge. We all know the stat by now, but I’ll repeat it. The Royals are 0-22 when they trail after the first. That’s any deficit.

But what we haven’t talked about is that, after yesterday, the Royals are now 12-5 when they lead after one. That’s not quite as impressive as 0-22, but getting a quick lead helps them get the job done. Having a leadoff hitter with a .277 OBP, I have to say, isn’t ideal. But they do have Benintendi and his .370 OBP hitting second and Bobby Witt Jr. and his .457 slugging percentage hitting third, so they can get some things done early in games, especially if Whit Merrifield does get on base, which he has done better in the first inning.

But in this first inning, Merrifield and Benintendi both went down quickly. That’s when the rookies (and Dozier) went to work. Witt hit a rocket single up the middle on a sinker that stayed way too much in the middle of the plate. Dane Dunning threw another on the next pitch to Dozier in almost an identical spot and Dozier doubled to left on it, moving Witt to third. That was when Pasquantino impressed me quite a bit with his approach.

Dunning had thrown 11 pitches to that point. Only two of them were way off the plate. He had just given up hits on two straight pitches and Pasquantino had a chance to drive in a run or two and get his first big league hit. It would be understandable if he might be a bit aggressive, as he was in his first at bat on Tuesday night when he hit a hard grounder to second. I think Dunning was counting on him being aggressive as he threw him a slider that would have been an easy groundout if Pasquantino swung and made contact. But he didn’t. He then took a changeup down below the zone that would have been the same story. He took two strikes in a row, though at least one of them was not a strike. And he spit on two pitches down to work a walk.

This is a hitter in his fifth big league plate appearance and if you didn’t know that, you’d have guessed he was a veteran. It was a very good plate appearance to work that walk. Which set up Melendez to break out of his hitless stretch on the first pitch.

He didn’t hit it hard, but he drove in Witt from third and I’m honestly not entirely sure what happened with Dozier. It wasn’t a good throw from Taveras in center, but it just happened to lead Meibrys Viloria directly to where Dozier happened to be at that instant. I don’t know why Dozier didn’t start his slide or just run through Viloria (that’s allowed if he’s in his baseline), but he didn’t, he got tagged and the inning was over.

That aside, the inning represented the hope for Royals fans. A Witt single, a Pasquantino walk and a Melendez single got the Royals on the board. Three rookies (and Dozier) did the job. But there was one rookie left.

After Greinke gave up the home run to tie the game in the top of the fifth, Isbel was due up. Now, it has not been easy for Isbel lately. While he was smoking rockets everywhere early in the season for him, the hard-hit balls have dried up and he made that brutal base running decision over the weekend that was followed by misplaying a fly ball that ended up giving the A’s an insurance run. He was 5 for 35 with a triple and the home run he hit on Tuesday night coming into this game since Taylor came back from the IL and cut into Isbel’s playing time. That’s why this swing probably felt extra sweet.

The Royals did what so many teams do to them so often. They gave up a run and got it right back. That was another Dunning sinker that just didn’t and Isbel put a charge into it. He was pinch hit for late with a lefty on the mound, but maybe he’s starting to get going again.

So for the Royals, the rookies drove in and scored both runs. They went a combined four for nine with two walks, a double, a home run, two runs scored and two RBIs. The four of them have a combined 89 more plate appearances than their starting pitcher does in his career, but for at least one day, they worked together to get a win for the Royals, and it was needed badly heading into the off day before they head to Detroit.