Swings, Misses and 2-1 Victories
There was a surprising amount to talk about from a quick pitcher's duel.
Beating the Rays is no easy task. In fact, nobody had done it nearly two weeks when the Yankees shut them out behind a great game from Gerrit Cole. Just a short 13 days later, Brad Keller took the mound against Rich Hill, who hadn’t done much lately outside of posting a 0.98 ERA over his last five starts since the last time he faced the Royals and had a big lead and still couldn’t pitch more than two innings. That game was also started by Keller, who somehow didn’t even last as long as Hill.
The rematch was a bit different.
Let’s start with what the Royals were up against. It was apparent early on that Hill had some of that magical stuff that doesn’t quite make sense on the television because the velocity doesn’t seem elite. But somehow he just looks really great. At some point, you stop wondering about how Hill does it and just marvel at a guy who went six years between starts, then made four with the Red Sox and turned that into a heck of a second act that saw him post a 2.92 ERA in 505 innings between 2015 and 2020. I just say all that to remind you all how good Hill actually is.
In the first, he threw 11 pitches, the first eight were fastballs and the Royals swung at five and missed three of them. They fouled off the other two. It looked like they would be in for a long night. But you could see a glimpse that the Royals were going to find a way to get to him, even if only a little. They would need Keller to be good on the other side because Hill clearly had “it” early, and I’ll get to Keller, but for now, I want to focus on the mountain the Royals offense had to climb just to get where they were.
I really enjoyed Carlos Santana’s first plate appearance of the game, and in hindsight should have been more prepared for his second because of it. Hill did to Santana what he would end up doing most of the game and that was elevating his fastball to get hitters to struggle on it. But on the fifth of the five, Santana hit the ball hard to center. File that away.
In the top of the second inning, unlikely cleanup hitter Andrew Benintendi changed his eye level and was able to drive one of those elevated fastballs to the left-center field gap. If not for a great play by a great center fielder, the Royals would have had a rally started. Of course, part of what makes the Rays so good is that they do make those plays, and instead of a rally, it was a 1-2-3 inning.
After the Rays scored in the bottom of the third inning on some serious 2014 Royals-type action, the lineup turned over for the Royals. I wasn’t sure how it would go a second time if Hill continued with his approach, but I felt good about exactly two hitters - Santana and Benintendi. After Merrifield tried to pull a pitch on the edge and grounded out weakly (hmm…have we talked about that?), Santana had a chance and while Hill gave him more than just fastballs, Santana’s focus was still on the pitch up.
And sure enough, down 3-0, Hill went back to the pitch and placement that had worked. After an auto-take, Santana got the pitch he wanted and he didn’t waste it.
He hit the hardest ball of the night and the farthest ball of the night to tie the game immediately. After so many innings giving up runs after scoring, the Royals turned the tables.
In the top of the sixth, a bloop from Cam Gallagher followed by Merrifield doing what we’ve seen him do for years on a pitch on the outer third (finally), the Royals had runners on first and second with nobody out. I was really impressed with the way Hill pitched Santana this time. He gave him exactly one four-seamer and it was up high enough that he couldn’t do anything with it. That’s a really good sequence there.
Thankfully on an 0-2 pitch, Hill left a curve ball a little too close to the plate and Salvador Perez dumped it into left, scoring Gallagher for the second run.
In all, the Royals looked mostly terrible against Hill, but they did what they needed to do. It was just crazy to see 90-91 fastballs all game long elevated and the Royals unable to put bat on ball. In all, Hill threw 99 pitches and got swings on 55 of them. Of those, he had 27 swings and misses. That’s a lot. He got 34 swings on the fastball and 18 whiffs. And here’s where they were:
I think you can see why I love the high fastball so much. Even with ho hum velocity, it can produce such impressive results.
As good as Hill was, Keller allowed the offense to be stymied and still stand a chance. And it’s about time. He’d been…better since his first four starts of the season, posting a 4.05 ERA in five starts, but he still only got through six innings in two of those and, in one he gave up five unearned runs. But in this one, like Hill, you could see he had it going on early. It only took him three pitches to strike out Ji-Man Choi with, you guessed it, an elevated fastball. He did walk Yandy Diaz, but still only threw 14 total pitches.
It was really vintage Keller all night. He got eight ground balls and just one fly out, which was actually the first batted ball of the night in the first. He threw 95 pitches over seven innings, including 64 strikes. And he once again was throwing his slider. He threw it 33 percent of the time and got whiffs on six of 17 swings. He ended up getting seven strikeouts and now has 24 in his last 23.1 innings.
I can’t say I’m terribly surprised that he finally broke out of this and got back to being the guy we’ve seen for three years, but I am a little surprised that it happened against that team at that time with them on fire the way they were. He incorporated the changeup more than we’ve seen all season. Coming into last night, he threw 33 all year and then threw 10 against the Rays. It was actually the most he’d ever thrown, topping his career high of nine from three different starts in his rookie season.
It was clearly a weapon he thought would help against lefties, and I really liked where he was putting it.
But of course, it’s all set up from the slider, which is the pitch I think we’ve learned he absolutely needs to be able to regain his form. Check out what he did to Francisco Mejia in the fourth.
This was a start they absolutely needed. Oh, and I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Jake Brentz and the absolute filth he was throwing in a chance to show that he could be part of the late inning crew. All he did was average 98.1 MPH on his fastball and he almost officially got into the coveted triple digits by hitting 99.7 on a strikeout of Brandon Lowe.
No big deal. He just threw the nine hardest pitches of the game. As Alec Lewis of The Athletic might say, that’ll play.
Crown Jewels
Mondesi’s Return
Maybe this should have been the story because we’ve been waiting all season to see him in this lineup after the way he finished last season, but don’t worry, I’m writing about him here. He struck out in the third, but Rays pitching had 14 strikeouts. That’s nothing new. What I was so impressed with was the fact that he had doubles from both sides of the plate. This tweet says all you need to know about how amazing a run he’s on, in spite of all that time between games he’s played.
Yep, that’s definitely something. I don’t think Mondesi is the finishing touch on a roster that’s still missing something, but he certainly helps in so many ways. He’s obviously a dynamic offensive player, or at least has the potential to be, but he just makes the Royals make more sense on the field. Nicky Lopez shouldn’t be playing against lefties and should be playing second when he plays. Merrifield has struggled defensively at second and should likely be getting more time in right field. Jorge Soler should probably never really touch grass unless he’s walking to the plate or taking a wide turn around first or third. Mondesi makes all that happen. And hey, he’s on pace for 234 doubles right now, which isn’t all bad.
Starting Pitching Importance Rising
The Royals four-man rotation will be coming to an end this weekend. It’s hard to say if they’ll bring someone in for Friday night’s game or Saturday afternoon’s, but either way they’ll need someone soon. Based on some comments made by Dayton Moore with Soren Petro yesterday, I think it seems like Jackson Kowar is the guy for now, which makes sense with how good he’s been in AAA so far to start the season. But beyond this weekend, the Royals will need to continue to get so much more from their starting pitching.
They have an off day on Wednesday, June 2, but after that, they play 37 games in 39 days before the break. They get seven games against the Twins with a chance to bury them. They have six against the Red Sox and three against the Yankees and three against the Reds, who have an incredible offense. And they have four against the Indians. They’re still averaging less than five innings per start, but since Mike Minor’s fantastic start in Chicago, they’ve averaged more than six innings per start. That’s going to need to keep up. Hopefully they can get Danny Duffy back in that time, but it’s an opportunity for someone to really step up in the interim.