The Nick Loftin Show
The Royals relied on the stars in game one and on one of their depth pieces in game two.
If you were betting on some sort of pun or idiom involving the word Nick in the title, well, sometimes I have to throw you a curveball. But that doesn’t change the fact that Nick’s bat took a whack and walked it off at home. In all seriousness, that’s a really good win for a team that hasn’t had enough of those this season. As we were heading into this series, I think this was the sort of game we expected in all three with both offenses struggling to score runs and both pitching staffs being among the best in baseball at run prevention. The way they got there last night wasn’t typical for these two teams, but a 4-3 game checks out given that they came into the day averaging a combined 6.8 runs per game. Seven is pretty much perfect.
These two teams also game into the day with the two lowest home run totals in the league. The Royals were at 67 to start the night while the Pirates were at 62. So naturally, each team hit two home runs, one night after the Royals hit five and the Pirates hit one. The two teams who average far less than a home run per game have hit nine home runs in two games. Of course they have. It’s baseball! And who else to star in tonight’s game than the guy who came into it hitting .188/.233/.363. This, of course, is on the heels of him hitting .189/.282/.236 last season. No, it’s not a lot of plate appearances (it’s just 257), but a .189/.266/.281 combined line is, uh, not getting it done.
But again, it’s baseball. Sometimes those things don’t matter. Or maybe Loftin has finally found his big league footing. He smoked the ball all over the field on Monday night with four hard-hit balls. I will admit that I thought that was a pretty big aberration in his first two at bats against Mitch Keller. In his first at bat, Keller gave him a 93 MPH fastball pretty much center cut and he popped it up. In his second at bat, Keller gave him a 92.7 MPH sinker up and in just enough that he popped that up too. Both pitches were very hittable and neither pitch was hit hard or far.