Those Free Runners Will Kill You

Royals pitching has struggled with walks for years and it continues to cost them games.

If you’re a fan of the Royals, you very likely can hear the voice of Denny Matthews whenever they walk a batter. The disdain and frustration in his voice is evident. Denny is not a man who enjoys a walk and, if we’re being honest, he’s often right about their risks. For a Hall of Fame broadcaster, it must be especially difficult for him to have to watch this organization. Since 2018, their best ranking in terms of walk rate came in 2020 when they were middle of the pack at 15th. In 2018, they were 11th worst. In 2019, they were fifth-worst and last year, they were fourth-worst. For whatever it’s worth, their middle-of-the-pack walk rate in 2020 was very similar to their bottom-of-the-pack walk rate in 2021.

And yesterday, the walks reared their ugly head once again. It would be easy to look at the first inning for Carlos Hernandez and think he was done in by infield singles. In some ways, he absolutely was. Myles Straw started the game by tapping a ball in front of home plate and beating it out. He’d eventually score. Amed Rosario drove in a run with a chopper up the middle at 71.1 MPH that he beat out to drive in the Guardians second run. But what happened in the middle were two walks to the second and third hitters of the game.

The Guardians were scoreless in the second and third. You probably won’t be surprised to know that they also didn’t walk in either of those innings. Hernandez got hit hard in the fourth, giving up a double and a home run, but the reality is that those innings will happen. It was almost a relief that he hadn’t walked anyone before getting hit around a little bit. He got Steven Kwan (somehow) in the fifth to end his outing, which I’ll get to in a minute.

The walks didn’t end there. It was a clean fifth and sixth for the Royals, which featured no walks from the trio of Hernandez, Collin Snider and Dylan Coleman. With the score tied at four, the Royals turned to their “A” bullpen, starting with Jake Brentz. Once again, the inning was started by a bloop single. That single would come around to score. But once again, it was the walks that killed Brentz. He struck out Straw, but walked Kwan and the final pitch of the plate appearance went all the way to the screen, allowing Ernie Clement to move to third.

Josh Staumont came in to try to end the threat and immediately gave up two bloops to drive in two runs. Again, it’s easy to think that’s misfortune until you realize that runners are moving up and outs are missed by walking hitters. The final nail in the coffin came in the eighth when Staumont started the inning by getting hit hard with a double by Owen Miller before getting a lineout to right (on a very nice play by Whit Merrifield) and then, you guessed it, walking a batter. Scott Barlow came on and got the first batter he faced out before walking the next two. Kwan ripped a ball down the line for a three-run triple and it was 9-5. The Guardians would get another in the 10th to make it 10-5.

The Royals would make it closer with a two-run homer in the bottom of the ninth, but the damage was done. Five walks issued and four came around to score. The Royals lost by three. On Sunday, the Royals walked four batters and hit another. Four of those five scored. It obviously wasn’t the difference in the game in one they lost by 14, but they still hurt. I don’t put it all on the pitching staff. The Royals worked five walks and two hit batters themselves yesterday and two of them scored. Again, they lost by three. So there’s more to it than just the pitchers, but they walked 11.6 percent of hitters yesterday and got hit hard by it.

I can’t think of a more frustrating way to lose than by giving a team free runners and then watching those free runners come home with soft singles, but that’s pretty much what we had the chance to see yesterday and it was the difference between the Royals leaving town at 3-1 and the reality of 2-2.

I wrote a couple weeks ago that Cal Eldred isn’t always the problem. And he’s not. But the reality is that walks have been a problem under his watch. Young pitchers not improving has been a problem under his watch. We are four games into his fifth season as Royals pitching coach, and the results for the young arms - Hernandez, Kris Bubic, Jackson Kowar and Brady Singer - have been anywhere between rough and atrocious during these first four games. And actually they’ve all come in the last two games as the pitching was anywhere between good and dominant during the first two games of the season and the series. It’s easy to call for his head.

The reality is that I don’t think there’s any other organization where he would have kept his job after seeing what the pitching staff has done over the last four seasons. But we’re also only four games in. Eventually, you have to assume he will sink himself and the Royals will be forced to move on. But the truth is that we have zero control over that one way or another, so I’m going to try not to harp on it this season. When I first started writing about the Royals, I was given some great advice. It was to never write that anyone sucks. If they suck, there are facts and figures to show it. So that’s my plan this season. It’s a waste of energy to harp on something the Royals should do but is unequivocally out of any of our control.

Okay, stepping off my soapbox to dig into what Carlos Hernandez showed yesterday.

The results were not good, but I liked what I saw after he got through the first inning. It was a bit surprising that he struggled in the first because that was his strong suit last season. He started games well. In 11 games, he allowed a .162/.296/.189 line with a 0.82 ERA. That makes me hopeful that yesterday was a blip on the radar. Let’s start with the good because this entire newsletter has been quite negative.

His slider was pure filth. He threw 17 of them and got swings on 13 of them. Of those swings, the Guardians came up empty seven times. There was also one called strike. That was also his best swing and miss pitch last season with a 37.9 percent whiff rate. He threw it about 16 percent of the time last year and that jumped to 25 percent yesterday. For my money, he should have even thrown it more. I think the Guardians showed this weekend that they struggle with sliders as Brad Keller dominated them with a slider as well, but I would very much like to see him go to that pitch more often in future starts.

I mean just look at the nastiness:

I don’t know how you hit that. The depth you see on that when you pair that with a mid to upper-90s fastball can just be devastating to opponents. His changeup is also a pitch that I thought looked good yesterday and got some very weak contact. Mix those three pitches together with a curve that also looked sharp with a good mix of locations and things should be great for him.

Of course, he didn’t have great command yesterday, though we knew that.

You can see that while the curve was effective in results, it was all over the place. And working at the top of the zone is great, but he wasn’t quite close enough to get swings and misses with a fastball that should get more. For every one of these:

You get a bunch of these:

For a pitcher with his kind of stuff (and I don’t especially care yet that his fastball velocity was down from last year, I think he backed off because he couldn’t control it), he should never have a game with a five percent strikeout rate. And yet it happened three times last season and then again yesterday. There needs to be more from him. I’m not worried about the walks, I’m worried about the lack of strikeouts. It’s a common thread with the young pitchers, but Hernandez is the one who it feels like should be able to access them the easiest with his pitch mix, velocity and movement.

Quickly I want to talk about the offense, which came alive somewhat, though not in an especially encouraging way. They picked up nine hits and only one extra base hit, but at least they got on the board with their first home run of the year by Andrew Benintendi late in the game.

It had to be reviewed for some reason, but it was quickly determined that the ball did leave the park to double their run total from the first three games. It was nice to see Merrifield, Benintendi and Salvador Perez have big games as Benintendi and Nicky Lopez have really been the only two to hit consistently in the early going. Two games in St. Louis against Dakota Hudson and Adam Wainwright could go either way for this team, but hopefully, yesterday can be the start of some run scoring.

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Crown Jewels

High Octane Arms

Speaking of velocity, the Royals showed it off in a big way yesterday. Emmanuel Clase pitching the ninth messed this up a bit with the six hardest thrown pitches of the game, but while he had 11 of the 18 hardest thrown pitches, the Royals threw 79 of the 100 hardest pitches of the game. On Sunday, they threw 71 of the 100 hardest. On Saturday, it was 69 of 100. Velocity obviously doesn’t mean dominance or anything, but in an era when everyone throws hard, the Royals ability to throw harder than the competition is at least somewhat impressive.

We know the bullpen can sling it. The team’s average fastball velocity of 95.7 MPH ranks second in baseball through the first five days of the season. Again, that doesn’t mean they’re going to be great or anything like that, but having the ability to run it up there should help secondary pitches if they can find the separation in velocity. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again that pitching is about disrupting timing and changing eye levels at a very basic level. Throwing hard can make the first of those at least a bit easier.

Witt’s End

After the heroics from Opening Day, to say that it’s been a tough sled for Bobby Witt Jr. offensively would be an understatement. He’s now 2 for 16 with four strikeouts in 17 total plate appearances. I find myself wondering when people might start to question his readiness for the big leagues, so I wanted to get out ahead of this and remind people he absolutely was and is ready to be in a big league starting lineup. This is just the norm for young players. Wander Franco started 4 for 26 last season. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. hit .269/.336/.442 in his first 183 games. Mike Trout hit .163/.213/.279 in his first 14 games. Fernando Tatis Jr. was 5 for his first 25. The truth is that Juan Soto is one of the exceptions. Ronald Acuña Jr. is one of the exceptions.

I don’t think anyone is doubting Witt, but I just think it’s important to remind people of this. But I was quite encouraged by his final plate appearance against Clase. He took a good slider off the plate for ball one and then laid off what was probably a pretty enticing cutter up. He fouled one off and swung through one before taking the next two for his first big league walk. There are two indicators to me of a guy about to get going. One is when he makes consistent hard contact. The other is working walks. Witt smoked his one batted ball of the game yesterday and worked that walk in the ninth. He’s 2 for 16 now, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he’s something like 13 for 40 by the time the series with the Tigers this upcoming weekend is over. I just think it’s important to remember both how early it is and how hard the transition from AAA to the big leagues can be.