Weekend in Review: A Series Loss to Baltimore, Anticipated Promotions and Injury Updates
It's all fun and games until you lose a series at home to the Orioles.
After finishing the first half 7-27, the Royals needed that break about as much as any team possibly ever has. And then when they came back, we got all sorts of injury updates, which I’ll get to in a bit and it just felt like things were…better…for a night. Of course, that feeling went away awfully quickly with a disaster start from Brady Singer and then a complete offensive shutdown against one of the worst pitchers in all of baseball. It was a bad, bad weekend that started so strongly.
Promotion Zone
The news broke in the early evening. It might have been the worst kept secret of the season.
Yep, that’s right, Bobby Witt, Jr. and Nick Pratto are finally heading to Omaha. And it was very, very predictable. After competing in the Futures Game last weekend in Colorado, a lot of people thought they might get moved up, but as my good friend Clint Scoles noted, it was a matter of logistics. After being in Denver, the Royals likely wanted to give them an opportunity to get back to their home base before moving up to Omaha once the team came back in town.
I saw some speculate that it might have been a diversion tactic to move those two up when they did. And I do get that, but that’s also not the reality of the situation. This isn’t a move made to appease an angry fan base. This is a move that made sense and the timing did as well. It will likely trigger a handful of moves that may have actually already happened by the time you read this. Vinnie Pasquantino (.291/.384/.565, 13.8% K) and Michael Massey (.289/.345/.535, 13.8% K) could easily move up to Northwest Arkansas to replace Witt and Pratto. Jeison Guzman (.291/.354/.468, 21.4% K) could join them when he gets back from the Olympics. You might see Seuly Matias (two homers in his last three games) up as well with Juan Carlos Negret (.187/.298/.475, 17 HR) replacing him in Quad Cities. There are a lot of possibilities but prepare for some movement.
The Games
A weekend that started off as promising as any in the last few weeks ended up with the team looking and feeling about as lost as ever.
Friday - Royals 9, Orioles 2
After losing four in a row to end the first half and seeing the bullpen really implode, it was so nice to get out of the gate on the right foot. And it was really the entire lineup doing the work for the Royals. Whit Merrifield put up four hits. Nicky Lopez drove in four runs. The only Royals hitter to not reach base in the game was the guy who gets on base as well as anyone, Carlos Santana. It maybe wasn’t the most sustainable offensive explosion with a bunch of singles, but it was an offensive explosion nonetheless.
I thought Danny Duffy looked really good in this one too. It’s a huge bummer that he got hit by a batted ball in the first that ended up forcing him from the game after four because he was looking a lot like the guy we saw before his IL stint earlier this season. He only had six whiffs and they were all on his fastball, but he also threw mostly fastballs with just eight curves as his second most used pitch. But I also thought the handful of curves he threw looked really good.
Still, the fastball is the pitch that had him going and he was going to it quite a bit. You can see how behind Anthony Santander was here on a 92 MPH fastball, which is below average velocity.
Part of that is you have to be ready for the changeup with Duffy on two strikes, but part of it is just the explosion of the pitch.
The rumors are that the Royals are shopping Duffy heavily and that he would prefer to go to the West Coast, which isn’t too surprising given where he’s from. He does have 10 and 5 rights now that he’s reached 10 years in the big leagues, but it sounds like he’d waive those in the right deal. I know he only went four innings in this one, but if he can continue to throw like this in his next start, it might be his last one for the Royals, at least for now.
Mike Matheny probably wasn’t loving that Duffy could only go four innings, but as the broadcast actually correctly noted, it was probably one of the few games where he didn’t mind quite as much. While the bullpen was absolutely zonked from the first half, they had five days off with Sunday’s rainout, so it was a good opportunity to get everyone an inning and back in the swing of things, especially in a game that was firmly in hand.
Kyle Zimmer, Josh Staumont, Greg Holland, Jake Brentz and Scott Barlow each took an inning the rest of the way. Some looked better than others. I thought Staumont’s inning was the most encouraging. His velocity wasn’t upper-90s, but I really just thought his command looked better in general. He threw more curves than anything, which I guess might be a bit concerning, but I thought he looked good. Brentz looked the worst, obviously, giving up the home run and then hitting consecutive batters. It looked like he might have had some trouble gripping the ball, but that’s something he has to figure out. Check out his pitch location.
Can you guess the home run? It’s that green changeup right down the middle, if you were wondering.
But hey, good win.
Saturday - Orioles 8, Royals 4
If you haven’t figured it out already, Brady Singer irks me. It started with that start in Oakland when he was talking about the great pitches he made, but it continued after this start. It’s not so much the game. Bad games happen. His command was brutal and he was getting hit around. Look at the location of his pitches. Way too much in the middle.
It’s what he said after the game. In the middle of that answer, he gave an answer that I absolutely hated.
“Pfft. I’ve had plenty of outings where I didn’t throw the changeup, but I had plus command of my fastball and slider. Tonight, the ball’s in the middle of the plate and stuff like that, it doesn’t matter if I’ve got a third pitch or not. It doesn’t matter at all actually.”
Are you kidding me? It doesn’t matter if you have a third pitch or not? Look, I’m as against Cal Eldred as any. You can go to the tapes of appearances on 810 three years ago. If there is a “Cal Eldred is bad at his job” hipster, it’s me. But at some point, the pitcher needs to make the pitches and get the job done. I think part of the lack of a third pitch absolutely puts some blame on Eldred, but the reality is that the pitcher needs to take some steps as well and Singer’s dismissal of a third pitch, whether it’s a changeup or a splitter or whatever says quite a bit about him.
Kris Bubic, on the other hand, was a highlight. He’s one pitcher I never worry about working to figure out his issues and try to find ways to get better. He’s had some very difficult outings recently after an extremely strong start to his big league season. In a sharp contrast to Singer, the Royals have been pushing him to use his curve more, and he’s obviously working to make that pitch not just a big part of his repertoire, but an important one.
He took over in the fourth inning and gave up a leadoff triple, followed by a sacrifice fly. From that point forward, it was smooth sailing. He ended up going six innings to finish the game and gave up only that one run on one more hit for two total. He struck out five and walked three and threw 81 pitches. If the Royals wanted to let Singer work on his changeup in AAA, I wouldn’t be upset by that, though I don’t see it happening. Still, Bubic has earned a start.
He threw 12 curves in this start and while it wasn’t great, you can see how the pitch shows promise as a legitimate third. Bubic will always only go as far as his changeup command will let him and he had six whiffs on 14 swings. He left a few too many over the middle, but didn’t get hurt on them because the Orioles aren’t that good, but it was a very encouraging game for the lefty.
Bad loss, but good things happened.
Sunday - Orioles 5, Royals 0
Matt Harvey has been one of the worst starters in baseball this season. The Royals mustered three hits against him. The Orioles bullpen held the shutout for their third of the year and the first one not started by John Means. It was a brutal performance.
Two things stood out to me, though, in this one. Carlos Hernandez looked okay enough. His fastball was popping with five pitches 100 MPH+ and 17 more at 98+. The command was a bit of an issue, and led to a couple runs scored early, but I don’t think you can look at the start with anything but positivity for his development. I hope he gets more opportunities over the final couple months of the season.
The other positive was Hunter Dozier, who has continued to look…better. He went four for four with two doubles (one was a bloop) with three hits the other way after having four the entire season before yesterday. He’s now hitting .348/.404/.522 in July and .304/.356/.456 since June 20. Both are arbitrary endpoints, but you have to start somewhere, right? It’s very encouraging. Of course, this can’t come without some more concern over the way the team is run.
I’m happy that he’s figuring some things out. I mean I spent the last month and a half before the season talking about how he was ready to break out. But how can the organization know that he had altered his swing due to his thumb injury on Opening Day and just continue to run him out there and let him run his season into the ground? And they even had an opportunity to leave him in AAA for a bit when he was on a rehab assignment after his collision with Jose Abreu. He played four games.
I just don’t get this organization sometimes.
Injury Updates
As can be expected when coming back from a few days off, there were quite a few updates when everyone reconvened on Friday. The Royals got their backup catcher, Cam Gallagher, back after a rehab assignment in Omaha, so that was the end of another stint for Sebastian Rivero. They also ended up getting Wade Davis back and designated Anthony Swarzak for assignment as the corresponding move. While neither move means much in the grand scheme, I’m still a Gallagher fan and think he’s one of the better backup catchers out there. As for Davis, well, he’s not good anymore, but it’s also not like he’s really pitching important innings. Hopefully.
The big news came about Adalberto Mondesi, who is with the team and working on the field on some stuff. It sounds like he’s pretty close to getting out on a rehab assignment, which is big news in itself. But what I’m super interested in is where he goes when he goes on a rehab assignment. If he rehabs in Omaha, it would be next to Witt, which I think is pretty fun. We’ll see how things go for him in his rehab, but it’s looking like early August seems like a fair guess for when Mondesi will be back, which is about where we all expected when he originally went on the IL.
The Week Ahead
The Royals have a weird week. They just finished three at home and now have an off-day today, then two in Milwaukee that are now both day games, another off-day and then they’re back home. The Brewers have opened up a huge lead in the National League Central, but the Royals are lucking out a bit in not seeing any of their big three starters and they’ll catch them with Devin Williams on the injured list. And then they come home to face the Tigers, who might be starting to see their rebuild completely turn around, which is brutal to see from the Royals perspective. I don’t have any delusions about the Royals winning games, so how they do is largely irrelevant, but boy would it be nice to see some well played games for a change.
I like that you actually, out-loud, said that you like Gallgher because I don't feel like he gets much credit sometimes. I like him as a person (as much as I can say only having talked to him twice for a few minutes at a time) and as a player. Is he an All-Star? No, but you don't get to see a whole lot of play time when you're backing up a dude like Perez. Now, I wouldn't mind seeing Gallagher behind the dish and Perez at DH a little more often when you consider our... other choices.
Obviously I don't know Singer personally, but boy does he come across as kid that was never told no. Just no accountability in this organization whatsoever. If he doesn't want to throw his change up, either tell him you're not going to shake off the sign or you can go to Omaha and figure it out. I just don't understand the entitlement from him. He hasn't done enough in his short career to be able to dictate what pitches he throws or doesn't throw. Can it get any worse than losing to Matt Harvey?