Weekend in Review: A Bronx Buzzsaw, Infielders Swapping Struggles, MJ Time and Singer Confusion

The Royals showed they are not close to the elite of the baseball world.

When the Yankees came to Kansas City, they were riding a six-game winning streak and doing so with some big-time offense. They started the year slow and made people wonder what was wrong with them, but they had started hitting a bit before coming to KC and I actually thought Royals pitching ended up handling them better than expected with some explosion in the late innings of the first game. I thought the series gave the Royals a more realistic look of where they stood in a stacked American League. Sure they might be able to compete in the American League Central, which is filled with mediocrity (they’re 7-6 in the division), but I think you can argue there are anywhere from five to seven teams better than anyone in the division right now.

And it’s another two weeks before they get back to playing within the division. That could be rough.

Nicky Bobby Out of Sync

Before the season started, we were treated to Bobby Witt Jr. and Nicky Lopez proclaiming they were a tag team known as Nicky Bobby (in reference to Talladega Nights, if you’re not familiar). Unfortunately, the two of them haven’t been able to find success at the same time. Witt had to miss yesterday’s game with a wrist contusion (fancy word for a bruise) after getting hit by a pitch on Saturday night, but he’s started to get going. He’s in the midst of a nine-game hitting streak that hasn’t featured much power, but he’s hitting .314 with a 16.2 percent strikeout rate during that time. I’ve said it before, but it does seem like he’s making a real effort to let the ball get deeper into his swing.

And he recently started hitting the ball very hard. His double on Friday night was hit 113.7 MPH. He had one at 105.1 MPH against Gerrit Cole on Saturday night. In the seven-game hitting streak, he has seven balls hit fair at 100 MPH or more and 13 total at 95 MPH or more. That’s a 44.8 percent hard-hit rate, which isn’t great, but it’s getting there. I think the power is coming very soon.

Lopez, though, has been terrible for a bit now, though he did get two hits yesterday. He went 2 for 3 against the Twins on April 19 in his first game after moving up in the order. Since then, he’s 5 for 38 with all games but one hitting in the leadoff spot or second. That is…bad. When you combine it with what Whit Merrifield has done, it’s no wonder they’re not scoring runs. Now, he is drawing walks, so at least he’s doing that, but he’s also striking out a lot in this time. And now that he’s back to shortstop, his defense hasn’t been especially good either. It’s a small sample and there’s an adjustment to moving midseason and all that, but he hasn’t been nearly as good in the few games playing shortstop as we saw last year. He made an error on Friday and should have been charged with another (more on that below) and then made another error on Saturday night. It’s almost like when they announced their fun partnership, they made it so only one could succeed at a time.

Sing(er)ing a Different Tune

This may just be anecdotal, but I’m seeing quite a bit of people thinking the Royals have mistreated or misused Brady Singer. They sent him down to AAA a few days ago to get back to starting, which I think is probably the right move. But he did start the year in the bullpen and didn’t get much in the way of chances. He threw three innings in the third game of the year and then got two batters in Seattle and two innings against the White Sox in Chicago. What I’m confused about is why people seem surprised that Kris Bubic beat him out for a starting spot. The reality is that Bubic had been the better pitcher through each of their first two seasons and had a better spring than Singer. If you want to argue Singer’s upside is higher, I don’t know if I’d argue with you or not, but I think it was a perfectly reasonable decision to give Bubic the job over Singer.

But moreso, and maybe this has more to do with my personal thoughts on Singer, I recall many fans being frustrated with Singer last year and his unwillingness to make changes. Plus, his struggles have been well-documented. I’ve also seen quite a few mentions of how he isn’t able to work on his changeup in the bullpen. First, if he has a ball in his hand, he can throw his changeup. Though I do agree that if he feels like he’s pitching for his job, he isn’t likely to throw it as much if he’s not comfortable. Second, if he’s in the bullpen, he can be working hard on it behind the scenes. I hope he figures it out and becomes a legitimate top-of-the-rotation arm, but I guess I just don’t quite get the idea that he deserved more than he’s gotten to start this season.

Roster Moves Including MJ Time

With Cam Gallagher’s hamstring injury, the Royals are calling up MJ Melendez to the big leagues to take his place. Given how poorly he’s been hitting, I didn’t expect this. His AAA line looks like the 2019 line that got the entire organization’s hitting philosophy changed. He’s hitting .167/.268/.295. The good news is he has a 14.3 percent walk rate. The bad news is everything else. His swinging strike rate is 15.9 percent after that dropped to 11.6 percent last year. He does have an exceptionally low BABIP at .204 and some who have seen him have said he’s hitting into bad luck, but we talk about that a lot around here. Generally the numbers don’t support that making much of a difference.

But even so, I hope that Melendez will play. They have Sebastian Rivero on the 40-man roster if they’re looking to just have a backup who gets in there once or twice a week and they chose against bringing him up. Maybe Salvador Perez is going to get full days off rather than DH work, but Hunter Dozier has been struggling some lately, but did get a couple hits this weekend. And Carlos Santana has been struggling all year. Plus, Melendez has had some work at third and in the outfield, though not much at either spot. So hopefully he plays and they don’t let him get rusty to compound his slow start.

The other moves were to get down to 26 for the roster ahead of today’s game. They sent down Matt Peacock, who you may not have even realized was on the roster, and Emmanuel Rivera, who I’m sure you knew was but forgot about three times in the three days he was up.

The Games

Friday - Yankees 12, Royals 2, 8 innings

This game went from looking like it might be a blowout to looking like a good, close game to becoming a blowout. The first inning for Kris Bubic went about as poorly to start as you’ll see. He gave up a leadoff double, then Aaron Judge hit a missile to center that was caught. But then Anthony Rizzo homered with some help from the wind and Giancarlo Stanton hit a ball about 7,300 feet that did not need the wind. A Cal Eldred mound visit actually helped. He got two groundouts to end the inning. Then he actually retired 12 of the last 13 hitters he faced to have five decent innings, which was a huge step for him.

You might remember me talking last year about how much better Bubic is with fastballs when he actually throws them harder. He’s very frustrating because he’s shown the ability to hit 93 and 94 even touch 95 or 96, but so often he’s sitting at 89-91. It’s kind of the same issue that I thought was there with Jakob Junis. As he threw harder after the first inning, the results started to come. In those last four innings, he gave up one hit and struck out three.

The big news was that he didn’t walk anyone. That was a big issue for him in his first couple starts this season, but he was better in Seattle and obviously did well in this start. In my opinion, I’d like to see him put the fastball higher in the zone if he’s going to be able to keep throwing harder.

But all in all, there’s something attractive to this pitch chart. A hitter has no idea based on location what the pitch is, and there’s something to be said for that. Still, I’d like to see that changeup generally lower and the fastball generally higher moving forward for him.

The offense actually looked somewhat effective in the first couple of innings. They got an extra base hit from Merrifield in the first and an actual hit with a runner in scoring position from Perez to score their first run. Then a Witt ringing double at 113.7 MPH in the second started that inning.

That’s just a beautiful swing and one I can’t wait to see more of. But as it seems to always be the case with the Royals, something good was followed by something…less good.

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Royals manager Mike Matheny gets ejected arguing that Bobby Witt Jr. was pushed off of third base

I think you can see this whichever way you choose to see it. There’s a pretty strong argument that he would have slid over the base either way. But also, Gleyber Torres did push him. Either way, that’s as hot as I’ve ever seen Mike Matheny, at least as manager of the Royals. But credit to the Royals offense. They didn’t pack it up. They ended up with a small two-out rally to score a second run.

The problem came in the seventh. After a great sixth inning from Colin Snider, Dylan Coleman came on. He got the leadoff hitter out, gave up a single on a little dunker hit to the right spot and then struck out Tim Locastro. Then his biggest mistake, arguably, was walking the number nine hitter. Now, the umpiring was terrible all game (for both sides, for whatever that’s worth). That first pitch that is clearly in the zone was called a ball.

But come on. Go after the guy. And with the bases loaded and two outs, he put a pitch up in the zone that DJ LeMahieu hit hard.

I’m not saying it’s an easy play, but that ball was in his glove. He has to make that play. If he catches that, the score remains 3-2. Only one run scored, but Coleman then gave up a home run to make it 7-2 and then Jake Brentz threw some gasoline on the fire and the game got out of hand before the crazy rains arrived and called the game an inning early. They could have called it before the rain.

Saturday - Yankees 3, Royals 0

It was sort of less ugly. The pitches really piled up for Carlos Hernandez, throwing 90 in just four innings. That’s because he walked five batters. On the plus side, he did again get some swings and misses. And he powered through trouble and minimized damage. If you’re looking at this season as one last learning experience before they’re expected to actually win, things like that are important. If you think this is supposed to be a playoff team, those moral victories are meaningless. It’s all about that perception we talked about last week.

But in all honestly, it was impressive. Against an offense playing as well as the Yankees have been, Hernandez never let them get the big hit. A single, a walk and a single got the Yankees going in the second inning. With the bases loaded and nobody out, Hernandez coaxed a double play out of Isiah Kiner-Falefa. It scored a run, but only one and then he got Jose Trevino to end the inning.

Then in the third, he walked two and gave up a single to load the bases with one out. Torres hit a sacrifice fly to drive in the run and then Rizzo was caught stealing to end the inning.

And in the fourth, Hernandez walked the leadoff hitter and then gave up a single that got Aaron Hicks to third after a throwing error by Lopez (there’s another). But it was just a Kiner-Falefa sacrifice fly to score the run before a strikeout and a groundout ended that.

So in all, Hernandez allowed nine runners to an offense that looks fantastic right now, at least at the top of the order, and they scored three runs on productive outs. And only two of them were earned. Yes, the control was a problem. Yes, it would be great to get more innings out of him. And yes, you want more swings and misses on a fastball that hits 98, but all in all, it was a nice outing in terms of learning.

The problem is that giving up three runs should allow them to win a game. And it’s not that the offense didn’t have a chance to get to Gerrit Cole and then the Yankees bullpen. They were 0 for 5 with runners in scoring position and left 11 on base. The worst came in the sixth when the Royals had runners on second and third with one out after a Santana single and then a Dozier double. Both Witt and Kyle Isbel struck out looking on absolutely stunning pitches from Cole. But they also had two on in the seventh and eighth before getting shut down fast in the ninth.

Sunday - Yankees 6, Royals 4

Daniel Lynch, like Kris Bubic, looked like it might be ugly quickly. He gave up a 14,982 foot home run to Aaron Judge (I might be off). But boy did he rebound quick after a walk to the next hitter. He ended up getting in a little trouble later, but went five innings with four hits allowed and walked just the one while striking out four Yankees. And he did it without facing a lefty once again. He still has only gotten two plate appearances against lefties (and he got outs on both).

For Lynch yesterday, the fastball was okay and the slider was okay, but his changeup was especially good. I’ll get to that in a second. What actually caused Lynch problems is that he couldn’t get his fastball or slider to put guys away like it had in the past. It wasn’t that it wasn’t a good pitch, but the Yankees fouled off nine fastballs and 15 sliders. Of the 28 total foul balls, 16 were with two strikes. And of the 28 foul balls, 16 were in the first inning.

So again, in the theme of the weekend, there were signs of positivity for the future, but you have to be willing to accept that they aren’t ready to win yet if you’re ready to look into the future. But about the changeup. He ran into some trouble with it in that first game in St. Louis, but since then, opponents are 1 for 14 on it with just a single. And it was especially good against the Yankees.

Just look at the way it bores in on Judge.

At times, Lynch’s changeup looked good last year, but he threw it in the middle of the plate too much and he ran into big trouble with it far too often to be able to utilize it successfully all the time. Given all the right-handed lineups he’s facing, he needs something in addition to the fastball and slider.

I don’t personally love where those up in the zone are, but also if you’ve got a guy swinging to pull or set up with the fastball, those changeups aren’t that dangerous to righties. A couple of them are and he got away with them, but the development of that pitch is what will turn Lynch from a fine pitcher to a good one. And so far this year, he’s looking like a pretty darn good one.

I’m not going to spend much time on the rest of this game. This Weekend in Review has already gotten far too long after last week’s was far too long. But I will say that I saw some good signs out of the offense with runners on and actually scoring runs and Merrifield actually getting two hits. But until Salvador Perez gets out of this slump, they won’t score many runs. He and Santana hitting back to back are brutal (though Santana is at .222/.370/.400 in his last eight games).

Oh and Dylan Coleman looked like he was afraid to throw strikes after he got lit up on Friday night. That could be a problem for a reliever I love. Anyway, it’s another loss as the season unravels a little quicker.

What’s Next

This was supposed to be a two off-day week for the Royals, but they’ll make up an earlier rainout against the Cardinals today in a 12:15 start (note the time, it was supposed to be 3:15 but weather has moved it up) and then come back with the Cardinals for two more in Kansas City. The Royals have played the Cardinals okay in St. Louis historically but they’ve struggled big-time at Kauffman Stadium. They’ll get Dakota Hudson and Adam Wainwright in KC and Steven Matz in St. Louis, so a lot of ground balls are to be expected from Royals hitters if those pitchers have their way.

Then they head East and get their first look at the new left field wall in Baltimore designed to make the stadium a bit less hitter friendly. The Orioles are once again not very good, but the young guys are getting closer to being up with Adley Rutschman possibly getting called up very soon. They are without their ace and Gardner native John Means, though, so the Royals won’t have to face him, but this feels like a different sort of bad Orioles team. I guess they’re still bad, but just closer to being less bad.