Weekend in Review: A Hot Streak Out of Left Field, Uneven Starts and a Big Debut Coming

The newest ItC Monday feature has arrived.

As I’ve been writing Inside the Crown now for about two and a half months, it’s been amazing the support I’ve had from all of you, so first of all thank you so much. We’re now a month into the season and I think I’ve gotten into a pretty good rhythm on the daily articles, typically looking at the game before and extracting an overarching theme from that day to try to expound upon in a way that maybe you hadn’t thought of before. But one thing I’ve struggled with a bit since the start of the season is how to handle a weekend after not having written anything about the individual games.

Enter the Weekend in Review, which you’re reading right now! What I’m planning to do from here on out on Mondays is to take a look at the past weekend with some quick hitter thoughts about the games since we last met here at ItC. As you know, I will eventually start offering a paid subscription and, just to give you all a peek behind the curtain, this is likely going to be a free article every week once that happens. Anyway, thanks again for being so supportive as I’ve started on this journey (and at a great time for the Royals, it seems). Let’s get to the Weekend in Review before I bore you too much!

Benny Heating Up

It’s been a bit now since Mike Matheny mentioned that he thought he was seeing some good signs out of Andrew Benintendi, but the results just weren’t really coming yet. He finally moved him out of the top of the order and down a bit, and I think it’s somewhat coincidental but also probably plays some role that Benintendi has gotten going since that time. After going 2 for 4 yesterday and hitting a ball at 102.5 MPH for an out, he went 6 for 11 with two homers in the weekend series. And even that’s a bit misleading as Byron Buxton robbed him of a single early in the game on Friday and probably a home run late. It’s been fun to see Benintendi heat up, especially after it really did look like he had a slow bat. 

Sometimes that can be misleading, though, and I probably fell victim to it. When hitters are off on their timing, you often see a slider speed swing against a fastball and vice versa. You really notice it against fastballs because the bat just looks like it takes forever to even get to the zone, and I’m guessing that’s what was happening early in the year and made me think he was slow. But now since moving down in the order, he’s hitting .351/.429/.622 with five walks and four strikeouts, which is pretty much exactly the player the Royals thought they were getting when they made that big trade with the Red Sox before spring training started. The numbers are inflated, but the strikeout and walk rates are what they wanted.

Saturday, Alec Lewis tweeted this:

Alec Lewis @alec_lewis

Also, how about this? Andrew Benintendi hasn't whiffed at a fastball in the strike zone since April 17. He hasn't whiffed at anything in the strike zone since April 25. That'll play.

So that made me curious to look up Benintendi’s number on pitches inside the zone early in the year and from date forward. For the year, he’s hit .303 with a .485 SLG, which is...fine. It’s probably not good enough, but it’s fine. Since April 17, the average hasn’t gone up demonstrably, but it’s .313 and the SLG is .625. He’s started barreling balls and hitting them hard and just generally looks like the player the Royals thought they were getting. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised as I did predict he’d start slow. Him heating up is really important for this lineup. 

For Starters, It’s a Mixed Bag

The weekend of starts was probably enough to devote an entire article, but I’m going to give you the highlights here. 

Friday

Brady Singer was as bad as I’ve ever seen with his command, having zero idea where the ball was going. When I said that he needed to be a little more wild a few weeks ago, this was definitely not what I had in mind.

His slider was just moving too much to the left-handed batter’s box. His sinker was absolutely all over the place. He really didn’t have it, but he was kind of gutting it out. That is, until Josh Donaldson hit a ball 105.5 miles per hour that hit off Singer’s heel and then was turned into a bizarre double play. It looked bad at the time, but Singer seems to be doing okay now. Given how he was throwing, it might not be the worst thing that he didn’t have a chance to really blow up in the game, but it’s also disappointing because we didn’t really get the chance to see how he would adjust. 

Saturday

Danny Duffy was truly awesome once again, and it looked like he had a game plan that he would rather walk a guy than let them get a hittable pitch. That’s some confidence in knowing you can get the next guy. And of course he was absolutely nails. Every pitch was working, but his changeup was once again really, really good. I think we need to talk more about it because it’s so good. 

Just look at that beauty. I also really loved the way he mostly stayed up in the zone with his fastball, which averaged 94 on Saturday.

There was a lot of talk about him coming back out for the seventh inning when he gave up a run that saw his ERA almost double, but I get it to some extent. The bullpen was needed for six innings the day before and it was 10-0. Sometimes you have to sacrifice the MLB ERA lead to get an extra inning that the bullpen doesn’t need to throw when there’s a huge week coming up fro the Royals. 

Sunday

I mean what is there more to say about Brad Keller? He wasn’t helped out by his defense at all, which led to five of the seven runs he allowed being unearned, but he still allowed seven runs. His velocity was way down (93.1 MPH average compared to 94.4 MPH for the year) and he only had six total swings and misses out of 72 pitches and 35 swings. For a guy who never really got hit hard before, he was constantly hit hard yesterday with an average exit velocity allowed of 96 MPH including two homers. He’s now allowed four this year, which is twice as many as he allowed all of last season. 

One place I’ll credit Keller is that he didn’t have anything working on his sinker with either velocity or command he didn’t really use it as much, throwing it just 26 percent of the time when he normally throws it about 36 percent of the time. He simply couldn’t locate it. 

Look at all those juicy center cut pitches. It’s not hard to see why he was hit hard. I honestly don’t know what the answer is with Keller at this point. He’s still not throwing his slider too much, which still has me wondering if his arm is feeling okay. And as I’ve said before, it would almost be a relief if he actually was hurt because there would be a reason for what’s going on here.

I mentioned this on Twitter in conjunction with the third note I’m about to get to, but minor league games are starting this week, so if the Royals feel like he needs to get some reps in the minors, that can actually happen starting on Tuesday. I don’t know what they’ll do, but something has to give. He’s now been good in one start, fine with good results in one and downright bad in the other four. That can’t last.

Big Time Debut

I was going to write about the bullpen’s struggles this weekend, but then the Royals came out with some news that has me legitimately giddy. 

Anne Rogers @anne__rogers

#Royals No. 2 prospect Daniel Lynch will make his MLB debut Monday night against the Cleveland Indians, the club announced.

I haven’t been this excited about a debut since Yordano Ventura got called up late in 2013 against the very same Indians that Daniel Lynch will see tonight. With Lynch, you’ve got a big lefty who can sit at 95-97 and touch 99 or 100. I wouldn’t be too surprised to see triple digits if he’s really amped up in this one. He has a nasty slider and a changeup that people who have seen him this year (I haven’t had the chance) say has really improved. He also has a curve that can get him a strike, but I worry that big league hitters might be ready to jump on it if he’s just trying to steal a strike. If there is an ace in the organization, in my opinion, Lynch is the guy or maybe Asa Lacy. So yeah, we could be watching the debut of a potential game one playoff starter.

By the time you read this, you might know what the roster move is, but right now, it’s still speculation. What we do know is that he’s taking the rotation spot of Jakob Junis. I think that makes some level of sense even if the guy I just mentioned might be more worthy of losing his spot at this time. They said the move for Junis is to supplement a bullpen that’s suddenly a bit short-handed with Kyle Zimmer on the injured list, but I think there has to be something to managing his innings this season. Junis threw 25.1 innings last year. Add in whatever he threw in first spring and at Summer Camp (though he missed time there too) and it would be hard to imagine him throwing more than maybe 110-120 innings this season. He’s already at 23.1 innings, so there was going to be a time that they would need to back off him a bit.

I don’t think this is the best time personally because he’s pitching well and has started to hit a groove as a starter. He just had his longest start of the year and the most strikeouts along with the most swinging strikes. Sure it was against Pittsburgh, but Cleveland isn’t exactly a great lineup either. I wouldn’t mind seeing Mike Minor get some time in the bullpen at some point and even Keller might be worth throwing back there while he’s working on things. You might recall he was touching upper-90s out of the bullpen during his rookie season before moving to the rotation. So I don’t necessarily agree with their choice to get Lynch his chance, but I am seriously jazzed about it coming.

The Upcoming Week

This is a big week for the Royals. First they welcome the Indians in for four, starting with Lynch vs. Aaron Civale. After these four, they’ll host the White Sox for three. A quick look at the standings confirms what you already knew. The Indians and White Sox are the two teams behind the Royals in the standings. If they can hold their own, they’ll keep their division lead. If they can win maybe five of seven, they’ll announce that their presence at the top has staying power. You can read both series previews this week over at Royals Review. 

It’s been awhile since the Royals have played a legitimately big series. We’re probably talking about back in the 2017 season after the team clawed their way back to the to top of the Wild Card race after a terrible start to the season. This is fun. Baseball is fun again in Kansas City! The Royals offense will have to navigate a tough Indians pitching staff, but the White Sox aren’t really at full strength. We know they’re without Eloy Jimenez for a long time and it looks like Luis Robert might miss some time now after injuring himself running to first over the weekend. They have other weapons and it seems like Yermin Mercedes will never cool down, but that’s at least a little helpful for the Royals as they could do a lot for their cause by winning that series over the weekend.

It’s fun to care about the standings in May. Yes, low bar, but it’s fun!