Weekend in Review: A Perfect Start to the Second Half

The Royals were blessed with baseball's worst as their opponent and it was a great weekend for them.

A team can only play the games they’re scheduled to play, and the Royals were scheduled to play the Chicago White Sox. At the start of the series, the White Sox had played 98 games and had a 27-71 record. That’s one game worse than the 2023 Royals through 98 games. You watched the games this weekend, so you don’t need that barometer for how bad they are. But when faced with a bad team, a team with playoff aspirations needs to take care of business, and that’s exactly what the Royals did this weekend. It didn’t hurt that they were helped out quite a bit over the weekend with the rest of the league.

The Royals opened their post-break schedule seven games behind the Guardians in the AL Central, two games behind the Red Sox in the AL Wild Card chase and 2.5 games behind the Twins in the division and for the second wild card. They were also 5.5 games behind the Yankees for the first wild card spot. They end their first weekend back in play five games behind the Guardians, a game ahead of the Red Sox, tied with the Twins and 3.5 back of the Yankees. Short of the best record in the American League, sweeping the team they were supposed to beat out of the break them has left them with every possibility (other than that best record in the AL thing) wide open.

I remember before the season, most of the thought was that people would be happy if they’d just be competitive through April. Or maybe it was that the Royals could get them to training camp with the games even remotely mattering. Some wanted to see a competitive game in August. Some were super greedy and wanted to see them play a game that mattered in September. I don’t know about the final one of those, but everything else either has already happened or will happen with this team. They have nine games left to play in July, with seven of them coming before the trade deadline, and they’re in the middle of everything in the American League. It’s pretty exciting even if the road gets more difficult now.

The Next Move

The Royals still need a bat to lengthen the lineup. I wrote a bit ago that the needs seem to be shifting with the starting outfielders hitting well enough to allow that to not be a priority anymore. At the time, third base looked like it would be a bigger need. I’m not saying neither are a need anymore, but there have at least been positive signs. Maikel Garcia had a nice series against the White Sox, going 4 for 11 at the bottom of the lineup. The outfield has been hitting better for awhile now, but with MJ Melendez on the IL, there is some doubt there. As I said, they still need a bat. If it’s one that pushes Garcia to a utility role, I think that’s fine. If it’s one that pushes Melendez to a platoon situation, I think that’s fine too.

There are plenty of at bats to give in that group, even if nobody is truly playing every single day. I mean just look at who has been slotted as the DH recently. With that in mind, I think they have two big moves left in them, and a bat is one of them. When I say big, I don’t necessarily mean it’ll be shocking in the game, but big for the Royals. I believe they’re going to get a guy who will be top-six or so in plate appearances the rest of the season, assuming health. They’ve been rumored to be in on Tommy Pham. I think he makes a lot of sense in an outfield corner as someone who can hit at the top of the lineup and as someone who probably would benefit from a few days off.

I heard some rumors about interest in Isaac Paredes a few days ago. I checked in with a few sources, and I think the general consensus is that the Royals would be interested. He’d probably be a long-term third base solution for them with three years of control following this one. But a lot of teams are interested and the Rays aren’t even guaranteed sellers. They may be trading pitching, but that’s more because it’s the sort of thing they generally do and they have guys working their way back from injury and have a surplus. When you’re a team hovering around .500, even in a six-team playoff era, that’s the smart play. I would say the Royals being willing to take on money would help them here, but the Rays don’t really have anyone making a ton of money. Zack Eflin will be owed $18 million next year, but he’s been good enough that he’s not a salary dump even at a high number for 2024.

But I do believe they will be in the starting pitching market and I don’t think it’s an accident that Alec Marsh pitched in relief on Friday night. He needed the work, since he’s not scheduled to pitch until the second game of the upcoming series, so that means he’d be pitching on 12 days rest. But I also think they wanted to check it out. I believe that Marsh could be a weapon in the bullpen. He’s also thrown a lot of innings this season. He’s thrown 95.2 innings between his rehab start and the big leagues. His previous career high is 136.2 last season. That’s just 41 more innings. Let’s say he starts every fifth day the rest of the year and averages the same 5.1 innings he’s averaged this year. That puts him at 159 innings. Is that too many? Maybe not, but there’s no harm in saving some and maybe helping the bullpen.

I’ve heard from a few people that they seem to be most interested in lefty starters. I don’t think they’d turn down a chance to acquire a righty starter if he could help them, but the lefty starter is interesting. Who is out there fitting that bill? Yusei Kikuchi could be the guy. He’ll be a free agent after the season, so may not cost a ton. Then there’s Tyler Anderson, who is owed $13 million next year and is having a really nice season. Otherwise, maybe it’s Jose Quintana if the Mets sell. Sean Manaea could be there too. Andrew Heaney is a possibility. There might be someone I’m missing, but I found that interesting.

And I do think they’ll be active looking for another reliever. I’m not sure if it’ll be a higher profile guy, but I think they’ll be on the lookout for someone else. I’d love for them to make the move for Carlos Estevez to really build out the back of that bullpen, but I think that’s less likely now. David Robertson, Kirby Yates, Austin Adams and a handful of others could all be on that list to help deepen up that bullpen. It’s going to be a fun week and a day between now and the deadline.

The Games

Friday - Royals 7, White Sox 1: A Big Inning Without Many Hits

Let’s start with Michael Wacha because he was excellent. He went seven innings without allowing a run. He struck out seven and walked one. I don’t care who you’re facing, that’s a great start. But it didn’t seem like it was going to be a great start when the game began. He gave up a leadoff double to Pham on the second pitch of the game and then walked Luis Robert Jr. with one out, though I think that might have been semi-intentional. Then Pham stole third and it looked like there might be trouble. But Wacha was able to get a double play to end the inning and basically was only in any kind of trouble once more.

He gave up a single to Brooks Baldwin in his first big league at bat. Then Pham singled with one out and Baldwin went to third to give the White Sox the same situation as they had in the first. But just like the first, Wacha coaxed a double play ground ball. He did give up an infield hit with two outs in the seventh, but literally nothing else in between. I mentioned this on Twitter, but he looked in the first like he hadn’t pitched in over a week, and once he settled in, he was excellent.

The only thing that gave me any sort of concern was that he just couldn’t get that slider going, and it’s been a big pitch for him since he introduced it a few starts ago. He threw 11 of them and didn’t get a single swing and miss and the contact the White Sox made on it, in a small sample, was good contact. I think he needs that slider to be really successful, but as long as he has his changeup, he has a chance, and it was excellent for him in this one. He also got a ton of called strikes, which I think happens against bad teams, but you also have to execute, so good on him for executing.

While they scored seven runs on offense, which is a great number, it didn’t feel like they ever really exploded. The scoring started in the first when Bobby Witt Jr. was never told the Home Run Derby ended.

Remember earlier this season when I wrote about how he wasn’t driving anything to left? Yeah, that’s done. It wasn’t a Jhoan Duran fastball or anything, but I don’t think enough is made of how difficult it is for a hitter to get his hands to the position Witt was able to here to drive that ball out to that spot. It’s just one of those things that is unteachable and when you combine that ability with the work ethic of a guy like Witt, well, you get a superstar.

The superstar worked again in the third after a Garcia single led things off. Kyle Isbel bunted him to second on what I think was a bunt for a hit but worked as a sacrifice. Then Adam Frazier struck out, leaving Garcia on second with two outs. Never fear, Bobby is here. He lined a single to center to score the second run, which we now know was all they’d need.

But the Royals didn’t know it then and the White Sox are a giving bunch because the fifth inning was wild. Literally. Chris Flexen had been fine. He’d walked one all game, but then he started the inning by walking Garcia. Then he walked Isbel. Frazier laid down a sacrifice bunt that was intended to be a sacrifice bunt and then he unintentionally intentionally walked Witt. Vinnie Pasquantino did his thing and hit a sacrifice fly and Salvador Perez was intentionally walked too. That’s four walks to six batters with two sacrifices mixed in. Then he hit Hunter Renfroe with the bases loaded to drive in a run. At this point, the Royals had scored two runs on no hits and were 0 for 0 for the inning with two outs.

They finally got a couple of hits with Michael Massey driving in two and Freddy Fermin driving in one more to give the Royals a five-run inning that only saw them pick up two hits. My dream was that the Royals would get thrown out on the bases to end the inning, so they could have been 2 for 2 as a team with five runs scored. That would have been an all-time weird box score moment.

Chris Stratton gave up a run in the eighth to end the shutout, but the game was long over before he got in there and the Royals took game one.

Saturday - Royals 6, White Sox 1: Singer Sets up the Sweep with the Sweeper

Brady Singer had the closest thing to a start on regular rest as he’d started on Sunday before the break. So he was only working on five days. Still, like Wacha, he had an early runner on after a one-out single by Andrew Benintendi. Singer got his double play in one of my favorite ways to end the first in this one. He got Robert to strike out swinging and Benintendi was thrown out trying to steal by roughly a mile and a half. Maybe more.

And also like Wacha, Singer settled in with just one more hint of trouble. In the fourth, he walked Benintendi with one out, gave up a single with two outs and then walked another to load the bases. But he bullied Baldwin, in his second big league game. I’m not sure I love the sequence, but I love the result.

Starting a guy who hadn’t seen much big league pitching with that slider is kind of mean. Then he missed up with a sinker, but came back with a slider that caught a lot of the plate. Baldwin fouled it off. Singer came back with another fat pitch, but Baldwin was probably ready for the slider again and then he was just late on a 92 MPH sinker to end the threat. Singer gave up a hit in the fifth with two outs and then two in the seventh with two outs, but you just never felt like he was really in any real trouble the whole game.

But what Singer mentioned after the game caught my attention. Apparently he saw a sweeper grip on Twitter that he wanted to try in a game and did. And it was dominant. It’s kind of hard to know what was a sweeper and what wasn’t because the classification may be a bit off on Baseball Savant, but the stats show five sweepers, five swings and four whiffs. All five sweepers were out of the zone and the White Sox chased all five.

Just look at that. It’s nasty. It honestly doesn’t look all that different than his usual slider, but whatever it is, that pitch works. All in all, he had 11 total whiffs, including eight on his slider/sweeper combination. He wasn’t getting a ton of chase outside of the sweeper, which is sort of the issue with Singer, but if that sweeper becomes a weapon, it mitigates a lot of the concern.

The other thing is that when Singer is locating, woo boy, he can be really good. Do you think he had a plan here?

I mean, there are, what, four pitches letters or higher? He was facing a team that doesn’t hit well and he challenged them all day long. And they just never beat him. They came sort of close a couple of times, but never got through. You can’t ask for much more.

We got the Royals debut of Hunter Harvey, and it was the sort of debut that if you loved the trade, you still love it because of his splitter. If you hated the trade, you still hate it because he got hit a bit. His splitter was a monster. He threw 10, got five swings and four whiffs. It was the pitch he got both his strikeouts on, so if you’re the weirdo sitting behind me at the game who thinks his splitter stinks, you’re just wrong. It’s okay to be wrong.

That’s filthy. He needs to limit that hard contact, but I’m willing to say he was pitching a little strong after not having thrown for more than a week. Plus, I spent way too long looking this up, but it was just the second time in his career that he took the mound for a team over .500 at that moment. Maybe there was a little bit of extra adrenaline in that first appearance.

The offense got started quickly again too to make it an easy win. Witt and Pasquantino singled, but Witt got caught stealing third to leave Perez at the plate with two outs and Pasquantino on second. Perez singled to score the first run, Massey tripled to score Perez and Renfroe doubled to drive home Massey to give the Royals a three-run first that, again, was enough. Garcia doubled to start the second, but the Royals almost wasted the opportunity. Luckily Witt is a monster and he doubled home Garcia for the fourth run.

The offense was pretty quiet until the eighth when the White Sox wanted to see if they could give up more runs without hits. Nick Loftin started the inning reaching on an error, but Witt got his third hit for a second straight day before Perez was walked intentionally, Renfroe walked to score a run and Garrett Hampson also walked to score a run. So they did get a hit, but it was another inning where the White Sox were very generous.

Sunday - Royals 4, White Sox 1: Seth Lugo

For seven innings, this looked like it was going to be one of those frustrating games you circle on the calendar later in the season. Then the White Sox bullpen took over and all was well. But all was well because Seth Lugo just continued to do his thing, only in this one he did it better than he’d ever done it before. In the end, he threw a complete game on just 103 pitches and allowed only one run in picking up his 12th win of the year. It was a great performance that almost was marred by the offense being unable to solve Drew Thorpe.

Now, I’m going to defend the offense a bit because Thorpe is a different type of pitcher. He’s actually the type of pitcher they feature a fair amount of. He doesn’t throw a mid-90s fastball. But he can locate a changeup with the best of them. Sometimes it takes a little bit of time to figure out these guys and Thorpe has now made seven starts and given up two runs or fewer in six of them.

Lugo, though, was masterful. He threw all nine of his pitches in this one. Yep, he confirmed at the break that he has a splitter as well. As usual, he found a few of them that worked well for him. He led with the four-seamer, which he’s done plenty of this season, but he also threw a lot of sinkers and then a good chunk of sliders and curves. He got a swing and miss on six of his nine pitches and just was generally getting weak contact when he was getting contact.

Like Singer, he was filling up the zone.

I’m not convinced this is a strategy against the better offenses, but there are a couple of things I see here. One is that he wasn’t really in the middle much. The other is that he does such a good job of mixing pitches in the same spots that I can see how a hitter would just be completely perplexed by the way he pitches. He gave up just three hits all game and the only run he allowed came after a curve got away from him and he hit Nicky Lopez.

I know I keep saying the same thing, but Lugo just continues to put on a master class in how to pitch. He now has a 2.38 ERA in 136 innings. He’s just 10.1 innings shy of his career high, which may or may not become an issue. But as of now, here are his numbers with ranks in parentheses, first in MLB and then in the AL:

12 W (2, 1)
21 GS (t1, t1)
136.0 IP (1, 1)
2.38 ERA (t1, t1) (Reynaldo Lopez is just under the innings number to qualify, but he has a 1.88 ERA)
3.3 fWAR (8, 6)

We’re to the point that it looks like there is going to be a real argument for Lugo to win the Cy Young, particularly if both Garrett Crochet and Tarik Skubal are traded to the National League. I don’t think he’s going to win it, but did anyone expect this?

The offense, as I mentioned, was completely shut down for six innings by Thorpe. But as soon as Pedro Grifol asked the security guard to open that bullpen gate, it all changed. It started with an infield hit by Garcia and then continued when Dairon Blanco, getting his first at bats in 17 days, singled to left. With runners on first and third, Isbel laid down a perfect squeeze bunt to tie the game. It was actually a great play by Baldwin covering that got him out at first.

In the eighth, they broke it open. Witt got his third hit of the day for the third straight day to open the inning and Pasquantino singled him to third. After Perez finished his horrific day with another big out in a big spot, Renfroe picked him up with a sharp single to right. Massey struck out, but Garcia got the third run home and Blanco got the fourth run home to give Lugo and the Royals a 4-1 lead and then the ninth was just a formality to finish the sweep.

The Royals are now 9-1 against the White Sox this season and are just one win away from the 2023 total.

Player of the Week

It’s a short week with just three games played, but do we really have to do this? Witt hit 50 home runs on Monday in nearly winning the Home Run Derby and then came back to go 9 for 11 with a home run, a double and four runs scored. Generally a week with a line like .818/.833/1.182 will win it going away. Lugo gets an honorable mention for his complete game win. Wacha and Singer both with seven shutout innings deserve mention too. But come on.

The Week Ahead

Things get tougher for the Royals with the defending NL Champion Arizona Diamondbacks coming to town. The Royals have caught some teams at the right time this year. That is not the case with the Diamondbacks. They did lose a tough one yesterday to the Cubs that they led 1-0 late but lost 2-1 in extra innings, so maybe that has a lingering impact on them. Still, they’re 10-6 in July and 26-17 since the start of June. They’ve figured some things out. They’re really missing the same Corbin Carroll as they got last year when he won the Rookie of the Year. Even with his struggles, they score runs. If he gets going, they’re going to be big trouble.

The real issue for them is they just aren’t healthy. Zac Gallen has missed starts. Jordan Montgomery is currently hurt. Eduardo Rodriguez signed a big deal in free agency and hasn’t thrown a pitch for them. It’s tough to win when your best starter hasn’t been out there for the whole season and your two big free agents haven’t really either. Even when Montgomery has pitched, he’s been a disaster and he should be back in this series. The bullpen is generally pretty okay. They don’t get enough swing and miss (that’s familiar), but they have a good group at the end of games. Here are the projected matchups:

• Monday: Cole Ragans vs. Yilber Diaz

• Tuesday: Alec Marsh vs. Jordan Montgomery

• Wednesday: Michael Wacha vs. Ryne Nelson

Then they’re off Thursday, and the Cubs come in for three to end the homestand. The comeback win yesterday against the Diamondbacks could be huge for the Cubs. They’re now 48-53. Because the National League is muddled, they’re in the race. Do they sell? Could they have made that decision by the time this series happens? I don’t know the answer, but this time of year is so interesting because you just don’t know what a team might look like from series to series. A 4-2 week would be big for the Royals. Even 3-3 would be fine, but if they come out of this homestand 7-2, I think everyone will feel really good about the playoff chances.