Weekend in Review: Swinging on the Edge, Another Sweep and The Week Ahead

The Royals followed up a winning series with getting back to usual.

First of all, I want to start by wishing all the mothers out there a happy belated Mother’s Day! And I’m sorry the Royals didn’t care enough about you to be able to not allow a runner to score from first when all he wanted to do was steal second. But we’ll get to that. It appears now that this will be a thing all year because the Royals sit at a grotesque 12-30, but they are 6-4 against teams currently under .500 and 6-26 against teams above .500.

I’ve been as vocal as anyone about the schedule they’ve had to face because I do think that’s contributed heavily to their record, but yeesh. That’s a huge gap. And as I’ve written so many times before, they’re human. At some point, this starts to be in their head whether they admit it or not.

Maybe this team is the equivalent of a AAAA player. They’re good enough to beat the bad teams (I know they lost two of three to Oakland, it’s the big picture people), but not good enough to even come close to beating the good teams. That would be kind of weird. This weekend, for example though, I don’t think they played horrible baseball in general. They had horrible baseball moments, which is generally enough, but it sort of feels like they need a fluky series win or something.

Remember last season when they were in a scoring drought in New York and Salvador Perez dumped a single to right to score some runs and they started scoring again for awhile? It’s sort of like that. The “problem” is that they don’t face a team currently over .500 until June 9. So maybe they can just bank some wins between now and then.

Living on the Edge

The Royals bats continue to be pretty much fine since April 22 (or May 2 or whatever date you want to arbitrarily set after they faced Shohei Ohtani). They’ve hit .265/.334/.462, which is good for a 116 wRC+, which is sixth in baseball. That spans 22 games now. They’re still not striking out much (for today’s game) and they’re middle of the pack in walk rate. In May, they’re still the best offense in baseball by wRC+ and runs scored, though they’ve dropped to second in the AL in home runs, but also second in all of baseball, so that’s probably okay.

But I actually think they can be better. Let’s use a term we hear a lot from the Royals coaching staff. Their swing decisions can improve, even though they’ve been solid for awhile now. I always start looking at things like this by digging into the heart of the plate. Those are the fat pitches you want to see a team drive. You can generally tell a good offense from a bad one. The bad one misses these pitches while the good one gets them. The Royals, for example, hit just .281 with a .466 SLG on pitches over the middle of the plate through April 21 and have hit .349 with a .627 SLG since.

But the area that I find teams do their best work is on pitches in the shadow zone. Those are pitches that are on the edges, both in the zone and just out of it. And they generally are spots that a hitter can’t do much. There are obviously exceptions like Perez, but for the most part, these are pitcher’s pitches. They can’t really be taken with two strikes, so eliminating all two-strike pitches, the Royals offense has swung at the highest percentage of pitches in the shadow zone all year. And while they’ve been better since the start of this stretch of 22 games, they still are toward the bottom of the league.

Yes, they’ve hit .302 with a .540 SLG on these pitches, so maybe it’s an “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” situation, but they were swinging similarly in the first half of this quarter-season and hit .240 with a .357 SLG. If there’s one area that I don’t believe in this offense, it’s in their inability to take a pitch sometimes and this is one spot that I feel like will come back to hurt them. And, to be honest, it makes a lot of sense.

The Royals have faced a ton of great pitching and haven’t done well against them for the most part. They’ve scored just three runs per game in games against what I’d call elite pitching, and that’s skewed by two really big games where they scored 19 of their 51 runs. Elite pitchers can target an edge. I’ve been watching and wondering about this, so I wanted to look it up and the eye test matches what I’ve been seeing. Clean up the edges and they might even be able to get to some good pitchers for a change.

The Games

I’m going to be honest here and let you know I saw a lot less of Royals baseball than I wanted to this weekend, but then I was kind of thankful. So these recaps are likely to be a little shorter than usual. You’re welcome.

Friday - Brewers 5, Royals 1

This is the one game I saw the entirety of outside of maybe a diaper change (for the baby, not me, you jerks). I have a couple thoughts before I get much into it. I thought the Royals did a great job of seeing pitches against Corbin Burnes because the stuff looked good while the command was not. They forced him to throw a ton of pitches, didn’t chase as much as they could have and seemed to be waiting on him to make a mistake he simply didn’t make. I think it’s very easy to see that he walked four and wonder how they didn’t get to him and it’s because he wasn’t throwing as many strikes as he usually does, but he didn’t give them much of anything to drive.

My other thought is that when the matchup is an opener and a bulk guy (who is probably your 6th option for that spot) against Burnes, you’re already in a big hole. Teams win coming from big holes, but not often. There are some games that you can blame on the organization as a whole and I think this is one of them. Simply not having the depth to cover a big league game on May 12 is a sign that there is major work to be done. This isn’t anything we don’t know, but it doesn’t make it any less true.

The Royals inability to catch a guy stealing cost them a run in the first when Willy Adames stole second and got to third on a throwing error because an infield single scored him. Max Castillo gave up a rocket home run in the third and I think we had a feeling at that time that it was over, but they still do play nine innings. And it wasn’t anything major that led to this game getting away. The Royals got beaten by a good pitcher and the Brewers chipped away at a not-so-good one. Castillo also was maybe a little lucky to get away with as little damage as he allowed, but I think he deserves some praise.

To give 4.1 innings when it could have gotten murky for the bullpen is what you want to see. He didn’t look especially good doing it, but I think that’s sort of Castillo’s thing. He doesn’t have great stuff, though he does have a great slider at times, but I was surprised by how many swings and misses he got on his fastball. That’s a pitch I know the organization has been working with him on and it looked a lot better in this one. He’s still learning a bit how to command it, but I’m really interested to see his progression with that pitch because I think it’ll be the difference between him being a guy to fill in when needed until he’s out of options and an actual big leaguer.

Offensively, there wasn’t much to talk about, though Freddy Fermin did flash more power.

After the weekend, he had four extra base hits in 29 plate appearances this year, including three home runs. He was hitting .304/.448/.674 in Omaha after hitting .404/.482/.566 in winter ball. And he did hit .270/.365/.480 in Omaha last year. Catchers often develop late. I’m not saying the Royals have a Salvy replacement or anything, but I think they have a very capable backup who should probably play a little more than previous backups have.

Saturday - Brewers 4, Royals 3

The Royals could have won this game. And I think had they been the home team they would have. As the season progresses, I find myself realizing that I don’t care to break down a Zack Greinke start unless something actually interesting happens. He’s a sort of fun storyline in a bad season, especially with him chasing the 1,000 unique strikeout victims, but in a year where they were toast before May Day, spending time on guys who won’t be part of the 2025 roster is sort of difficult for me.

Still, I’ve been way more interested in the 1,000 strikeout victims than I expected to be and when he got Joey Wiemer looking, I was pretty excited. It was a little tough because the pitch wasn’t a strike, but that’s a random and cool accomplishment. It’s hard enough to strike out 1,000 batters, but to strike out 1,000 unique batters is pretty crazy, so congrats to Greinke even if it feels like a slightly made up stat.

This game was a little more competitive because the offense came to play some, at least early. They got back to scoring in the first with a Bobby Witt Jr. double, Perez single and MJ Melendez sacrifice fly. Then in the third, Melendez and Pratto hit back-to-back doubles and it sort of felt like things were clicking again for this club.

But the first of three Christian Yelich homers this weekend (increasing his season total by 75 percent) tied it up before a Perez homer gave the Royals the lead back.

That ended up being the final inning for Adrian Houser. The Royals did work against him. He threw 88 pitches in four innings, gave up three runs on eight hits and struck out just two. They struggled to get the run home against him, though. You’d love to see more than three runs on eight hits, but it was another example of the offense putting together quality plate appearances. And then it just…stopped. The Brewers bullpen ended up throwing five innings with just one hit allowed. Joel Payamps did hit Vinnie Pasquantino, so they had two base runners.

I think it’s easy to blame Matt Quatraro and Company for not going with his best reliever in. theninth, but the offense completely shutting down made those decisions matter. It all does matter, and I’m going to get to them in a second, but I think it’s fair that if I’m going to shower this offense with praise that they deserve to get taken to task.

I saw a lot of people bashing the throw made by Edward Olivares on the Owen Miller “double” but I think what people may have realized by now is that the throw home was probably the right play. Miller didn’t matter. It’s very easy to say that you can keep the double play in line if you had kept him at first, but the infield was going to be in and a double play was unlikely. It was a weird throw, but it didn’t change any trajectory of the game. What did was the unwillingness to use Scott Barlow in the ninth.

I’ve written this before with now four different Royals managers. This isn’t a Quatraro issue any more than it was a Mike Matheny issue or a Ned Yost issue or a Trey Hillman issue. The manager’s handbook needs to be updated. I absolutely hate the idea of saving your closer on the road. Because, more often than not, you simply don’t get to him. I like Carlos Hernandez. I thought he made a really good pitch to Wiemer, but I don’t know that Barlow gets himself in that situation.

Sunday - Brewers 9, Royals 6

This one was the most promising of them all this weekend until the circus broke out. Remember when I said I don’t care to break down Greinke starts? I really don’t care to break down Lyles starts outside of something interesting. He’s a placeholder who I’ll continue to say never should have gotten a two-year deal. But he did and now we’re watching the aftermath. I tweeted that it’s only about 40 starts until he’s DFAed, so enjoy that. Oh, I’ll show you my math. I figure there are 23 more this year and he’ll get 17 next season before they finally give up and the Brewers pick him up for the third time.

In this one, the Royals got another Salvy homer in the first.

Then Lyles gave it up on his second pitch with the third homer of the weekend for Yelich.

The Royals offense kept fighting in this one though. Pratto started the second off with a single and then a one-out walk to noted walk machine Michael Massey set up Witt with two outs.

I’ll tell you. He takes some great swings and then looks lost. I don’t know what to make of him. I know his pitch selection needs to improve, but it’s so confounding when he struggles sometimes. I just don’t know what to think with him sometimes.

Hunter Dozier tacked in the top of the third with a sacrifice fly to make it 4-1 and it seemed like the Royals might be in business, but Lyles had other thoughts. With a three-run lead, Lyles walked the eight and nine hitters and then gave up an RBI single to Yelich, who apparently decided to be the MVP again this weekend. Then…chaos.

I don’t even know what to say. Maikel Garcia just completely whiffed on the throw from Perez. Then Eaton made a bad throw to third. And Dozier, who was probably screened to be fair, couldn’t stop the ball between his legs. Before you knew it, the score was tied. Then it was another walk, a flyout and a single. I think the move should have been made to Jose Cuas before the Miller double, but it wasn’t, so the double scored a run to make it 5-4 and a two-out three-run homer basically sealed the game in a seven-run inning.

From that point, the Brewers pitching took over and took the Royals out of the game. Dozier…

…and Witt did homer in the ninth.

But it was yet another loss and another sweep.

The Week Ahead

I don’t know what to think of the upcoming three-game set with the Padres. They’re a good team. I know it in my heart of hearts. I mean look at that roster. Their top four in the lineup is Fernando Tatis Jr., Manny Machado, Juan Soto and Xander Bogaerts. Their rotation is good. Their bullpen is led by Josh Hader who appears to be back. And they’re 19-22. So this is a conundrum for my idea that the Royals can beat sub-.500 teams because the Padres are technically one, but I think they’re much better than that. If I had to guess, I’d say this series goes as if the Padres are who we thought they were and not who they have been.

That said, the Royals aren’t going to get Joe Musgrove or Blake Snell, which is good even though they’ve both struggled. They’re going to get Michael Wacha and Seth Lugo to start the series and then Yu Darvish in the finale. There are no guarantees, but that’s a good draw on paper. And this is actually an interesting pitching series on the Royals side because it’ll be Brad Keller in game one, Brady Singer in game two and I’d guess Daniel Lynch for his season debut in the series finale on Wednesday. I don’t imagine they’ll want to run out another opener situation in this series with Lynch now through three rehab starts, but we’ll see.

Then they’re off and head to the South side. I have a hunch we’re going to see Liam Hendriks return in this series, so there’ll be some emotional juice for them. But they’re still a bad team. That said, the Royals are too and the White Sox just lost three of four to this bad team, so we’ll see which way that goes for them. I’m just looking forward to some bad baseball on both sides next weekend.