Weekend in Review: Houston Was a Problem

The Royals are now in the midst of their longest losing streak of the year after their worst series of the year.

I don’t recall the last time I didn’t write on a Friday. I’m sure it’s happened, but I didn’t know what to write after Thursday's series opener. The game was secondary to the results of the X-rays on both Vinnie Pasquantino and Lucas Erceg. It turned out that Erceg is fine, but the news on Pasquantino was much worse. You all know he’s out for the rest of the regular season at least. And even if the Royals advance far enough in October, it would be tough to figure out how he’d get the reps he needs for the Royals to feel comfortable with him in the type of high pressure spots they’d be in. So I held off. And now I’ve had the weekend to think about it all.

And boy was it a bad weekend. The Royals, who had only been swept in a three-game series once all season, lost all four games over the weekend. Maybe it’s a Texas thing because the other sweep was in Arlington against the Rangers. Maybe there was something to do with the loss of Pasquantino that cast a pall over them the rest of the weekend. Maybe the Astros starting pitching is just going that well. Whatever it was, it was brutal and leaves the upcoming week as even bigger than it was before. I’ll get to that, but the Royals came to Houston coming off a bad loss but in a great place. They leave in a fine spot still to get there, but they have to question it whether they’d admit that or not.

The New Acquisitions

With the trade deadline at the end of July (or sometimes early August, I guess) being the only deadline, it gets much tougher to pick up new players after that. But it’s not impossible. Teams still put players on waivers. And teams can still trade any minor leaguer who is not on the 40-man roster. They can still do that through September, but in order for a player to be eligible to play in the postseason with their team, they have to be in the organization before September 1. That’s why Saturday’s flurry of moves was so important for the Royals.

Let’s start with Tommy Pham. There have been rumors about the Royals interest in Pham for a long time. They had talks to acquire him from the White Sox at the deadline, but he ended up going to St. Louis where he didn’t fare well and neither did the team. On the whole, he came to the Royals hitting .254/.321/.378. He hit .266/.330/.380 with the White Sox and .206/.286/.368 with the Cardinals. He was immediately inserted at the top of the lineup in yesterday’s game and I would bet we see him there quite a bit through the rest of the season, in one of the outfield corners.

The metrics indicate that he was underperforming. His expected average was .277. His expected slugging percentage was .422. He hits the ball pretty hard and hits it in the air. It’s a good offensive profile, especially when you add in that his chase rate is elite. There are only two players who have even seen a minute on the Royals active roster this season to have a chase rate lower than his 19 percent. One of them is Tyler Gentry, who was sent down to make room for the Royals pickups. The other is Robbie Grossman, who was claimed along with Pham on Saturday afternoon. It’s a skillset the Royals don’t have much of. He will hold his own with righties, but hits lefties well enough to be in there most days but all games against lefties.

Grossman was the other pickup. My guess is the Royals didn’t anticipate getting both him and Pham, so they claimed both and ended up with both. There are worse things, especially with rosters expanding yesterday. Grossman has a similar profile to Pham. He hits lefties well, but he shouldn’t play at all against righties, which is the difference. Neither is a good defender, but both can appear competent enough in either corner. Grossman, like Pham, started his season with the White Sox, but he wasn’t there long, eventually going to the Rangers, where he spent his 2023 season. Grossman has a season line of .227/.333/.324, but hit .238/.336/.362 with the Rangers. He can still run a little, but he does not impact the ball nearly as well as Phame does. His value is going to be in getting on base.

And finally, they traded cash considerations for Yuli Gurriel. If you’re thinking that he retired, you’re justified. He had spent the entire season in AAA where he hit .292/.378/.485. He’s 40 years old, but he still plays a pretty solid first base and still makes contact. The batted ball metrics in AAA were considerably better than what the Royals had in some of their other options. And while CJ Alexander had some similar metrics, you’d be hard-pressed to find someone who appeared more overmatched in an admittedly minuscule sample than Alexander when he was up earlier this year. He hasn’t really had much in the way of platoon splits in his career and didn’t in AAA.

Add in the fact that Hunter Renfroe is going to be back in a few days from his hamstring injury and the Royals suddenly have a pretty solid group of veteran bats, all of whom who can hit lefties. I think there’s at least a moderate chance that Gurriel doesn’t stick if he shows that he’s toast, but with the Pasquantino injury, I don’t mind taking this shot. It’s at least something interesting as the Royals are trying to improve in those margins to give them a better a shot to make some noise in October.

The Games

I’m not going to spend a ton of time here because we know what happened and nobody wants to read through that in full again.

Friday - Astros 3, Royals 2: Not Too Late, But Too Little

Framber Valdez was brilliant. I’ve said this before, but people generally only view things through the lens of their own team. If your team doesn’t allow a run, they pitched great. If their team doesn’t allow a run, the offense was pathetic, and vice versa. I think it would be very easy to bash the Royals offense in this game, but Valdez would have shut down just about anyone. It’s not the first time he’s done it and it won’t be the last time. I’m not saying the offense isn’t struggling right now, but the pitcher deserves some credit.

The bright spot here is that Seth Lugo was outstanding, and true to form, he did it a different way than we’ve seen this season. In this one, he threw all nine of his pitches, leading with the sinker, his four-seam fastball and his cutter. He’s periodically thrown his cutter that much, but not that often, though it’s probably interesting enough to mention that one of the other times was his start before this one against the Phillies. Lugo’s command has been a bit of a problem lately, and that’s part of the reason for his struggles. But in this one, he was putting it where he wanted it.

He only gave up one run on six hits over seven innings, and the one run he allowed was a home run to Ben Gamel that would have been a home run in exactly one ballpark. Now, that ballpark, of course, was the one he was playing in so it counts, but I just have a hard time getting worked up about something like that. A long fly ball in every other park being a home run is not a pitch I’m going to worry about moving forward. It doesn’t change the result, but it’s fine.

If Lugo is back on track, the Royals are in great shape. His next start will be a big one against Cleveland. If he can continue to pitch like he did in this one while the offense finds its footing again, that would be ideal for the Royals. While they ended up getting walked off, the Royals did get their first hit in the eighth and then Paul DeJong stepped up with a massive hit in the ninth with the Royals down 2-0.

Unlike Gamel’s home run, this one was much more legitimate. It was a home run in two ballparks. So that makes up for Gamel’s solo home run later.

Of course, the bottom of the ninth brought a soft single off James McArthur with one out and then a fly ball that’s an out in pretty much every park but this one. It ended up going off the wall and even if MJ Melendez had played it better, the run would have scored since there were two outs. It was a bummer of a way to lose after losing in a bummer of a way on Wednesday and Thursday. But that’s how it ended.

Saturday - Astros 5, Royals 2: Another Nightmare Inning

Cole Ragans was bonkers good for the first five innings. He gave up a fly ball to Jose Altuve to start the game and then every single Astros hitter after Altuve struck out. He had eight strikeouts in a row to close out three perfect innings. He was brilliant. He got through the fourth and the fifth with no issues, with just a single and a walk. In the sixth, though, the wheels fell off and they fell off quickly.

Ben Gamel singled on a slider that caught too much of the plate. Altuve was hit by a pitch. Alvarez walked on a bunch of pitches that sure seemed like they’d been called strikes at other points in the night but weren’t here. That loaded the bases for Yainer Diaz, who singled in two. Then Jeremy Pena tripled on a curve that just stayed in the middle to drive in two more. Steven Cruz came in and looked really good for two innings, but not before he allowed the runner on third to score. Ragans ended up giving up five runs on four hits with 10 strikeouts in five innings. At no point did he look bad in that sixth, but the Astros just took advantage of some mistakes. That’s what good teams do sometimes.

The Royals finally got to Yusei Kikuchi in the seventh with an RBI groundout from Nick Loftin. And then Bobby Witt Jr. got his first hit in the state of Texas in 2024.

It wasn’t enough, though, even with the bullpen keeping the Astros down the rest of the way.

Sunday - Astros 7, Royals 2: The Offense Biffed Again

This one was just a regular loss. Alec Marsh pitched well outside of two mistakes, but as is often the case for Marsh, mistakes against him go a long way. He gave up a solo home run to Yordan Alvarez and then a two-run homer to Jon Singleton. It was 3-0. The Royals scored a run on a Gurriel single in the top of the sixth, but with runners on second and third and two outs, Kyle Isbel was rung up on a 3-2 pitch that was never a strike, will never be a strike and wasn’t a strike in the moment. It was another impressive display of incompetence from a group of umpires who should be spending a lot more time in eye exam rooms than behind the plate in a big league game with meaning.

Alvarez homered again in the bottom half of that inning to make it 4-1 and get the run back immediately after we never got the chance to find out what Pham would do after already having two hits in the game. The very next half inning, Witt hit an absolute rocket home run.

That made it 4-2, but John Schreiber wasn’t interested in giving the Royals another chance in the ninth. He looked like the guy who was a disaster after his excellent April. It was a lot of weak contact, but it was just a lot of contact without the ability to get a swing and miss. And in the end, it was a 7-2 loss and the first four-game sweep of the year to go along with the longest losing streak of the year. The reality is that every team goes through this. Heck, Cleveland lost seven in a row just a couple of weeks ago. But it’s tough for the first time this season to be now.

Player of the Week

They went 3-5 this week, which isn’t a disaster, but the way they got there kind of was. Still, there were some good performances offensively. DeJong had a 169 wRC+ and hit three home runs, which is great. He also struck out 12 times in 24 plate appearances. MJ Melendez had a very solid week at the plate, hitting .308/.400/.500 with two doubles, a home run, four walks and four walks in 30 plate appearances. Perez hit .267/.343/.533 with two home runs and six RBIs. Of course both homers and all the RBIs came in the second game of Monday’s doubleheader. The best player this week is back to boring. I think Witt gets it even though he hit just .226 for the week because he did it with a .333 SLG and .677 SLG on the back of two doubles and four home runs. He also walked four times and was hit. So not his best week of the year, but the best the Royals had.

The Week Ahead

This might be the craziest week at the Truman Sports Complex…ever. Monday through Wednesday, the Royals will take on the first place Cleveland Guardians. Friday through Sunday, the Royals will take on the team they’re tied with (by record), the Minnesota Twins. On Thursday, the Kansas City Chiefs open their season as they try to become the first NFL team to threepeat. That’s a lot of action over there this week. A lot of you care about the Chiefs here, but you’re not here to read that. You read The Chief in the North for that.

We know all about Cleveland after seeing them for four games to start last week, so let’s get right to the matchups:

• Monday - RHP Michael Wacha vs. RHP Gavin Williams

• Tuesday - RHP Brady Singer vs. RHP Tanner Bibee

• Wednesday - RHP Seth Lugo vs. RHP Ben Lively

Bibee and Lively have been the two best for the Guardians this season. Williams probably has the best stuff of anyone in the rotation, not named Bibee. Williams looked really good against the Royals on Tuesday night in a 6-1 Guardians loss. He kind of flashed what he’s flashed all season with good stuff, but will make a mistake. He didn’t make many on Tuesday, but it was enough against a great performance from the Royals bullpen with Michael Lorenzen getting hurt in the second inning. Lively has been a revelation for the Guardians, but the last five starts have been a bit of a letdown. He’s allowed 18 runs on 28 hits in 25.2 innings in those five starts with 15 strikeouts and 12 walks. He’s not to a career-high in innings just yet, but he hasn’t thrown this many innings since 2016, so maybe he’s wearing down some.

The Royals already have the season series against Cleveland, but with the distance between them and first place, they need to win this series and maybe even sweep to really help their division chances. A sweep seems somewhat unlikely, but they have played Cleveland well, and are 3-1 at home against them this season. That would be huge.

Then it’s three against the Twins, who they’re working hard to hold off in the AL Central as well. I’ll maintain that I think the Twins are the most talented team in the division. They did just get Brooks Lee back from the IL, but Carlos Correa and Byron Buxton both should be out for this series. They’re also without Manuel Margot, though he isn’t a key piece to their team. Still, even with a rotation of Pablo Lopez and Bailey Ober, it feels like the Twins can pitch enough to cover for the injuries. They’ve been struggling lately though. This is a huge one for the Royals too, especially if the series against Cleveland goes well.

**Programming Note: With the holiday, the whole family is home, so the comment section is all yours today.**