Weekend in Review: Santana, the Roster Situation, the Games and What's Ahead

It was not what you'd call a "good" weekend in Seattle.

Apr 25, 2022

In my weekly spot on Sports Radio 810 with Soren Petro on Friday, I realized something that’s incredibly obvious, but it hadn’t really occurred to me before for some reason. This early in a season, every viewpoint you may have about a team is impacted by your expectations and perceptions ahead of the season. It’s kind of like how instant replay is based on the call on the field. What you believe is based on the idea you had in your head before the year started. Did you think they’d be good? Then this is just a blip. Did you think they’d be bad? Then this is what you believed would happen. Did you think they’d sort of be okay? Then this is just one of those stretches okay teams have.

And it extends beyond that with the individual parts of the team. If you thought the bullpen would be good, then you’ve been mostly proven right and Saturday night was a blip. But if you thought they’d be inconsistent, well, you’ve also been proven right at times. What sort of stinks for evaluation is that we don’t have any answers yet. Think about the biggest thing I think most of us say every year. It’s some form of “if the Royals could just go 5-9 in that 14-game stretch instead of 2-12, that would make a huge difference.” Is this a previous season’s 2-12 stretch? Or is this team just not good? And that leads back to the original point. What you believe is likely an opinion formed greatly from what you thought to be the case on April 7 before the season started.

The Carlos Conundrum

We all know how the season ended for Carlos Santana in 2021. After a start that was basically exactly what the Royals were hoping for (.382 OBP and .193 ISO through May), things fell off and just kept getting worse. He still had a .368 OBP at the break, but then hit .176/.254/.246 the rest of the way. Yikes. A lot of people lament the Royals not trading him, but I’ll repeat what I’d heard before. The Red Sox were the only team interested in him and he was their third choice behind Kyle Schwarber and Anthony Rizzo. Once they got Schwarber, the market was dead. So as much as I’d have loved to see him moved, it wasn’t going to happen.

This season, the belief in the organization, at least as publicly stated, is that his hip was bothering him last year and that’s what caused the issues. I personally don’t buy it because he was struggling before the hip issue supposedly flared up, but they still want to move the guy and they need him to prove he’s healthy. It’s no secret how bad the numbers have been this season. Before his big home run on Saturday, he had two hits on the season. But he has been hitting the ball hard at least. Take a look at these percentiles:

The sprint speed part is hilarious. But the rest looks pretty solid. His xBA is .232 and his xSLG is .467 compared to the reality of .100/.200. He’s just 2 for 6 on balls hit 100 MPH or harder and 2 for 5 on those pitches when the launch angle is higher than 3 degrees. He’s 3 for 16 on hard-hit balls. That seems nearly impossible given that the league average was .464 heading into action yesterday.

You can see that he’s seeing the ball well, at least from a plate discipline standpoint. He’s only swinging at roughly 24 percent of pitches outside the zone, which is an improvement over last year. He’s hardly ever striking out. Someone not swinging at bad pitches, not striking out and hitting the ball hard seems like a good recipe.

And he hit the snot out of this home run on Saturday night and maybe that was the start of something for him.

He did hit a rocket single up the middle yesterday, so just maybe. But ultimately, he’s not the future and the whole world knows it. I stand by early assessment of how slow he looks, but I think his bat speed isn’t quite as bad as I thought to start the season. That can be tricky early in the year because guys may be slightly off with timing. Either way, the fact that he is hitting the ball so hard has made it a little tougher for the Royals to just completely move away from him, but he’s going to need to actually produce because games aren’t won on Statcast percentiles.

Roster Moves Coming

I wouldn’t get too excited about wholesale changes to this roster. We all know that Dayton Moore (and now likely JJ Picollo) like to wait until the 40-game mark to make evaluations. But at this time next week, the 28-man roster is a thing of the past and with it will come a maximum of 13 pitchers on a 26-man roster. The Royals are currently running with 16 pitchers and 12 position players. So whether they want to or not, three pitchers are going down by next week and one position player is going to come back up.

The Games

Friday - Mariners 4, Royals 1

There honestly isn’t much to say about this game. I thought Brad Keller looked awesome to start, but I have to admit to wondering a bit about all the fastballs he was throwing. It’s sort of hindsight right now because I didn’t say anything about it at the time. He ended up throwing that fastball 56 percent of the time and his slider just 21 percent of the time. That’s worth mentioning because he had actually thrown his slider more than his fastball.

He was great through three and started the fourth by getting the first batter out (as he has in every single inning he’s pitched this year). Then he gave up an 82 MPH single to left. Then it was a 67.1 MPH single to center. And with two on and one out, Keller got in on Abraham Toro with a fastball and he hit the perfect double play ball right to him.

Oops.

That’s the first error of the year for the Royals. They’ll never assume the double play, so the runs after this were earned other than Toro, but that would have been an inning-ending double play and this game could have been so different.

But again, I didn’t like that he was so reliant on his fastball. Because after the error, he still could have gotten out of trouble, but he went back to the well again. I loved the location here to Julio Rodriguez, but it was mashed at 112.9 MPH to drive in two.

I think I’d have liked it better if it wasn’t the fifth straight fastball to Rodriguez. Then he just made a mistake to Jarred Kelenic, but with another fastball to a guy who has struggled with breaking stuff.

A Salvy home run in the sixth was a bright spot. It was his first as a catcher this season.

And the bullpen was a bright spot too. Keller turned it over to Gabe Speier with two on and two out and Speier was awesome. Then Brady Singer looked sharp in his first game since the third game of the year. Joel Payamps was good and so was Dylan Coleman. The “B” bullpen did its job.

Saturday - Mariners 13, Royals 7

Okay, here’s the good news. The offense came alive some. They had their first double-digit hit game of the season and had multiple hits from Andrew Benintendi, Hunter Dozier and Bobby Witt Jr. They also had their first pinch hit of the year when Edward Olivares came through with a double to drive in the lead run in the seventh. We already talked about Santana’s clutch home run too. So that was great to see. And we saw the bullpen extend their scoreless innings streak to 27.2 inning before Collin Snider gave up his first career run.

All of that is great. But the pitching fell apart for one of the few times this season, which is just bad timing. And it’s happened twice now when the Royals have scored seven runs. You might recall that first Monday of the year was a 10-7 loss when the bullpen imploded some as well and couldn’t hold up one of the few games this offense has produced in. That’s not what you want to see.

I’ll get to the bullpen, but first it was another bad outing for Bubic, who looked so good in spring training and is someone I actually believe in. He gave up five runs on seven hits in two innings. He only walked one, which was nice I guess, but he also only threw 36 strikes in 64 pitches, so it wasn't great control for him. He threw a bunch of fastballs and just couldn’t get the Mariners to either miss it or mishit it. He threw 61 percent fastballs, 22 percent curves and 17 percent changeups. I just don’t get it. His changeup is very good. I know he struggled with it last year, but it’s a very good pitch and it worked for him in this one, but he just kept throwing fastballs.

He got to two strikes on hitters in nine out of 14 plate appearances, but the Mariners were 4 for 8 with a walk when they were batting with two strikes. They had two doubles on fastballs with two strikes and he was able to put them away with both the curve and the changeup, so, again, I just don’t get the gameplan here. I also don’t get the lack of sliders. It was such a big talking point and looked so good for him in Surprise. Why is he not throwing it now? None of it makes sense to me, especially when this is where he was throwing his curve. He didn’t seem to have any command on it.

And so he was gone quickly, which lead to Joel Payamps coming in and pulling a magic act to get out of trouble. With nobody out, Bubic had allowed back-to-back doubles to score a run. Payamps immediately came in and gave up another double, but Toro read it terribly and only ended up on third base. With second and third and nobody out, Payamps got a popup, a strikeout and then a very close play that could have gone either way to keep the Mariners on the board.

Bolaños came in and was good, but not efficient. Amir Garrett came in and was absolutely nails, which I’ll get to in a minute. And that gave the Royals a chance to let their offense finally make some sort of a comeback.

It started with Whit Merrifield making an out (what’s new?), but Benintendi singled, Perez singled and then Santanta walked. With the bases loaded, Dozier hit a ground ball to J.P. Crawford at shortstop and then the Mariners turned into a little league team.

A single from Witt brought Santana home and they had runners on first and third, and then second and third after a Witt stolen base with just one out. But both Ryan O’Hearn and Adalberto Mondesi struck out to waste a golden opportunity. Snider gave up that run in the sixth, but the Royals came back in the seventh with the Santana home run from above to tie it. Then after a Dozier double, Olivares got to bat for the fourth time this year.

That earned him a start on Sunday. So Josh Staumont gave up the lead. He’s good, it happens. The issue came in the eighth when Mike Matheny went to Jake Brentz. Now, I will say that Brentz looked so good in his last outing and the stuff is obviously back-of-the-bullpen stuff. But he didn’t have it and it was obvious immediately. He walked the first batter. And then the second.

And here’s the mistake. Nobody was warming up. It was clear that Brentz shouldn’t face a fourth hitter to everyone in the world. But the bullpen was quiet. After he walked the third hitter, Dylan Coleman started to warm, but it was too late. Brentz walked Julio Rodriguez and then ended up giving up a two-run double to Jesse Winker before Coleman was finally brought in. He ended up giving up a three-run homer to Ty France, who had five hits and that was all she wrote.

Available for iOS and Android

I think Matheny made a mistake in pulling Garrett from the game when he was pitching so well, but that was sort of a 50/50 decision for me given how good the rest of the bullpen has been. Not immediately seeing Brentz had nothing is a MASSIVE error and while it maybe didn’t end up costing the game, it cost them a chance at a comeback and that stinks that the decision led to them having no chance.

Sunday - Mariners 5, Royals 4

I’m not sure anything could have surprised me more than seeing the lineup for this one and seeing Perez’s name in there after he was hit in the hand on Saturday night. I’ve seen that ball hit a batter so many times and had resigned myself to the fact that he was going to be out awhile. Even after they said the x-ray was negative, I assumed he was too swollen or something for them to see it. But there he was in the lineup, so that was almost a victory before the first pitch was even thrown.

He actually doubled in that first plate appearance (and again in the third), but I’ll get there. I’m getting pretty tired of having to say that a guy pitched better than the results, but I at least saw some progression from Carlos Hernandez in this. He gave up a single to Adam Frazier to start the game and a home run to the second batter, Ty France, who is apparently the best hitter ever.

But then he settled down. He got a groundout and two strikeouts. The two strikeouts is relevant because he had struck out one total in his first two starts. Then he struck out the first two hitters in the second and got a fly out. He worked around a walk and a single in the third and then after a walk to start the fourth, we had the chance to see one of the best defensive plays I’ve seen in awhile.

I mean what? That’s just crazy. But then he got out of that inning and pitched a 1-2-3 fifth. I think he may have hit a bit of a wall in the sixth, giving up back-to-back doubles that gave the Mariners a 3-2 lead, but Collin Snider came on and got a double play ball almost immediately.

Hernandez threw his curve more than anything, which goes to something I liked about him last year. He has enough pitches that if one is working, he can go to that well more often than another. And he was getting both weak contact and some whiffs on that curve, so he threw it a lot. But he also liked his fastball and that was pretty good too. If he had come out a little bit less aggressive in the zone, it might have been a different story. I remain intrigued by his lack of velocity this year, averaging just 95.4 MPH on his fastball, which is basically right at his season average so far, but way below last year.

Trailing 2-0 early is something that we’ve grown accustomed to it seems, but the Royals offense has at least shown some brief signs of life this weekend. And in the third inning, a Michael A. Taylor walk came around to score on Cam Gallagher’s double. Then after Gallagher made a base running gaffe, Perez picked him up with a double that wasn’t the hardest hit ball in the world, but it got Olivares home from first.

The problem, as has been the case so often, is the Royals couldn’t take advantage of opportunities later in the game. In the sixth, Santana’s one-out single was wiped away with a double play. In the seventh, Adalberto Mondesi walked and stole second. He then moved up to third on a fly ball from Witt. But then Taylor struck out on fastballs down the middle and Gallagher flew out to end the inning.

When the top of the order didn’t do anything in the eighth, it sure seemed like that was going to be it for the weekend, but Hunter Dozier wasn’t ready to go that easily.

That’s just a heck of a swing and a huge clutch bomb. But ultimately, the Royals offensive ineptitude cost them. They did score in the 10th on a Benintendi pinch hit single to right to score the zombie runner (it’s not a ghost runner, he’s actually out there). But Benintendi was thrown out on the bases. Again. The Mariners scored one to tie it, so it was off to the 11th. After Santana advanced Perez to third, Dozier popped up and Mondesi struck out. Again. Dylan Coleman did some magical work to keep the Mariners off the board.

The pies de resistance for this offense came in the 12th. Witt popped up to start the inning, but Taylor walked. And then Ryan O’Hearn pinch hit and he walked. The bases were loaded with one out for the top of the lineup. But Merrifield struck out swinging. It was his fourth strikeout of the game. He last struck out four times in a game in September of 2019. He’s now hitting .136/.164/.169. His underlying numbers do not look as good as Santana’s.

So yeah, that’s a bigger problem for another day. But Lopez was called out on strikes to end the inning and then the Mariners had the good part of their lineup up and they came through and that was that.

The Week Ahead

The Royals get today off to lick their wounds and then they head to Chicago to face the White Sox for the first time this year. It looks like they’ll get Dallas Keuchel, Dylan Cease and Michael Kopech. The White Sox don’t look like what we expected them to look like right now. As of this moment, their IL features Yoan Moncada, Eloy Jimenez, Lance Lynn, Garrett Crochet and Joe Kelly. All but Crochet will be back at some point this year, but they’ve been hit hard by the injury bug. This is a good time to catch them as they aren’t playing well and they’re not healthy.

Share Inside the Crown

Then they’ll come home to take on the Yankees with what should be some tough matchups if things hold. They’ll get Nestor Cortes, Gerrit Cole and Luis Severino. The Yankees have had their trouble scoring runs this season, but their pitching has been so good this year. A bad Royals offense against a good Yankees pitching staff makes you wonder if you should be on no-hit watch all weekend.