Weekend in Review: No Plan, the Bats Stay Quiet and What's Ahead

At least they stole a win because it was another bad weekend for the Royals.

The Royals are currently running out a lineup every day that features a minimum of five rookies and it has maxed out at seven. That’s five to seven players every single night who spent some, if not all, of their season in 2021 playing six days a week with an off day basically every Monday. Since the break, the Royals have now played 31 games in 31 days with three more to go before they start to get some time off. That’s not to make an excuse for poor play over the last 10 games. I think it’s not only possible but plausible that a lot of these guys are just simply hitting a bit of a wall. The transition from the minors to the majors is as big of a jump as ever and one of the reasons for that is the schedule is more difficult. Does that excuse a road trip where they went a combined 3 for 34 with runners in scoring position? Of course not. But sometimes it is what it is.

And after they play today in what would have been a day off if not for the stupid lockout, they’ll be able to see a light at the end of the tunnel. Once they get that day off on Thursday, they won’t play more than nine games in nine days the rest of the season. But they’ll be off Thursday and then four of the next five Mondays. I wouldn’t be too surprised if we start to see some rejuvenated players over these final six and a half weeks. And now they’ll have the experience of the grind of the big leagues to fall back on next year and in the years to come to hopefully not fall prey to this in the dog days of August. Plus, it probably won’t hurt to come home where they’re 15-9 since the start of July compared to 7-18 on the road in that time.

What’s The Plan?

I don’t think it’s fair to say that the Royals can’t win with Mike Matheny as their manager because I think there’s enough talent that they could win in spite of him. But this nonsense with pinch hitting for Nick Pratto in big situations has reached the point that it’s driving me crazy. And part of the reason it’s driving me crazy is that there’s zero consistency with it. He didn’t make the move that he’s made the entire road trip on Saturday. Against a lefty in a big situation, Matheny didn’t pinch hit for him with Brent Rooker. I noted on Twitter that I guess I shouldn’t complain when they do the right thing to help a young hitter develop. But then yesterday, it was right back to the same thing. The reality is that while I disagree with hitting for someone who is theoretically part of the future during this season, I would at least understand it some if they were consistent with the usage.

On the broadcast, an excuse was made that the Royals needed to see what they have in Rooker because he’s a young player too. Okay, he’s inexperienced, but he’s older than 15 players on the roster. And they traded a backup catcher for him (a good backup catcher, but honestly a third catcher on this team), so it’s not even like they gave up huge capital to get him. And to add insult to injury, if you really want to see what he can do, maybe just put him in the lineup against the lefty who came into the game allowing a .149/.245/.213 line to lefties compared with .304/.362/.497 to righties. No, instead Matheny put out a lineup with six left-handed batters. I understand MJ Melendez and Vinnie Pasquantino, but there’s an opportunity to get Nate Eaton in there and Rooker in place of two left-handed bats. Either you’re developing the lefty bats to hit lefties or you aren’t, you can’t have it both ways.

I’ve made it pretty clear that I think Matheny will be gone after the season. I still believe that. I wouldn’t guarantee it, but I still think it’s telling that at the start of the year, they simply picked up his 2023 option to avoid him being a lame-duck manager. They easily could have extended him and they chose not to. That’s telling to me. And now with no clear direction on how to best develop their young talent in the way of playing time, I just think they’ll move on after the season. Here’s a little tidbit that I’ll leave you with before I get to the weekend’s action. Don’t be too surprised if if/when Matheny goes that Alec Zumwalt moves from hitting coach to manager. I could see it happening.

The Games

Friday - Royals 3, Rays 2

It’s gotten to be that watching Brady Singer pitch is appointment television. And this one was no different. Only it was kind of different. Singer’s control was…off. He threw 24 strikes in his first 52 pitches. He simply didn’t have his typical command of his sinker. His slider was off a bit too, but without being able to get the called strikes on his sinker, his slider, which I thought looked generally fine (but a little bit off), didn’t get the job done either.

What I noticed more than anything were a lot of misses arm side. This isn’t always the case, but misses on the arm side can sometimes represent a little fatigue. It comes from a pitcher not finishing all the way through his delivery and the ball just generally stays in the spot it came from. For Singer, when he’s at his best, he’s dotting the gloveside corner with his sinker and putting the slider on the back foot of lefties. And with all of that in mind, Singer went six innings and gave up two runs on five hits. Yes, he walked four, but he also struck out seven.

I know this sounds kind of silly, but in the third inning, he threw a changeup to David Peralta. It was fouled off. But he got a swing and miss on the next pitch and then gave up a ground ball single and a walk before he picked a runner off second base. I know the results immediately weren’t better, but his command after that changeup improved dramatically. After throwing those 24 strikes in his first 52 pitches, he threw 34 in his next 47. He was a different pitcher from the fourth inning on. He got into some trouble in the sixth with a leadoff single followed by a double, but in his final three innings, he struck out four and didn’t walk anyone.

So why mention the changeup? This goes back to something I’ve heard a lot and I think even mentioned last year with Kris Bubic. Sometimes when a pitcher isn’t quite right with his delivery, often due to fatigue, throwing a changeup can get a pitcher back to that correct arm slot. Matheny actually mentioned it on his weekly spot on MLB Network Radio on Sunday morning. He was saying that Singer simply trusting and throwing his changeup allowed him to find his delivery and release point to get the great movement he gets on his other pitches. So if you’re wondering how a pitch he throws 8.3 percent of the time has helped him to become what he has, that’s how. And it’s how he went to work in the second half of his performance.

Even so, I do worry a bit about fatigue with him. Here is a heat map of all his sinkers from Friday night.

And here’s what he was doing before Friday.

You can see how they fade a bit more than in the past. I’d say it’s just something to keep an eye on. He’s thrown 123.2 innings this year after throwing 133 last year. He threw 64.1 in 2020 and 148.1 in 2019. If he’s going to become the guy who it’s starting to feel like he can, he’ll need to get to at last 175 innings or so, but he looks like he has about eight starts left this season. He’s averaged a little more than six innings per start since he’s been back from Omaha. So let’s say he averages exactly six and that puts him to 171.2 this season. I wonder if they’ll use all those off days to help give him a day or two here and there and maybe drop a start off that.

Singer’s work was part of a kind of fun pitcher’s duel to watch. Shane McClanahan, who has a shot at the AL Cy Young was on the other side and looked downright nasty. The Royals only got two hits off him, but they did walk three times and one of the walks was absolutely huge before one of the hits. Melendez swung and missed at a nasty curve to make the count 1-2 before finding his way to taking three absolutely filthy pitches for a ball that most hitters would chase. So with two outs, he was on first for Bobby Witt Jr.

That couldn’t have been better to see. While the team’s offense has been struggling for a week or so, Witt has been struggling since his return to the lineup on July 30. I questioned on Royals Review if he was still nursing that injury. You can see how hard and far that was hit, but the swing was the most encouraging thing there.

After Singer was out, the Royals bullpen did the job. Dylan Coleman was nasty for two innings in the seventh and eighth and Scott Barlow came on in the ninth. The catchers, even with one in left field took over. First, it was a great throw from left by Melendez to get Taylor Walls at second in the bottom of the ninth of a tie game.

That’s just perfect. Then in the tenth after a sacrifice bunt and a sacrifice fly gave the Royals the lead, Roman Quinn tried to steal third with one out. Salvador Perez had other plans.

That’s just perfect. And then one pitch later, Melendez ended the game.

That’s…yes…just perfect.

And for one night, we were all Salvy.

Saturday - Rays 5, Royals 2

I think one of the biggest differences between my faith in Bubic compared to Singer is his ability to get it done when he doesn’t have it. He didn’t really have it on Saturday afternoon in Tampa and while he got through the first inning without damage, that was more because the Rays are a truly bad baserunning team. The metrics don’t say they are, but they really are, or at least were in this series.

But Bubic just wasn’t good. He gave up eight hits in 3.2 innings. He didn’t strikeout a single batter. He walked two. He actually threw strikes reasonably well with 50 in 76 pitches. He made too many mistakes, though. The Rays got some hits against a couple of good pitches, but Bubic just left way too much in the middle. Here are the balls put in play. It’s missing one, which happens, but you can still see how much of the middle he was catching.

I said this on Twitter, but I’ll repeat it here for your benefit. This is why I’ve been hesitant to say Bubic is more than 4/5 starter. Games like this happen a little too frequently with him. And look, a backend starter is very valuable. He’s had a couple of rough starts in a row, but since he came back from Omaha, he has a 4.06 ERA in 82 innings over 15 starts. He has a nearly two to one strikeout to walk ratio. He’s given up a few too many hits, but a .122 ISO allowed with just seven home runs is very solid. The FIP in that time is 3.91, so maybe I’m being unfair, but I want to reiterate that a 4/5 starter is not something to sneeze at.

I looked it up and, being generous, I found that 15 pitchers ever selected between picks 37 and 43 (Bubic was 40) have become better than a 4/5 starter. That’s out of 185 pitchers selected. I don’t find this to be a bad outcome based on those numbers.

There was some good still in this game. Witt had another extra base hit on a hard-hit double. Pasquantino finally came through with a hit with runners in scoring position and drove in a run to the Royals back to within two runs. And maybe more interesting than anything, to me anyway, was Carlos Hernandez and what he did out of the bullpen.

He came out throwing flames. He averaged 99.2 MPH on his four-seamer and touched 101.4 MPH. That was intriguing, but what got me excited was his slider. He threw seven, got four swings and three whiffs. It was the slider I feel like we saw when he was starting last season and pitching well. The Rays were able to make contact on one and it was a foul ball.

That’s just a nearly impossible pitch to hit. Look where it started and where it finished. If he can be the guy who sits upper-90s and throws that slider, there’s a bullpen piece. And the fact that the Royals seem pretty gung ho about him and Brad Keller in the bullpen, it makes me even more confident that they’re going to go out and get a starter to help the rotation. There’s no guarantee Hernandez can be consistent at all, but this is the type of arm that figures it out and becomes a superstar in the bullpen.

The Royals lost the game, but that right there is a huge development. I’m excited to see more of Hernandez in that bullpen.

Sunday - Rays 3, Royals 2

The series finale sort of had it all from a team struggle standpoint. They were down early, had only one hit with a runner in scoring position and Matheny pinch hit for young players in a big situation only for the pinch hitters to do nothing. Zack Greinke was fine, but had a cramp in his forearm that forced him out of the game after the fourth. He’d allowed two runs. The first came in the first and it was an annoying run when the Rays got a soft two-out single, stole second and then got another soft single to score the run. The second was a loud home run in the second.

But it was another tactical Matheny error, in my opinion, that led to the Rays getting their third run in the bottom of the fifth, immediately after the Royals had tied the game with a rare rally. When Greinke had to exit, he went with Jose Cuas. Cuas has overall not been horrible, but he hasn’t been good. He was good on Saturday, though, which is probably what gave Matheny some confidence. But the problem with Cuas is he’s not good on back-to-back days (or when pitching in the second game of a doubleheader when he also pitched in the first).

In those situations, he’s now allowed a .394/.500/.636 line with a 14.3 percent walk rate and 9.5 percent strikeout rate. When he has rest, he allows a .197/.310/.282 line with a still way too high 13.1 percent walk rate but a much better 21.4 percent strikeout rate. And, pitching for the second consecutive day, Cuas faced four batters, retired one and gave up a run. I’m frustrated a bit with the umpires once again because he gave up a single that scored a run after he walked a batter on a pitch that was clearly a strike, but Cuas put himself in that mess and Matheny put Cuas in the position to put himself in that mess.

The Royals offense wasn’t silent or anything the rest of the way. They had exactly one runner the next three innings, but couldn’t do anything. Of course, they may have had more earlier. Similar to the bad call on the walk that may have ended up the same way, the umpires took the chance away from the Royals to do something in the top of the fourth. The inning started with Pasquantino and on a 1-2 pitch, he swung at a pitch down and the home plate umpire ruled that he’d fouled it off. The replay on television confirmed it.

Harold R. Kuntz @HaroldRKuntz3

1-2 count for Vinnie P… foul tip accurately called by HP Umpire .. but after TB Manager Kevin Cash asked for help .. call overturned. Not reviewable play. Could have easily be confirmed in 30 seconds.

But the Rays asked home plate umpire Ben May to talk it over and his second base umpire from 125ish feet away said that it was a swinging strike and ended Pasquantino’s at bat. And that’s not reviewable, so that was that. I’m getting pretty sick of umpires missing calls.

Again, there was a bright side. Amir Garrett came in and cleaned up the mess from Cuas pretty quickly with a double play. Garrett is still walking too many batters, but he’s quietly been very good since late June. He’s put up a 1.53 ERA in his last 22 games spanning 17.2 innings with just six hits allowed in that time and he’s been murder on lefties all season.

And the best good news was how good Keller looked a day after Hernandez looked so good. Keller threw two innings and struck out three. They’d have been two perfect innings if Rooker hadn’t misplayed a ball in right. He wasn’t throwing quite as hard as on Thursday night, but did average about 96 with his fastball and was getting weak contact like crazy. Plus, his slider was filth.

It’s just one good outing for each, but if this Keller and Hernandez in the bullpen thing works, the 2023 bullpen (assuming they tender Keller a contract, which I still think seems less likely than them non-tendering him) starts to look a lot more formidable without a single addition.

Now if only they can get the bats going because woof.

What’s Up Next?

It’s a rare three opponent week for the Royals since they have one game against the White Sox at 1pm today. It’s the final game from that second series of the year that got moved because of the lockout. The original scheduled starter for the game was Michael Kopech, but after their rainout yesterday, it looks like the Royals will get Dylan Cease, which is a bad break for KC (Edit: Nope, it’s going to be Kopech…bad job by me not searching Twitter). But it’s another chance for Daniel Lynch to continue to show that he can be a part of the future. Then they’ll get two with Arizona where Jonathan Heasley will make his big league return against Zach Davies. The two-game set is over fast, but it won’t be easy. The Royals will have to get their offense going against Zac Gallen, who hasn’t given up a single run in his three starts. But it should be a good one with Singer scheduled.

And over the weekend, we’ll see the Padres come to town. It’s been a rough go for them since the deadline when they made some huge moves to get Josh Hader and Juan Soto. The latter has been great, though with a bit less power than you’d expect, but the former has already been removed from his role as closer. That’s not ideal. They’re under .500 since the deadline and while they’re currently in a playoff spot, they’re not exactly showing great things. It’s never easy against a good team, though, as the Royals will be up against Blake Snell, Joe Musgrove and Sean Manaea, at least as of now.