Weekend in Review: Philly Phails But Big Salvy Weekend

The Royals were up against one of the best and hottest teams in baseball essentially needing a sweep to maintain hope and, well, not so much.

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One week ago today, we convened in this very corner of the internet with the Royals two games out of the Wild Card with 19 games to play. If you go back a day before that, they entered play just one game out in the Wild Card after winning a low-scoring game on Friday night and a blowout on Saturday. Two things happened. They stopped winning, almost entirely. And the Mariners stopped losing entirely. A week ago, the Mariners were 75-68 and had won their last two after looking like they were in freefall. They still haven’t lost since and are now in first place with the Astros sitting as the third Wild Card. So in some ways, it doesn’t matter a whole lot what the Royals would have done this weekend or throughout the week. But it certainly didn’t help.

The latest rough stretch of baseball is just one of a handful of rough stretches that will ultimately be why the Royals didn’t make the playoffs. They had a chance, but their 8-14 start didn’t help. And their 8-18 June didn’t either. Technically, there’s still a shot. A win in the finale in Philadelphia does mean that they could reel off an 12-1 or 13-0 finish and probably get into the playoffs, but if winning every one of your games or close to it for two weeks only probably gets you in, it’s probably fair to say that it’s as good as over. I’ll write about the season as a whole when it’s actually over and maybe they’ll have a strong finish to make it at least semi-interesting. But for now, I suppose we take some solace in knowing that this team has fight. They just didn’t have enough talent, particularly on the offensive side, or health, particularly on the pitching staff.

What this weekend showed, to me, is the difference between the legitimately excellent teams and the Royals. Maybe it’s a different story if Cole Ragans, Michael Wacha and Seth Lugo are out there healthy and performing. But the Royals missed the two best the Phillies have to offer and it was still pretty clear who the better team was this weekend. Their lineup is deeper. Their pitching staff as a whole is probably a bit deeper. They’re just better. They do spend a lot of money to be that, but I think everything the Phillies have is attainable for the Royals, especially with the right work this winter. They’re just not on that level right now.

The Games

Friday - Phillies 8, Royals 2: Ugly

I don’t have a lot to say here. You’ll see in the next game that I missed it. I wish I missed this one. Michael Lorenzen just wasn’t good. The offense scored a run early and then went into a shell (that’s familiar) and by the time a better than you realize bullpen could take over, the game was out of hand. And then when the Royals made it interesting-adjacent, the bullpen gave up more. It was not a fun night, one day after a really not fun night. I’ll admit to being in a pretty dark place in my fandom after this one. Nobody needs to re-live it.

Saturday - Phillies 8, Royals 6: Salvy Reached Some Milestones

I’ll be honest here. I missed literally every pitch of this game. I was at an incredible charity event for Mimi’s Pantry, and I’m going to plug their organization very quickly here because it’s a great cause. Their mission is to bridge the gap for individuals and families who are faced with the challenge of having enough nourishing food and educational resources available to them. I’m not asking you to donate, but check them out. If you have the means and want to support them, you’ve got the info. Anyway, that’s where I was. It was super hot and I sweat a lot.

Anyway, back to the game. I was following along as closely as I could and I was thrilled to see Salvador Perez continue to own Taijuan Walker. He entered the game 5 for 5 with a homer against him and even though he got him out in the third and final matchup of the day, Perez got him the first two times. First, in the first:

We know now that it probably didn’t matter how many runs the Royals scored because the Phillies were just going to make sure to score enough that they had a couple more, but this gave the Royals a 3-0 lead on a pitch that should not be that easy for a human being to hit nearly 400 feet to the spot he hit it. More importantly than any of that, though, is that it drove in one run, which meant that he was now at 299 home runs and 999 RBI for his career.

Given that the result doesn’t have much bearing on the playoffs anymore, I’m really glad he came up in the third with the bases empty. As much as I would have loved for him to drive in more runs, round numbers are pretty fun.

That gives him 300 career home runs and 1,000 career RBI on the dot. He would go on to absolutely ruin that in the series finale, but since I didn’t get to see this game and I honestly don’t care to get into the reasons that I’ve never been an Angel Zerpa fan, I want to get into a bit about what this means for Perez and his place both in baseball history and Royals history, so check below for that.

In the meantime, just know the Royals lost on a night that was very special to a very special player.

Sunday - Royals 10, Phillies 3: A Breakout

This was a fun game, so let’s talk about it. Of course, it didn’t start off fun. The Royals didn’t get a single runner in the first three innings and Noah Cameron gave up two home runs in the first. It felt like it was going to be another ugly one in a week and a weekend of ugly ones. But he straightened up in a big way after that second home run and ended up giving seven innings with just those two runs allowed. He ended up striking out seven and walking just one with four hits allowed.

But more impressive than the numbers were the fact that he went up against a legitimately excellent offense, albeit without two key pieces, and not only pitched well, but had the underlying numbers too. The very best thing a pitcher can do is get a swing and miss. If a hitter swings and misses, they can’t do any damage. Cameron got the Phillies to swing and miss 18 times yesterday. That tied his career-high that he set on July 7 against the Pirates. Maybe it’s something about facing teams from Pennsylvania, but the Pirates are not the Phillies. This was more impressive than that.

What was really impressive is that he was doing it with his curve as the lead pitch. For the season, Cameorn has thrown his curve 18.9 pecent of the time. He threw it 30.9 percent of the time yesterday. It’s gotten a really strong whiff rate of 31.5 percent, the second-highest of his pitches, behind his changeup. It was the fourth time in 22 starts that he’s thrown his curve more than any other pitch. The fact that he’s able to see what’s working like that and adjust is a big thing for a young pitcher. In the previous three starts he led with the curve, he gave up one run over 16.1 innings with 15 strikeouts and three walks. Maybe he should lead with the curve more. Or maybe it works because he doesn’t do it often.

He got 16 swings on the curve in this one and the Phillies whiffed on it eight times. He also had four called strikes. He threw 20 out of the zone. They swung at 10 of them. When they hit it, they averaged 66.6 miles per hour on the batted ball exit velocity. It was a truly dominant pitch. I’m a little surprised he didn’t throw the changeup more too because they whiffed five times on six swings against that and chased that one at a 33 percent rate. The Phillies will chase. Their chase rate is third-highest in baseball. But that doesn’t make it any less impressive.

And the way he’s finishing the season is huge too. He was clearly wearing down, so they skipped a start. He came back and gave up three runs in the first against the Angels, but since then has thrown 18 innings with four runs allowed and his last two starts are the best he’s had were among his best starts of the season. The Royals rotation is going to be stacked (assuming health) in 2026, but it’s hard to imagine it without Cameron after the way he’s finishing the season.

The offense is going to get the attention in general, so I wanted to start with Cameron, but scoring 10 runs is big and maybe this team is getting out of their recent funk, just a little late. They did put up six on Saturday and then 10 yesterday. As I said, it looked like Saturday might just be a blip on the radar early. Aaron Nola, who is decidedly not good right now, was cruising. He threw 12 pitches in the first, seven in the second and 10 in the third. That’s 29 total in three innings. Maybe I’m missing one, but I don’t think there was even the threat of a hit on a batted ball.

The Royals got on the hit board in the fourth with a double, but Bobby Witt Jr. struck out and Vinnie Pasquantino hit a hard and relatively deep fly ball to center that would have scored a run if Witt had moved the runner, but he didn’t, so it didn’t. Maikel Garcia reached on an error, but Perez had a brutal at bat and struck out on some ugly swings and that was that. I can’t lie. It felt like it was going to be another long day of watching a bad offense.

Michael Massey had a good plate appearance to start the fifth. He laid off a good pitch on 3-2 to work a walk. It’s gone largely unnoticed, but he’s hit .310/.356/.357 since he came off the IL. The power isn’t really there at all and there’s some reason to believe it’s not for real because he’s just not hitting the ball particularly hard, but he’s looked pretty good in left field and is always good at second base. He’s making a case that he can at least be a role player moving forward. I always come back to how important he was on a playoff team last year. I’m glad to see him have some success.

His walk set up Jac Caglianone with one out after Jonathan India made an out. Caglianone took a changeup down for ball one and then swung at two fastballs up and in within the zone and fouled them both off. Nola gave him a curve that went out of the zone that he took, which might have been a mistake because it readied him for a curve in the zone that just moved right into his bat path.

Finally! It felt like we were waiting for his first home run since his return the way we waited for his first career home run. Nola set it up beautifully to get his bat to be a little more relaxed with that curve and with his long arms, a pitch in that spot that works back toward the barrel is going to be one he can crush if he recognizes it almost every time.

The floodgates opened in the fifth. Witt led off with a triple off the wall. Pasquantino smoked a double to right to score him. Garcia singled to right to get Pasquantino to third to set up Perez. You might recall in the previous at bat that Perez looked terrible. On the second pitch, he swung at a changeup that was way down. After a called strike, Nola tried the changeup again.

Oops.

That one didn’t quite as low and Perez was able to drop the bat head to it and use his ridiculous strength to power that out. For a lot of guys, he might get a ground ball on that one, but Perez was ready to lift and it ended up getting out of the park. One thing I didn’t mention above or won’t mention below is that gives him 28 this season, which is now second-most he’s had in a season. Two more and he’ll become the third Royals hitter to hit 30 homers in a season twice (the others are Witt and Danny Tartabull).

So that’s four batters and four runs, which would have been enough because of how well Cameron pitched, but they tacked on more in the seventh. It started with a Carter Jensen single, but then two straight strikeouts looked like they’d put out the rally, but Pasquantino singled to get Jensen to third and then Garcia walked to load the bases for Perez.

Now, the Royals have played the entire season hitting reasonably well with the bases loaded in terms of average. Their .304 average ranks 10th in baseball. But they came into this plate appearance with just one extra base hit with the bases loaded all year, a double. They were one of two teams without a grand slam (the Cardinals are the other…Missouri, man). That didn’t change. But Perez did get two more RBI with a single to score Jensen and Pasquantino.

The Phillies got one against John Schreiber who looks like he’s running on fumes. But the offense came back again in the ninth to extend the lead. Witt led off the big sixth with a triple and went the other way to lead off the ninth too, only this one went over the wall.

That’s a nice swing on that pitch. He’s up to 22 home runs, which means he’ll need eight in his final 12 games to get to 30 to be the first to ever have three 30 homer seasons and his would be consecutive. Can it happen? Sure! Will it? I wouldn’t bet on it, but you never know. They’d get one more on another Pasquantino double, followed by a single and a Tyler Tolbert sacrifice fly.

Carlos Estevez couldn’t quite close out the ninth because he left with the trainer, which seemed kind of like nothing when it happened and he confirmed he feels fine, but it’s worth watching over these final couple of weeks given how unlikely a playoff push is for this team. Still, fun to get one and fun to get it in this fashion.

Salvy’s Legacy

Let’s start with the Royals side when it comes to Perez’s legacy. He is just the second player in franchise history to hit 300 or more home runs with the Royals. After his homer Sunday, he’s now 16 behind some guy named George Brett for the most in franchise history. He is the third player in Royals history to drive in 1,000 runs with the franchise. With his five on Sunday, he’s now just seven behind Hal McRae for second on the team’s franchise list. He’s 591 behind Brett, so I’d argue that record is safe.

In other numbers, he’s seventh all-time in team history in games played. His SLG will obviously fluctuate, but it ranks in the top-15. He’s sixth in at bats and likely will end up maybe third. He’s seventh in runs scored. He’s sixth in hits. Depending on how long he plays, he has a shot to finish second in team history. He’s fifth in total bases and will almost certainly move into second next year. He’s sixth in doubles and probably has a shot to get to fourth. He’s third in extra base hits and should probably pass McRae next season. And hey, he’s second in hit by pitches.

I know this isn’t something anyone is surprised to know, but he’s not only going into the Royals Hall of Fame the second he’s eligible, but his number will also be retired. He is one of the greatest Royals of all-time. I hadn’t even mentioned that he won World Series MVP in 2015, which is obviously something only two Royals ever have done. It’s been an incredible Royals career.

But the question is going to inevitably turn to Cooperstown. I have long said that I think he needs to accumulate more to have a shot. There are some things about him that are very damning when it comes to Hall of Fame candidacy. Whether they should be or not is a different story, but the fact is that they are. The first is OBP.

There are 160 players in the Hall fo Fame with at least 6,500 plate appearances. Perez is currently at 6,852, so I could have gone a bit higher, but we’ll go with 6,500. That’s 13 seasons of 500. Only one has a lower OBP than Perez currently have and it’s Bill Mazeroski who is not in the Hall of Fame for his bat. Only two have an OBP below .310 (Salvy is at .301). Heck, only eight are below .330. Because of that, his OPS is also on the low side. Just 25 current Hall of Famers on this list of 160 have an OPS lower than Perez’s current .759. So the rate stats don’t help him.

The other issue is his defense. He has five Gold Gloves, which is helpful, but his framing has consistently rated poorly. That’s killed his fWAR because of the way they rate catcher defense. You can argue if it should matter that much or not, but I think right now it does. My question that I have is whether the voting base will care by the time he’s eligible, given that we’ll be many years into a world with ABS. Still, it’s worth mentioning because it’s the reason his WAR isn’t very high, particularly by the Fangraphs calculation. But even on Baseball Reference, he’s at just over 35, which puts him about 455th of all time, lower than guys like Wally Joyner, Troy Glaus, Reggie Sanders and Jason Heyward. You might argue that this is an argument against WAR. Whether it is or not, voters look at it.

All that said, the counting stats are starting to make a difference and they’ll be difficult to ignore. Hitting his 300th home run means he’s just the eighth player with catcher as his primary position to do that. Ever. He’s now behind Mike Piazza, Johnny Bench, Carlton Fisk, Yogi Berra, Gary Carter, Lance Parrish and Ivan Rodriguez. Those are six Hall of Famers and Parrish. His 1,005 RBI rank 19th. He has a shot to pass one or two this year, but will very likely pass at least six before the end of next year and he has a very good shot to move into the top-10 by the end of 2027 (I’m assuming he gets a two-year deal this winter).

If he can get to 359 home runs and pass Berra and 1,180 RBIs and be fourth in homers and 10th in RBIs, I think I might be fairly surprised if he doesn’t get in at some point during his 10 years on the ballot, especially as framing importance is farther away from being so vital. I still think if they had to vote today that he wouldn’t get in, but getting to 325 homers to move past Carter and Parrish for fifth all-time along with getting to the top-10 in RBIs would be enough. It also doesn’t hurt that he’s a media darling.

But one thing I hadn’t really considered is that I think he’s getting in regardless because even if he doesn’t get voted in during his 10 years on the ballot, I would be very surprised if the veteran’s committee doesn’t get him in after that. All this to say that getting to the milestones he reached on Saturday and continuing to climb is going to help his cause quite a bit. I know the downfalls, but a catcher with these kinds of numbers is going to be tough to ignore. I’ll write about it much more in the offseason, but I think the Royals ought to ensure he’s back in Kansas City, but make it clear that he’s getting 450 at bats and not 650. I would wager he puts up better counting and rate numbers playing four or five days a week than if he plays nearly every day.

Player of the Week

The Royals went 2-5 this week and hit .217/.276/.345 as a team with a wRC+ of 70. They also gave up more than five runs per game. It’s not the easiest thing in the world to find a player of the week. You could argue for Pasquantino, who hit .333/.345/.556 as he’s finishing strong. You could argue for Perez, given the milestones and the fact that them falling out of the realistic race means those are the most important things. But I think the answer is Cameron. He made two starts and went seven innings with two runs allowed in each of them. In the first, he saved a bullpen that had been taxed and was going to be even more taxed the next day. In the second, he got the win.

The Week Ahead

The math says the Royals can still make the playoffs. Their 0.1 percent chance given by Fangraphs is probably about right, but at least it’s higher than the teams that don’t have any chance? While I think they’re going to play through this until the bitter end, I do think there’s value in a strong finish, and particularly in the upcoming series because it sure seems like they’re going to get the band back together, at least when it comes to the rotation.

They’re going to face the Mariners, who are playing like a juggernaut right now. Seattle scored 11 runs (and gave up just two) yesterday. In their nine-game winning streak, they’ve scored 66 runs and allowed just 23. They have 16 home runs, 26 doubles and one triple in those nine games. That’s absurd. To put it in perspective, it took them 15 games previously to score 63 runs. They had fewer extra base hits in those 15 games as well. They’re on fire. While the Royals have about the most outside shot a team can have, they also have the opportunity to do the fun thing and that’s stop a big winning stretch.

Here are the pitching matchups:

• Tuesday: RHP Logan Gilbert vs. RHP Michael Wacha

• Wednesday: RHP Bryce Miller vs. LHP Cole Ragans

• Thursday: RHP Luis Castillo vs. TBD

It’s very easy to see why this is at least a fun series. Wacha is back. He hasn’t been gone long, but that’s great to see. Even better is Ragans coming back. He was dominant in Omaha and now he’s likely going to get two or three starts to get back to a big league feel. I have no idea what to expect, but I’m excited to see him pitch at the big league level. And if I had to guess, I’d say that Thursday will end up being Seth Lugo, which is interesting just to see how he looks after getting time off for his back issue. Technically, that’s Lorenzen’s spot, but he didn’t exactly give much reason for him to pitch. I wish I could say this series is as important as it looked like it might be a week ago, but it just isn’t. It still has intrigue. I think Stephen Kolek will likely be the piggyback for Ragans, but it’s hard to say at this point.

And then it’s the Blue Jays coming to town for three. If I had to guess I’d say the Royals will go with Lorenzen, Cameron and Wacha, but maybe they just put Lorenzen in the bullpen for the rest of the season and give Kolek starts. I really don’t know how they’ll handle that. And the Blue Jays will counter with what looks like Max Scherzer and Shane Bieber to start and then it’s a mystery. Jose Berrios would be on regular rest, so you’d guess him, but you never know this time of year. I know they’re not playing great, but I encourage everyone to get out to the park for the last homestand of the season.