Weekend in Review: Rough Series, Royals Prospect Talk and More

For the first time in a beat, the Royals didn't have a good weekend and I need to speak to someone's manager about it.

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The Royals weren’t going to win every series the rest of the year. But, as they say, you grow accustomed to a certain lifestyle and when you don’t get to live that lifestyle, it feels like a personal insult. So to watch the Royals drop a series, particularly when they won the first game, feels like an attack on me personally. Don’t they know that I’ve gotten used to writing about winning weekends on Mondays? Don’t they know that the wonderful Inside the Crown readers have gotten used to reading about winning weekends on Mondays? The whole thing just feels rude, if I’m being completely honest.

I guess it does cause a little extra concern when the issues from the past crept up seemingly as soon as the Royals got past their “easy” stretch. That said, they played the Astros and Rays, who are probably in the general range of success level of the Red Sox, and they won five of six against those two. It’s up to you if you want to add in the Orioles because of what they’re supposed to be, but they just aren’t good enough for me to include them in a group of teams that I think will compete for a playoff spot at least into August. So while the Royals beat up on two truly terrible teams, they also beat up on two perfectly adequate teams and one team that might end up there in the end. I think this weekend was more about the ebbs and flows of a season rather than anything to get up in arms about, though I totally understand if a series with four runs scored gives you enough pause to reignite your concerns.

Overall, it’s kind of interesting how far we’ve come this year alone. You might recall a point where they’d lost six in a row and were staring down the barrel of Tarik Skubal. If you offered up a 5-2 homestand then, there isn’t a single Royals fan who would have turned that down. A lot of this is sequencing-based, as I discuss so often, but there’s some genuine disappointment in the way this finished. Win series, win homestands, tread water on the road. I don’t know if their run of success is over yet, so I’m not sure if we look at 16-2 as the end or if this is just a blip, but the Royals had won five series in a row and are still 16-4 in their last 20. We’ll find out soon enough if we’ll look at the last two games as the first two of a downturn.

The Games

Friday - Royals 2, Red Sox 1: A Friday Night Thriller

This one was a thriller, and while it’s way better to be on the winning side of it, I think even Red Sox fans would agree in a few weeks that it was an absolutely great game with some outstanding pitching (and some help from the offenses to make the pitching look even better). It was obviously a pretty intense pitcher’s duel for most of the game with neither team crossing the plate until they each scored a run in the 11th.

I thought Hunter Dobbins was more to blame for the Royals lack of hitting than the Royals hitting. I suppose it’s possible I just want the Royals offense to be back on track and I do think the Royals helped Dobbins out some, but he was really good. He mixed pitches. He located. I honestly think his velocity surprised some Royals, which makes sense.

He was throwing more than a mile per hour harder on his fastball, maxing out at 97.9 MPH when the hardest he’d previously thrown was 97.2 MPH in his previous start and he’d only hit 97 one other time. That’s not to say they shouldn’t have been able to get to it, but I think it was pretty surprising to see that. In all, he threw seven pitches harder than 97 and 26 harder than his previous average. He actually only threw two fastballs softer than his average velocity coming in.

That sort of thing can really screw with a scouting report. He also threw way more sliders and way more curves than he’d thrown through the season. Good on him to be able to get to that additional velocity and good on him and the team for varying his gameplan and then executing it. I was expecting to be see a guy who looked like a back of the rotation starter, but I have to tell you that the stuff plays. I just spent way longer on an opposing pitcher than I typically would like, but Dobbins really impressed me.

Michael Lorenzen did too, though. He gave the Royals third straight start of seven innings with no runs allowed, and honestly didn’t feel like he was in trouble at any point in the game. The Red Sox didn’t get their first runner until there was one out in the fourth. That runner advanced to second on a wild pitch, but the inning ended two pitches later on a weak groundout. He gave up an infield single with two outs the next inning, but the runner didn’t move. He did give up a leadoff double in the sixth and then hit a batter, but he struck out three in that inning, so the runner never even got to third. And then it was a 1-2-3 inning. So in all, he faced five batters all game with a runner in scoring position and struck out three of them and elicited weak contact from one other.

He did it with his changeup as his best pitch of the night. It was filthy. He threw 21 of them, which was the second-most he’s thrown in a game this year and tied for the second-most he’s thrown in a game as a Royal since he was acquired last year. Here’s how good it was. He threw just six in the strike zone. The Red Sox swung at five of them and missed on four of the five. He threw 15 out of the zone and the Red Sox swung at 10 of those and missed on seven of them. That’s 11 whiffs on 15 swings to go along with one called strike for a 57 percent CSW%. They made contact twice and the harder of the two was hit at 82.6 MPH. It was a dominant showing with the changeup.

You can see one in the zone and a couple out of the zone. He particularly bullied Connor Wong with the changeup, just repeatedly going after him with it. It was a really fantastic game for Lorenzen, who didn’t walk anyone for the second time this year and the sixth time in 75 starts since converting back to the rotation in 2022. For the season, he now has a 3.57 ERA in eight starts, spanning 45.1 innings. He’s got 40 strikeouts and has walked 14 batters. This is the fifth starter for the Royals.

I can’t talk about this game without highlighting the bullpen, which was outstanding. It started with John Schreiber in the eighth. He gave up a leadoff single on a very soft bloop that was well-placed. Then he got a strikeout and a popup when Matt Quatraro went to his relief ace, Lucas Erceg to face Rafael Devers and Erceg got a groundout. For the first time all year, Erceg finished one inning and went out for a second in the ninth. And that was the plan whether the Royals or scored or not, based on bullpen action, if you were wondering.

Erceg did give up a single in the ninth, but got the game to the bottom half. Once it hit the 10th, Carlos Estevez was on to pitch with the Manfred Man on second for the third time this year. No big deal for him, though. Popup, strikeout and soft lineout that Drew Waters made a really nice play on. Daniel Lynch IV was on for the 11th and did give up a run, which was a bummer, but he did it on two grounders and even though he gave up a two-out single with nobody on, he limited the damage to one. After Vinnie Pasquantino tied it in the bottom of the 11th, Lynch stayed in to face Wilyer Abreu and got an out that didn’t advance the runner and Steven Cruz came in and got a popup of his own and a strikeout to send the game to the bottom of the 12th.

Now I am not usually a guy who is going to show you a sacrifice bunt, but Cavan Biggio got down one that made a lot of sense to start the 12th inning. With the game tied, you want that runner on third with less than two outs and Biggio tried a couple of times and looked about as awkward as possible. On a 1-2 pitch, he was still bunting and it was headed toward his face, but that didn’t stop him.

Okay, that’s impressive. Probably a lot more luck than anyone wants to admit, but that got Massey to third.

Here’s where I don’t understand what the Red Sox were doing. The game is tied and the winning run is on third base. Any other runner is meaningless. Freddy Fermin was coming to the plate. Now, Fermin isn’t a great hitter, but he does seem to have a knack for walkoffs. And he also makes pretty good contact. In the on deck circle was Hunter Renfroe, who had pinch hit for Kyle Isbel against Aroldis Chapman. Why pitch to Fermin? But they did and nobody in Kansas City is upset about it.

If it seems like I spent a lot of time on one game for a Weekend in Review, you’re probably right, but this was a great game and made even better by the Royals coming out on top.

Saturday - Red Sox 10, Royals 1: It Had to Happen Sometime

Cole Ragans just isn’t quite right. This is something we’ve seen him before, though maybe not to this level. Last year, from June 29 to July 28, he made five starts and gave up three or more runs in three of them. He gave up 15 runs in 30.1 innings. He still got his strikeouts as he always does, but he just wasn’t quite sharp enough to have consistently good games. He figured it out and had a 2.64 ERA the rest of the year. This stretch is maybe a bit more concerning because of the groin injury mixed in, but has had a rough go of it.

He gave up four runs on seven hits in this one. But he struck out eight and he walked just two. Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP) can leave out too many variables and he’s getting hit a bit harder, but I just feel like some of this is a run of some unfortunate luck. He’s only allowed three barrels in four starts. He’s getting swing and miss. I think the foul balls are a bit of a concern, but I think they’re a product of being just a touch off and not being able to get his location right.

I wouldn’t say I’m worried other than about the fact that his groin issue might be causing this, but it’s something to monitor. As I said, he’s come out of this before and he does have a pretty unsustainably low strand rate over these last few starts. But generally velocity and movement are there, which are indicators for Ragans, so I’m willing to wait and see on this. Pitchers have slumps too.

The offense was pretty much inept, trading actually really solid plate appearances for terrible ones against Garrett Crochet. It’s, in a lot of ways, understandable. Crochet is a great pitcher. He was good enough for the Red Sox to not only trade some of their best prospects to get, but then also give him $170 million in an extension. He had it working, and his cutter was especially interesting to me because he was throwing it harder and it was moving differently. The Royals made plenty of contact on it, but it wasn't generally good contact. The only run of the game for them came home on a cutter that was blooped to center.

It was a tough draw for an offense that probably wasn’t in any position to do anything against a tough draw. This is not to exonerate the bats for a bad performance, but I’d argue any offense is doing that against Crochet on Saturday night.

The big issue was Angel Zerpa, who continues to struggle. Taylor Clarke came out after Ragans and looked good again, but Zerpa gave up five runs on four hits with two home runs in one inning of work. After a stretch where he was looking a little better in a lower leverage role, he’s now given up runs in three straight games, including the five on Saturday night. His ERA, which had dipped below 4.00 now sits at 7.20. This is beginning to look like that stretch last year that led to him going to Omaha. And I’ll tell you that Evan Sisk is eligible to come back, so…just saying.

Even Chris Stratton looked better than Zerpa. Don’t look now, but Stratton has eight strikeouts in four innings in May. ERA isn’t a great indicator for a reliever, but he and Zerpa have the same ERA and he’s looked much better over his last few outings. I still think he should go, and I think you all know I’ve never been much of a fan of Zerpa anyway, but I think it’s only fair to point out when a guy looks good, even if it is in the lowest of leverage.

Sunday - Red Sox 3, Royals 1: The Bats Went Cold…Again

It’s probably a weird thing to say, but this was the game that made me mad at the offense. They scored one earned run all weekend, but I sort of understood Friday and definitely understood Saturday against one of the best lefties out there. But I didn’t find Lucas Giolito to be that impressive in the finale. And yet the Royals couldn’t do much of anything against him.

That’s not to say he was bad. He pitched well and his velocity was way up and some break was very different. His four-seamer was back to 94 while his slider and curve were pretty clearly different pitches than he’d thrown so far this year, so maybe there’s some slack there, but even with all the changes, I didn’t find him to be that impressive while I was very impressed with Dobbins. I don’t know. This felt like a game from those first three weeks of the season where no matter who was pitching, the offense was going to be inept.

Combine that with Seth Lugo making two big mistakes to give up three runs on two homers and that was enough for the Royals to lose the series. Lugo was fine. He wasn’t great, but he was fine. You give up three runs in six innings without a walk and you should have a real chance to get a win. The Royals offense didn’t give him any sort of real chance. The only run came on a sacrifice bunt attempt that Giolito threw away trying to get the lead runner at third and that runner scored.

All in all, an ugly way to end a really quality homestand.

Updated Prospect Lists Interesting for the Royals

No, there isn’t a new player listed on either the Baseball America prospect list or the new MLB Pipeline list, but I find who is listed as very interesting. First of all, good on these prospect rankings to do this instead of what I recall them doing, which was claiming a new list was out but really it was just with prospect graduations and guys moving him four spots or whatever. I like having re-rankings at certain points because things do change.

For the Royals, Jac Caglianone is at 34 on the BA list and has moved all the way to 10 on the MLB Pipeline list. Blake Mitchell hasn’t gotten back to full-season ball yet after his injury from spring, but he’s ranked 70 by BA and 42 by Pipeline. Add one more on the Pipeline list with Carter Jensen slotting in at 88. We can have a discussion about the catchers and how to handle all that catching talent another day (maybe soon!), but what I think is so interesting here is that the narrative is that the Royals have at least figured out pitching development in many ways, but the offensive development is still lagging behind.

And yet if you look at these lists, the only players the Royals have on there are bats. And let’s be clear that Mitchell and Jensen are not on this list because of their insane catching abilities. From what I’ve been told, either will be capable of catching in the big leagues, but their prospect status is because they can hit the ball. Jensen, for what it’s worth, has pretty ugly numbers this season so far, but I haven’t talked to a single person who thinks he just hasn’t had some of the worst luck they’ve seen this year, though he is still striking out too much.

I think the narrative is probably correct. You look throughout the season and the bats aren’t developing at the rate of the pitching, but I do think a lot of that is driven by big league success and not minor league success. The Royals can pitch in the majors, so they must be able to pitch in the minors. And we’ve seen Noah Cameron look great in the high minors and then in one start in his debut. We’ve seen Luinder Avila emerge as a development success (so far) to have some really good AAA starts. Henry Williams is starting to look like a legit prospect. They’ve been able to use some of their pitching prospects to supplement the big league team. It’s just an interesting little nugget that the pitching is considered to be way ahead of the hitting, but the top prospects are all hitters.

And on the topic of hitters, it will not surprise me if we see some movement today at the minor league level. Caglianone is obviously the name you all want to hear and he probably is the one who gets the ball rolling. He should be in AAA this week. I’m not entirely sure it’ll happen, but I think it will. And if it does, I’ll always wonder if he’d been up last week if not for Omaha being on the road. The Royals try to take care of their affiliates and if Northwest Arkansas was on the road but Omaha was at home, I wonder if Caglianone would have been up last week. We’ll see on that, I guess.

Callan Moss and Sam Kulasingam are candidates to bump from Quad Cities to Northwest Arkansas to replace Caglianone, whenever that happens. I’d say Stone Russell is the best bet to bump to Quad Cities, but I wonder if Derlin Figueroa might be a better one to get a taste since he was in Columbia last year and seems to have figured out a lot of things, at least regarding the strike zone. Either way, be on the lookout for some movement today on the universal minor league off day.

Player of the Week

It looked like there would be a lot of candidates this week, but the weekend kind of put a fair amount of bad in there. Maikel Garcia struggled over the weekend to drop his weekly numbers. He’s still on the right side of ugly, but only barely. Only four Royals hitters had a wRC+ of 100 or higher this week. One was Luke Maile with six plate appearances. Garcia was one at 101 and Kyle Isbel, to his credit, had a 241 wRC with a .429/.429/.786 line in 16 plate appearances. If Bobby Witt Jr. hadn’t hit .357/.419/.607 this week (albeit with five straight strikeouts between Saturday and Sunday), I’d have been tempted to just give this to the starters from Wednesday through Friday who didn’t give up a run in 21 innings, but Witt did enough to earn it this week.

The Week Ahead

While the Royals have one of the cushiest travel schedules because of their location among all the teams, they’re being done just a little dirty this week (and into next actually). They leave town today to head to Houston for a three-game series and then they come right back home for three against the Cardinals. After that, they leave again to go to San Francisco for three and then three in Minnesota. They do have days off on both Thursdays, but that’s still a lot of back and forth. In this series against Houston, the pitching matchups are:

• Monday: RHP Michael Wacha vs. RHP Ryan Gusto

• Tuesday: LHP Kris Bubic vs. LHP Framber Valdez

• Wednesday: RHP Michael Lorenzen vs. RHP Hunter Brown (this one isn’t confirmed, but it’s his day)

Here’s the preview:

I will tell you that this Astros team is tougher to face in Houston than they were in Kansas City. It’s a ballpark that has given the Royals trouble at times and one they couldn’t win in last year, though they did in 2023, so maybe that’s a bit of recency bias. It also doesn’t help that they’re facing the two best the Astros have to offer in this one, but you have to be able to beat good teams and good pitchers.

After the Astros series, as I mentioned, they’re back home for three against the Cardinals. It looks like they’ll get Andre Pallante, Miles Mikolas and Matthew Liberatore as of now and counter with Ragans, Lugo and Wacha, so they’ll be back at the front of their rotation, which is always a good place to be for a team with starting pitching this good. I think the Cardinals are a mediocre team that could get hot at the right time to think they’re buyers or get cold at the right time to start selling. If they do sell, Lars Nootbaar and Brendan Donovan are both high on my list for the Royals to acquire, so watch them this weekend. And just one PSA before the Weekend in Review signs off. If you’re going to a game this weekend, please don’t wear Chiefs gear. I don’t know how many times I’ve been to a Royals/Cardinals game and a Royals fan is out there in a Mahomes jersey. Wear that blue please!