Weekend in Review: Royals Bats, Disaster Averted and More

The Royals could have been heading to New York in a much different place, but a series-saving win helps them quite a bit.

Winning a series finale after losing the first two to avoid a sweep feels like something out of the 2024 Royals playbook. One of the biggest differences between last year’s club and what we watched for some reason in previous years is that losing didn’t snowball. They only lost more than three in a row once before September and that was just four games. Things fell apart a bit at the end, but one of the ways you get to a winning record is by turning long losing streaks into merely bad stretches. Instead of losing nine in a row, go 2-7. The 2024 Royals did that.

And that’s what this team has done to start the year. They have not lost more than two in a row yet. Yes, it’s only 10 percent of the season, but that’s a positive given how bad the offense has been to start the year. That’s because of the pitching, which might be the most obvious thing I’ve ever written, but the team’s strength has always been their pitching. It’s by far the best thing they do. So for it to be carrying the team is generally okay. The question that I always ask of a team around this point of the season is if this is them playing to their level, playing way better or playing way worse.

With this club, if they’re playing to their level, that means they’re a .500 team. And honestly if you predicted them to win anywhere between like 77 and 89 games, 81 wins shouldn’t be something to surprise you at the end of the year. If they’re way worse than this (and there are some concerning signs beyond just the inability to hit), it’s going to be a long summer. If this is them playing poorly, well, we’re going to have some fun. I have a tough time believing the offense can be this bad, and I don’t think the pitching is especially in over its collective heads. I predicted 88 wins about three weeks ago and I’m not changing that at this point even thought here are moments I could see them losing 90 games pretty easily.

Offensive Woes

Let’s dig in a little to why I don’t think the offense can be this bad, which probably deserves an entire newsletter, but I’m going to do a fairly quick hit on this here and then maybe circle back. The reality is that while I think there are plenty of questions to be asked, I just simply don’t buy that all of these players are not only going to have career-worst years but some of the worst years in baseball history. Let’s go player-by-player from most plate appearances to least:

• Bobby Witt Jr. is hitting .305/.391/.458. The average is probably where I’d guess while the OBP is higher as he’s walking at an 11.6 percent rate. He’s done a great job of not chasing recently and he’s gotten rewarded with some walks for that. I’d like to see him start punishing pitchers by turning a walk into two bases, but that part is grat. The .153 ISO isn’t going to last. As a rookie, he was at .174. Two years ago, it was .218. Last year, it was .256. The weather has hurt him a couple of times. The triples and home runs are coming. He might drop 25-30 points in OBP, but I think the SLG comes up by 50-60 points.

• Salvador Perez is such an interesting case. He’s hitting a terrible .213/.262/.344 even with his big home run yesterday. But his xBA is .296 and his xSLG is .525 because he’s still hitting the ball hard and still barreling the ball. The problem I have is that he just looks old. Maybe he just was taking a little time to warm up because this gap has closed, but he’s down 1.2 MPH on his bat speed, but that was more just a few days ago. That said, his sprint speed of 23.3 MPH is second-slowest in baseball (ahead of Corey Seager…wouldn’t have guessed that). So maybe my eyes are deceiving me and he’s about to turn it around.

• Jonathan India isn’t hitting, but he’s getting on base with a 14.3 percent walk rate. It’s not always about BABIP, but he’s at .244 and that’s really low and way below anything he’s ever done before. His xBA is .248, which is exactly what he hit last year. Add 40 points to his average and the .333 OBP jumps too.

• Vinnie Pasquantino had a nice final two games of the series against Cleveland. I had noted a couple of times that his approach has taken a nosedive, but it looks like he’s been doing a better job recently. His chase rate is still inflated, but it’s coming down and he’s worked some counts and some walks lately. He hasn’t been unlucky, but I have a hard time believing he’s gone from what he was to what he’s been. He got off to a very slow start last year and was obviously incredibly productive. I feel better about him today than I did on, say, Thursday, and that’s not because of the last two games and the hits but rather because he took some pitches.

• Michael Massey is hitting just .200/.224/.255. I’m sorry, but even if you don’t think he’s any good, he hit .229./.274/.381 in 2023. He’s got some pop that he hasn’t shown much of this year and he’s not hitting the ball with any kind of authority. I have zero data to back it up, but unless he’s hurt, this feels like he’s just in a slump at a bad time because everyone is.

• Maikel Garcia is hitting .300/.321/.500. He also has some of the better plate discipline on the team and isn’t walking. I think his average and SLG will probably dip, though his xBA is .296 and his xSLG is .482, so he’s coming by it honestly. I just think he’ll work some more walks as the season goes on if he continues to not chase and do damage. So even if he ends up 30 points lower in average, his OBP might rise by 10-12 points too.

• Even MJ Melendez, hitting .077/.182/.103 for a gentleman’s -13 wRC+ seems far-fetched. He’s striking out way too much and probably deserves a stay in Omaha, but he has a .130 BABIP. And also nobody is this bad. I have reached the point of zero confidence that Melendez will be a difference-maker ever, but I also can’t wrap my head around the fact that a guy who was 15 percent below average offensively in his worst year is now suddenly the worst hitter of all time. But if he is, they’re going to move on eventually.

• Hunter Renfroe is in a similar boat to Melendez, hitting .128/.209/.154. He was hitting .140/.214/.252 on May 11 last year and then got hot for a long time. Will that happen again? I don’t know. I doubt it. But I also feel like this isn’t sustainable one way or another.

• I’ll end with Kyle Isbel because the rest all have fewer than 40 plate appearances, but Isbel is in over his head in a lot of ways after a 3 for 3 day. He’s hitting .282 without a walk, but his wRC+ of 93 is following a pattern of improvement, so while I don’t think he’s going to hit for this high of an average, he’s gone from 66 to 75 to 81 with his wRC+. Would it be the weirdest thing in the world if he got to 86 or 87? He’s at 93 now.

My point here is not to tell you that everything is going to turn around and the Royals are going to have the best offense in baseball soon enough, but there is a track record and signs with some of these guys that it’s simply a team-wide slumber. I have big problems with approaches. I have big problems with the fact that this team seems to ride with each other, which is great in the good times, but the bad times are brutal. But I also can’t fathom that they are this bad because history and a lot of the batted ball data suggests that they should at least be a serviceable offense with the pitching staff they’re supporting.

The Games

I’m going to be honest. I had some personal stuff come up this weekend, so these recaps will not be nearly as robust as usual, though I’ve got some thoughts on Sunday’s game (thankfully the best of the weekend), which I got to watch while dealing with some of those personal issues.

Friday - Guardians 7, Royals 0

There is almost nothing to write about this one that anyone wants to read today. I thought the Royals put together some really good plate appearances early against Tanner Bibee, which forced him out of the game early. That was nice to see. They only chased on 20 percent of his pitches outside the zone. Part of the problem is that a lot of those pitches outside the zone were called strikes by one of the worst umpiring performances I’ve seen in awhile. But as has been the case far too often this year, they just didn’t hit the ball hard. They only had four hard-hit balls against him and they were just 1 for 4 on those hard-hit balls.

Kris Bubic was, I thought, really good again. He did give up three runs over six innings, but only two were earned. He started the fourth inning by throwing a perfect 3-2 pitch to Kyle Manzardo that painted the corner. It was called ball four. Then he got a potential double play ball from Jhonkensy Noel, but India threw it wide of the bag and instead of getting two outs, they got none. He was probably only getting one out anyway, but it was really one of the first moments that you could see India hasn’t played third in a long time. And then Gabriel Arias turned around a fastball on the inner third and hit it over the right field wall for a three-run homer.

That’s all it takes sometimes. A bad call, a bad throw and a bad pitch. I was impressed with the Guardians ability to put bat on the changeup, though. It looked good to my eyes from the television and they were chasing on it big-time, but they put five in play with an average exit velocity of 91.2 MPH. Bubic got some whiffs on his fastball, his sweeper and his slider too. I thought he looked good, but his offense, his defense and the man behind the catcher didn’t give him any support.

The defense got worse in the bottom of the eighth when Chris “White Flag” Stratton came on with the score still 3-0. He gave up four runs on five hits, but only two were earned because of one of the worst plays you’ll see. The inning started with a double and a single to get the runner to third. Then the Guardinas hit a sacrifice fly and Arias was thrown out trying to advance on a wild pitch during the next batter before Stratton walked Austin Hedges and gave up two more soft singles. Then it was the play. Jose Ramirez hit a popup that should have ended the inning at two runs, but he just missed it. Another run scored and then another hit drove in one more.

Stratton has now pitched in five games. The Royals have lost four of them. None have been explicitly because of Stratton, but he has turned a three-run deficit into six, a five-run deficit into seven, a three-run deficit into four and a three-rund deficit into seven. Now, this last one was not entirely his fault, but I would think his time on the roster is coming to a close soon. He has an 8.59 ERA and it feels like it should be worse.

Saturday - Guardians 6, Royals 3

At least in this one, the Royals got the scoring started early-ish and did a little damage late. Pasquantino got the Royals on the board first in the fourth inning.

That’s what you’re supposed to do with a middle-middle fastball. Even with that home run, he’s not doing enough damage on those pitches, so that’s a big path back to being a middle-of-the-order bat. He’s still hitting just .250 on pitches in the heart of the plate, though he does have a double, triple and a home run on them.

The problem, as has been the case so often, they just couldn’t do anything else, and they were dominated by Luis L. Ortiz, who simply isn’t that impressive. I will say you see him pitch and you think he should be better, but he’d struck out five in his first two starts combined and then struck out 10 on Saturday night with just one hit allowed. That’s unacceptable.

I thought Michael Lorenzen was fine. He continued to not give up walks, which is a great sign for him. Angel Zerpa continues to get some shots to wipe away the first part of his season and the results continue to be mixed. He did get two outs without allowing a run, but walked a batter in the process. Steven Cruz, up for Hunter Harvey had another nice showing with a strikeout in 0.2 innings. But then Sam Long got beat up again. He was put on the IL before Sunday’s game, which either gives you a reason or an excuse. I’m honestly not sure which it was, but I’m just glad he won’t be giving up runs for a bit. I hope if the injury is real, which I’m going to assume it is, that he recovers and get back to being as good as he was for the Royals last year.

The good news is that the Royals continued to punish Emmanuel Clase, even though it wasn’t enough. Cleveland’s head-hunting closer gave up two runs on four hits in the ninth and the Royals even brought the tying run to the plate. He gave up a single to Witt, a single to Pasquantino (he had three hits), a rocket single to Perez to drive in Witt and then a single to Massey. So the tying run was up with nobody out. Cavan Biggio struck out, Garcia hit a sacrifice fly to score the third run and Melendez hit a hard grounder for the out.

People don’t like to hear this for some reason, but sometimes those rallies late can spark something the next day.

Sunday - Royals 4, Guardians 2

It sure looked like that last sentence in the last game was incorrect. Early on the Royals bats continued to look weak. They got off to a great start with a single from Garcia, who was leading off in place of India and another single from Witt, but Garcia got caught trying to go to third. Pasquantino walked and then Perez hit into a pretty predictable double play to end the inning. Ben Lively then struck out the side in the second, which feels impossible, but it happened.

The Royals would get on the board in the fourth, but before that, the defense struck again. With two outs and a man on first, Daniel Schneemann took a ball off the left-center field wall. The relay to Witt was pretty great, but Witt absolutely air mailed the throw home. It rattled around long enough that Schneemann was able to score on a little league home run. A good throw home may have gotten Noel, but definitely wouldn’t have allowed the second run to score. This was the point where things felt hopeless.

But Perez, basically throwing a middle finger in my face as I said to anyone who would listen that age has caught up, did what captains do.

That’s an important home run. Maybe I’m wrong and I’m trying to see things, but it felt like things loosened up some after this. They didn’t score again and there were still issues offensively. Those aren’t going to go away simply because one large man hit a game-tying home run. But it just felt a little different.

In the next inning, Freddy Fermin drew a one-out walk and Isbel picked up his second hit of the day to get Fermin to third. Garcia stepped up again with a hard double to right-center. That was four runs and that’s all they’d need because Cole Ragans was maybe as dominant as we’ve ever seen him.

He struck out three batters in each of the second, fourth and fifth innings. He seemed to be pitching angry at times, but he can be effective when pitching angry, which is a little bit of a rare thing. He ended the day with this line:

7.2 IP
4 H
2 R
1 ER
10 K
0 BB

He hasn’t walked a batter since his start in Milwaukee. He’s now struck out 10 or more in three straight games, which is just the second time in Royals history that’s been done. The first was by Kevin Appier in 1996. So to put it another way, no pitcher who hasn’t worn #55 has struck out 10 or more in three straight games in Royals history. But he was in control for almost the entire game. His fastball averaged 96.2 MPH, which was back up. He hit 98.6 MPH at one point. He had eight swinging strikes on his fastball and eight on his changeup. He had four more on his other pitches to give him 20, which is tied for the seventh-most in his career. He also had 14 called strikes.

And honestly, if not for another bout of some cramping, he may have been able to go the whole game. It was just as impressive a pitching performance as the Royals have gotten and that’s saying something given how good they’ve been over the last year and 16 games. Also, it helps when you can go get Lucas Erceg and Carlos Estevez to close out a game when a cramp causes you to have to finish it from the dugout. Erceg faced one batter and struck him out. Estevez came in and gave up a leadoff single and then struck out the next three for the save. And he hit 96.6 MPH in the process. He said the velocity would come back and it’s coming back.

We’ll see what this win does. The series featured Perez and Pasquantino seeming to start to go. When they go, the team goes. If India can come back from his quad strain and keep getting on base and Garcia can keep hitting, suddenly things don’t look quite as dire, but man they need more from the corners. I guess we’ll have to take small steps here.

Player of the Week

There were a couple pretty solid weeks offensively by Royals hitters. Witt hit .364/.464/.500. Isbel hit .368/.368/.579. Fermin had a couple of good games. Garcia looked good in the leadoff spot yesterday. But the answer to this is incredibly easy this week and it’s Ragans. Look at this line…

13.2 IP
8 H
3 R
2 ER
21 K (42.9%)
0 BB (0.0%)
1.32 ERA

…and tell me that’s not worthy of the player of the week. It’s only four starts, but Ragans currently is fourth in the AL in innings, 12th in ERA, second in FIP, first in fWAR, second in strikeout percentage, ninth in walk percentage and second in K-BB percentage. If you are a betting person, last I saw as of last night, you could get Ragans at +700 to win the AL Cy Young on both FanDuel and BetMGM. He’s +600 on DraftKings. Far be it from me to spend your money (though I’m going to offer a suggestion next), but there’s some value in that play. Until then, he’s my player of the week.

Underdog Fantasy Play of the Day

I haven’t submitted my picks just yet, but there are a few I like tonight against the Yankees:

• Witt higher than 1.5 total bases

• Massey higher than 0.5 RBIs

• Carrasco higher than 0.5 first inning hits allowed

• Melendez lower than 0.5 total bases

I’m still hemming and hawing a little and there aren’t a lot of Yankees on the board for it just yet, so I’m holding out, but you can sign up today by clicking here and entering code CROWN to get up to $1,000 in bonus money on your first deposit.

Up Next

The difficult road trip continues with three in New York to take on the Yankees in a 2024 ALDS rematch. Here are the pitching matchups:

• Monday: RHP Seth Lugo vs. RHP Carlos Carrasco

• Tuesday: RHP Michael Wacha vs. LHP Max Fried

• Wednesday: LHP Kris Bubic vs. RHP Clarke Schmidt

First, a note about the Yankees offense. They scored 72 runs and hit 25 home runs in their first eight games. They had a big game on Saturday, but they’ve still scored just 23 runs with three home runs in their last seven games. We can talk about the torpedo bats all day long, but they’re in a bit of a funk right now. I’ll be honest, I never know if that’s good or bad.

Now onto the pitching. Carrasco has been brutal this year with a 7.71 ERA. He’s throwing strikes, but his slider is getting absolutely pummeled. Opponents are hitting .600 with a 1.200 SLG on it. The results on his sinker have been good, but it’s getting hit very hard, so I’m not sure how long that will continue. This is the ultimate get right pitcher for a bad and/or struggling offense. I’m nervous as hell for it.

Fried has been every bit the ace the Yankees hoped he’d be when they signed him. They wish he was a co-ace, but elbows don’t always cooperate. He has a 1.56 ERA through three starters and has a whiff rate higher than 40 percent on both his curve and his sweeper. He’s just the second lefty to start against the Royals this year.

And Schmidt will be making his season debut after two excellent rehab starts in AA. He added his cutter in 2023 and it became his top offering in 2024. He also throws a sinker and a knuckle curve and has a good sweeper. He’s had some success against the Royals with a 3.29 ERA in limited action and gave up two runs on four hits in 4.2 innings in the playoffs last year.

After New York, it’s on to Detroit to face the first place Tigers for the first time in 2024. They’ve gotten an insane start from Spencer Torkelson and Zach McKinstry has been excellent as well. One of those two things feels more sustainable than the other. I’ll let you decide which it is. Their big offensive addition was Gleyber Torres, but he just played in his fourth game of the year yesterday. He’s been great, but the sample is smaller than most small samples. Like the Royals, the pitching has been their story with a great start from Jack Flaherty and Casey Mize while Tarik Skubal just had his best start of the year in his last outing. Jackson Jobe has been great too. The Royals will face all four of them, so it won’t be easy in Detroit, but we’ll get to more about that later in the week.