Weekend in Review: Gettin' 'em On Without Gettin' 'em In, Another Series Win and What's Next

The full-strength Royals took on a contender and got the job done in a weekend series win.

When the Royals played in Toronto last weekend, it was a series of moral victories. It sort of had to be because there certainly weren’t any actual victories (this isn’t college, people, Thursday isn’t part of the weekend). But when they took the field on Friday at 7:10, they were at mostly full strength and the excuses were once again gone. I think they showed that they continue to be much better than their horrific first third of the season, but there’s just no way to come back from, even with another series win over a good team. And now we sit eight days from the trade deadline and while I think a lot of the young players were impressive, my guess is there will still be a drop-off from the veterans at least a couple of them will replace.

I don’t know that it’s actually a bad thing either. I mentioned on Friday in my weekly spot with Soren Petro that actual wins may not be the best team for the future of this franchise. We don’t want the front office getting any ideas that changes aren’t needed. Nothing truly matters beyond getting experience for guys like Bobby Witt Jr., Vinnie Pasquantino, MJ Melendez, Nick Pratto and anyone else who might come up when the roster shifts over the next week or so. The inexperienced pitching needs to continue to get innings to see if they can get themselves over the hump. Brady Singer sure looked like he was continuing his progression this weekend. Kris Bubic did the same.

And that’s what it’s all about for the final now 67 games of the season. The Royals could potentially go 35-32 or something like that without any moves and finish 73-89, but would that mean progress if they’re doing it because veterans who won’t be part of the next actually good team are leading the way? The answer is an emphatic no. So that’s where we are.

Scoring Trouble

The Royals are getting their hits. They’re getting runners on base. They just aren’t scoring many runs. This goes back to the start of the Toronto series. As a team, they’re hitting .300/.335/.435. And yet, they’ve only scored 24 runs in those seven games. That .300 average is third best in baseball in that time. The .333 OBP is 11th and the .435 SLG is ninth. They’ve had 86 runners, so to only score 24 is pretty terrible. What’s happening there? Some of it is poor situational hitting. Some of it is poor baserunning. Okay, I’d argue a good chunk of it is poor baserunning. Think back to last Thursday in Toronto. Edward Olivares himself was thrown out three times and his pinch runner once. Then you can think about the send of Hunter Dozier on Saturday night that had him out by a mile at home. Or the continued insistence on running the contact play that plagued them yesterday at one point.

I think there is absolutely improvement necessary in running the bases. My thought is that a good chunk of that is inexperience because many of the issues come from players who are pressing the issue. I think they need to get better coaching at third because Vance Wilson has been a disaster with send decisions. But I also think some of it is just part of the growing pains of young players. And then I think some of it is just random chance. The general consensus is that clutch hitting isn’t a thing. I know mathematically it isn’t, but I do think there’s something to a “slower heartbeat” that you hear about sometimes with certain players. But in general, if a team is hitting well, it’s unlikely that they will just completely shrivel up in big situations. So as long as they keep putting up the line they have been, the runs will be there soon enough. That’s the positive moral of this story. If you average 12+ runners per game, the odds of scoring fewer than 3.5 runs per game is pretty slim, so my guess is that’ll turn.

The Games

Friday - Rays 7, Royals 3

I’ve always thought the game after the break was pretty weird. And when you add in that six of the 10 players in the lineup (and on the mound) for the Royals hadn’t been active for a game in nine days, it felt even weirder. But there they were with three of their top four hitters back from the restricted list and then two of their bottom four plus their starting pitcher. I don’t want to say there’s a mulligan factor, but I think the Royals were in a bit of a different situation after missing guys in Toronto because of the All-Star break directly after that series.

It’s hard to say that any command issues for Brad Keller were due to the layoff because he isn’t exactly known as a control artist, but he walked five in four innings and he hadn’t walked more than three in any game all season leading up to this game. For someone who has his mechanics get out of whack somewhat regularly, a layoff of 10 days between starts probably isn’t ideal. Of course, he made the choice not to be able to pitch in Toronto, so there isn’t anyone to blame but himself, but I think I’m willing to chalk those issues up to the layoff.

I think he just couldn’t put pitches where he truly wanted them. His pitch chart is interesting.

He wanted fastballs up, but couldn’t get them in the zone. He wanted sliders down, but couldn’t get them out of the zone. And his sinkers just ended up a little too much in the middle of the plate. All three of his main pitches had less horizontal break than his season average. Is that a case of being a bit too strong? Maybe. I think it’s worth keeping an eye on in his next couple of starts. It’s a case of just having too much juice, it should be fine against the Angels this week. If it’s a mechanical flaw, we know this coaching staff isn’t able to impact those quickly.

The fourth inning basically sunk the Royals. Keller just lost any semblance of command that he barely had early. You can see that he threw probably seven or eight actually good pitches out of 36 total.

I would also say it wasn’t entirely his fault. You can see two sliders stacked looking like the MasterCard logo on the bottom left of the zone. Both of those were firmly in the zone and both were called balls. That didn’t help matters, but most of his pitches that inning were either non-competitive or meatballs. And he gave up four runs and that was pretty much that.

My big concern from the game came in the eighth inning. The Royals had just scored two to hopefully set themselves up for a chance and Josh Staumont came in to pitch. He threw 29 pitches in his inning and gave up two runs on three hits and his outing included a leadoff walk. So it put the game out of reach for the Royals, but his velocity was way down. He averaged 94.2 MPH on his fastball, which is two miles per hour below his season average. His spin was down. His horizontal movement was down. He threw one fastball at 90.2 MPH. It’s one of three fastballs in his career he’s thrown slower than 92 MPH.

And I made the point on Twitter that without the elite velocity, he’s pretty ordinary. In his career, on fastballs 95 MPH or slower, he’s allowed a .286 average and .408 SLG, which isn’t terrible, but it isn’t good. Bump that to 96+ and the numbers drop to .218 and .311. He doesn’t have the command or the control to not have elite velocity and be a late-inning reliever. His curve can be nasty, but sometimes he just doesn’t have it and if he doesn’t have it on a day he’s throwing 93-95, that’s a bad combination in a close game in the late innings.

Saturday - Royals 6, Rays 3

If you’re dreaming about a Royals parade anytime in the next few years, it’s the Brady Singer we saw on Saturday night that helps that dream seem even remotely realistic. The Rays stacked their lineup with eight lefties - batting two through nine - and he dominated them. They were hitless through five. He probably should have never even been out there in the seventh to have a chance to put a runner on and give up a run and lose the lead. It was as good as I’ve seen him.

You know the line. He ended up with a career-high 12 strikeouts in six innings of work and even though his control escaped him at times, his slider was so good that it just didn’t matter. In all, he got 17 whiffs on 94 pitches. His sinker was good, accounting for three swings and misses and 14 called strikes. His changeup did its job, allowing for his other pitches to play up. But that slider. Oh my. The raw numbers sometimes don’t tell the story. On Saturday, they did.

He threw 34 sliders and got swings on 21 of them. The Rays came up empty on 12. Four more were called strikes and five were fouled off. And the balls that were hit were hit with an average exit velocity of 71.3 MPH. All of that tells the story pretty much perfectly. But that doesn’t mean you don’t want to see some of them, right?

His very first whiff on a slider was when he was still trying to find it, but this might be the pitch where he did find it.

What is Brandon Lowe supposed to do there? On this one Ji-Man Choi was ahead in the count and I think his eyes lit up until it was too late.

Not to pick on Choi, but his last slider whiff might have been the most ridiculous one.

It’s interesting to look at a game where a pitcher threw just 60.1 percent strikes as a great game like this, but he absolutely did. And one thing that got him there is that he put hitters away with two strikes. Of the 23 hitters he faced, he got two strikes on 15 hitters. Those 15 hitters went 0 for 15. He ended up throwing 26 pitches with two strikes and threw six balls, gave up five foul balls, got three outs on batted balls, got four called third strikes and eight swinging strikes. That’s how you put hitters away.

And Singer has been very good since his return from Omaha.

David Lesky @DBLesky

By the way, Singer since his return from Omaha and to the rotation: 12 GS 72 IP 67 H 75 K (25.7%) 19 BB (6.5%) 3.63 ERA

After struggling to get much going offensively, the Royals offense had it working after one time through the order against Luis Patiño. To start the third inning, MJ Melendez showed off his impressive power with a jolt to left-center that ended up hitting off the wall. On the very next pitch, Witt smoked one to left-center on a pitch down below the zone that scored Melendez. After a Benintendi walk, Dozier and Pasquantino lined out and that set things up for Whit Merrifield to actually produce after a rough night on Friday and a big out he made in the first inning.

That made it 3-0 Royals, but like we’ve seen a lot, they sort of closed up shop for a bit after the Rays went to Ryan Yarbrough for some long relief. And he looked very good, which gave the Rays the chance to come back a bit. Roman Quinn bunted to lead off the sixth inning, which I’m sure people had opinions about given that Singer had a no-hitter, but the Rays were still trying to win a game too, which is more important than helping their opponent throw a no-hitter. An error led to an unearned run.

My issue is that I don’t think Singer should have been out there to start the seventh. But if he was out there to start the seventh, I don’t like the mentality that he’s there until he allows a hit. I’ve talked about this so much, but outside of liking the matchup for the starter vs. whoever the first hitter that inning might be, I hate the idea of creating a potential mess for a reliever. And that’s exactly what happened. Singer gave up a hit to the first batter and Taylor Clarke was given a mini-jam. Yes, you hope he can work around a runner on first, but he got a couple of popups quickly. One happened to find some grass. And then he eventually gave up a two-run triple to tie the game and take the potential win away from Singer. Players have to perform, but I just don’t feel like they were put in the best position to succeed in this situation.

Thankfully for the Royals, after a scoreless top of the eighth for Scott Barlow, the offense came alive again. It started with Michael A. Taylor.

And then Witt put the exclamation point on it with this.

Can I just say that I always love it when outfielders barely move? I don’t know why, but it’s just such a cool visual.

Barlow threw 11 pitches in the ninth after nine in the eighth to lock down a Royals win. But I’d be remiss if I didn’t let you watch the double play that ended the game.

That’s pretty fun.

Sunday - Royals 4, Rays 2

I feel like I’ve been one of the higher men on Kris Bubic over the last few seasons. Part of that reason is that he’s been a generally solid big league pitcher before this season. He had a 4.32 ERA in 50 innings in 2020 after never throwing a professional pitch above A-ball. Then he was iffy last year, but ended up with a 4.43 ERA in 130 innings. Both of those were above-average numbers compared to the league. Even if that’s what he was going to be, oh well, that’s good enough. But then he started this season just so terribly and it felt like liking Bubic was an uphill battle.

But he’s been better since he came back and has given the Royals seven innings in back-to-back games for the first time in his career. He wasn’t quite as good yesterday as he was in Toronto to end the first half, but he was super pitch efficient and he’s now thrown 65.6 percent strikes in his last three starts. I don’t know if this is sustainable or if this is a blip, but he’s been very good since coming back from Omaha.

David Lesky @DBLesky

That's another seven-inning out for Bubic. Now since his return from Omaha: 10 GS 55 IP 57 H 45 K (18.5%) 26 BB (10.7%) 3.76 ERA

The tweet isn’t impressive because of the brutal typo, but the numbers are. As I said last week, you probably want better strikeout and walk numbers, so the ERA might be a bit deflated, but even if you add half a run to it, that’s a legitimately fine back of the rotation arm.

I didn’t think his stuff was outstanding in this one, but it was certainly good enough. I also thought he was very happy with his curve, as he should have been. He threw 20 of them, which is tied for the fourth-most he’s thrown in a game. I think he made one real mistake and that was on a double he allowed to Yandy Diaz, but I also think he threw his best curve of the year in this game as well.

They’re not all going to be gems for him, but this was huge. And part of why it was huge is that the offense struggled to score runs again. They got one in the first and one in the second, but they could have easily scored more. They had second and third and one out in the third and didn’t score. They had first and second and nobody out in the fourth and didn’t score. They had a runner on third and one out in the fifth and didn’t score. They got a leadoff single in the sixth and didn’t score. But big two-out hits in the seventh and eighth gave the Royals some insurance to get Clarke a save and give the Royals a series win.

Now we wait to find out just how long the Royals will be without Witt, who left the game after the first inning with hamstring “tightness.” They said it was precautionary, but hamstrings can be a real problem, so I hope they give him a chance to let it feel completely better before he gets back out there. I’d rather he miss four or five games now than play those and then have to miss weeks later.

What’s Ahead This Week

The Royals get the Angels in a series where they’ll miss Mike Trout as he’s on the IL and they won’t have to face Shohei Ohtani on the mound as he’s making his next start on Thursday after the series ends. While that’s a bit disappointing from a fan standpoint, it’s probably good for the team with them facing an Angels team in complete freefall since their 27-17 start. The Angels starters (and truthfully the Royals too) aren’t set in stone, but we will get a chance to see Noah Syndergaard make his first Kauffman Stadium start since 2019 with the Mets. The Angels, especially without Trout are not what you’d call “good.”

Then it gets much more difficult. They head to New York to take on the Yankees, who haven’t been as good lately as they were earlier this year, but they can still hit and hit a lot. They’re actually not all that different between home and road, but you know the tiny dimensions in New York will have a say in at least a couple of fly balls during the series. And in the four-game set, the Yankees appear set to throw their four best starters, so the Royals may have a tough weekend in the Bronx. But maybe they can save a little money by just leaving Benintendi there ahead of the deadline.