Weekend in Review: A Split Works Well Enough

It could have been a sweep, but the Royals will certainly take a split while the rest of the competitors helped them out enough.

Having a Sunday off is super weird. It’s a quirk of the schedule that came when they went to a four-game home-and-home series between “rivals” and it’ll be gone next year when that series becomes three games. But it doesn’t make it any less weird. Don’t get me wrong. The Royals could use the off days with their rotation almost all approaching or well past recent and/or career-highs in innings pitched. Still, it was just odd to have an entire Sunday free.

It comes on the heels of a weekend that worked out pretty well for them in terms of what those around them did. The Red Sox got swept, so even though the Royals went 1-1, they are now a full three games ahead in the Wild Card race after starting the weekend just 1.5 games up. The Guardians and Twins played a four-game series. I struggle sometimes with who we want to win, but I think a split was fine there. Maybe my math is wrong here, but I think a split was best if the Royals swept the series, while if the Royals were going to win one of the two, as they did, we wanted a Guardians series win. But a split is fine.

Texas and Detroit were both lurking, and even though I think they’re both too far out to make any real noise, their rough weekends were enough to bury them, I believe. So all that’s left behind the Royals is the Red Sox, Mariners and Rays. Tampa did win yesterday but lost two of three to Baltimore. They’re now 5.5 back. Seattle had a good weekend against the Mets. It would have been nice to see them fall back a bit, but their sweep over the Mets puts them 2.5 games back and with them finishing their season series tied 3-3, the next tiebreaker is record within their own division. The Royals are 25-11 in the Central while the Mariners are 19-13 in the West, so the Royals hold the edge there for now. All in all, it was pretty solid on the scoreboard watching.

Offense Since the Break

Going into the deadline, it was very easy to look at the Royals roster and think offense might have been the thing they needed second-most behind the obvious answer of the bullpen. They made one move for Paul DeJong, and that was it. From what I understand, it wasn’t for lack of trying. The number of bats who actually could make an impact were few and far between and the cost was well beyond what the Royals were comfortable paying. So they stayed discipline and basically said that other than a semi-regular player, they were going to run with what they had.

I wrote about it awhile ago, but the outfield starting to hit better made so that it became a bit less of a priority. I know there is still a pretty large disdain for MJ Melendez and Kyle Isbel from an offensive standpoint, but those two and Hunter Renfroe have been hitting much better for awhile. And when you look at the numbers since the break, it sort of feels like the need was what I thought - not as great. They’ve hit .284/.339/.458 as a team, which is good for a 119 wRC+ that ranked sixth in baseball coming into play yesterday. Their 125 runs is good for 5.95 per game, which is the fifth-most in baseball. They’re middle of the pack in home runs, which is enough. They still don’t walk, but they also strike out less than any other team.

Here are some individual stats, sorted by wRC+:

Bobby Witt Jr. - .459/.505/.812, 6 HR, 24 RBI, 25 R, 260 wRC+
Vinnie Pasquantino - .333/.348/.568, 6 HR, 22 RBI, 12 R, 150 wRC+
Freddy Fermin - .321/.367/.446, 2 HR, 9 RBI, 4 R, 128 wRC+
Salvador Perez - .272/.333/.469, 4 HR, 16 RBI, 10 R, 115 wRC+
Melendez - .257/.316/.457, 2 HR, 7 RBI, 6 R, 113 wRC+
Renfroe - .257/.338/.429, 3 HR, 14 RBI, 8 R, 113 wRC+
Michael Massey - .246/.302/.474, 2 HR, 8 RBI, 12 R, 109 wRC+
DeJong - .238/.320/.381, 1 HR, 4 RBI, 3 R, 93 wRC+
Maikel Garcia - .274/.310/.350, 0 HR, 5 RBI, 19 R, 83 wRC+
Isbel - .212/.281/.346, 0 HR, 7 RBI, 12 R, 72 wRC+

Garret Hampson, Adam Frazier and Dairon Blanco haven’t been good, but other than DeJong, who joined the team two weeks after the break and Melendez, who missed the first week of the second half, they have the fewest at bats on the roster. It’s sort of laid out exactly how you’d hope in a way. Your excellent defenders are at the bottom of the lineup most nights and the bottom of this list, still playing excellent defense. Your boppers are at the top. The only real semi-surprise on this list is that Fermin ranks so well. He needs to be even more than he has been. He’s started 14 of the 21 games, which is a good chunk, but he needs to be at 80-85 percent rather than 67 percent.

The thing about this is that none of it other than Witt’s absurd pace is unsustainable. And even with him, he’s so good that he’s going to fall off to mere superstar numbers rather than superhuman. They’re going to face some very good pitching in the coming weeks, but the offense has been more than fine for awhile now.

The Games

Friday - Cardinals 8, Royals 5: Another Bullpen Blowup

Even though the Royals held a lead late in this one, it just never felt good. I don’t have a good explanation for that, but there are some games that a team wins that never feel right, and sometimes those games end up where they were probably supposed to be. I think this one felt that way because Michael Lorenzen just didn’t have it, and it was obvious from the start.

He needed 30 pitches to get through a first inning that saw him allow two runs. It felt lucky that it was only two too. Sometimes a pitcher will settle down after that, and Lorenzen didn’t end up truly horrible or anything, but he gave up another run in the third and then ended up getting pulled with one out in the fifth after he’d thrown 88 pitches total. He walked a couple of guys and gave up a couple of home runs, though one of them was much more good hitting than bad pitching. I mean, look at the location of this pitch.

Yeah, I guess maybe it caught too much of the plate, but you don’t expect a curve there to get launched the way Alec Burleson launched this one. It ended up going 377 feet and was hit 108.1 MPH. I don’t know, I just have a hard time ragging on him too much. But the fact that he couldn’t get through five even is what ultimately doomed the Royals and their staff in this one.

The Royals offense did their part in the third and the fourth. They scored three in the third inning to tie the game right after the Burleson home run. The bottom of the order set the table for them with a Garcia single and an RBI triple from Isbel (his first of two this series). The top of the order did their work, sort of, with Massey singling home Isbel, but both Witt and Pasquantino made outs. With Massey on second and two outs, Perez came through to tie the game.

In the fourth, it was the bottom of the order again. Melendez singled to left and Garcia scored him with a one-out double before Isbel got him to third with a single and Massey got him home with a sacrifice fly. At this point, the Royals had five runs on eight hits through four innings. I mentioned Lorenzen not getting through five being a problem. Well the offense picked up two total hits in the final five innings and didn’t score a run after that fourth. That played a role too.

But ultimately, the Royals had a lead late and they should have held it. Sam Long came in to get Lorenzen out of trouble in the fifth, but he gave up a run in the sixth to make it 5-4. Lucas Erceg was in there for the seventh, which of course led people to be upset, but he was in there for the top of the lineup for the Cardinals. I’ll continue to say that I’m fine with putting him in the highest leverage spot late in games, whenever that might be. The second-guessing came after that though.

In the eighth, Will Smith got a shot at leverage once again and it went about as well as it did back in April. He hung a slider on his second pitch to give the Cardinals a runner on second with nobody out. He got Paul Goldschmidt to ground out, but the runner advanced. And then he walked Pedro Pages, for some reason, to put runners on first and third with one out. Chris Stratton got another shot at leverage and it went about as well as it did back in April. In his defense, he got the ground ball right at Garcia. It was hit hard, but Garcia bobbled it and it was just enough to allow Tommy Pham to beat the return throw to first and keep the inning alive. Against all odds, Brendan Donovan on third did not break home, so there was still first and third but with two outs for Victor Scott II.

For some background on Scott, he entered the game hitting .110/.152/.192. Yes, that is bad. I will say that some context is necessary here. Scott was hitting .085/.138/.136 when he was sent down in April. He went to AAA and it was more of a disaster for him. But he made some big changes in his stance and swing in his last few weeks in AAA and hit .235/.340/.395 from July 1 to his callup and .306/.419/.611 in his last two series before he came back up. He was 3 for 14 with his first big league home run after coming back up. I say all that not to tell you that Scott is actually good, but that he probably isn’t as bad as the overall line.

But still, Stratton left a changeup in the middle and down and Scott put a good swing on the ball and put it in the right field corner. Two runs scored and the Royals were down 6-5. Angel Zerpa would come in for the ninth and he continued to look like a guy who needs to enjoy the Omaha Zoo and gave up a two-run homer on his second pitch of the inning to make it 8-5. And that was that.

I will point out that there was quite a bit of consternation over the Royals not using Kris Bubic in the eighth. This is a time when not having all the information was a problem. We didn’t know that Hunter Harvey was unavailable and Bubic was going to be the closer in this one. If you want to argue that it’s inconsistent how Matt Quatraro planned to use Bubic and how he did use Erceg, I think you can make that argument, but I also think the Royals are in a spot where they just don’t have enough guys they can trust. It’s a problem that they’re going to need to get sorted out.

Saturday - Royals 8, Cardinals 3: Another Comeback Win

There’s something about watching Michael Wacha pitch that I just always feel like he’s on the verge of disaster and then I look up and this is his line:

7 IP, 5 H, 2 R, 6 K, 2 BB

I don’t get it. I asked a friend who is much smarter than me why I feel that way and he told me it’s because the stuff isn’t impressive, so it just never feels impressive. I suppose that makes sense. But here we sit in mid-August and Wacha has a 3.50 ERA, so you know, what do I know? I guess he does have a 4.35 ERA and a 4.04 FIP. But at some point, the results are what they are.

He had a great changeup on Saturday night, but his four-seam fastball caught my attention. The numbers on it tell the story enough. He threw 24 of them and got swings on 15, including swings on 70 percent of his fastballs outside the zone. That’s a bonkers number. He also got five whiffs and only one hard-hit ball. This is a hitter looking for a fastball and getting a fastball…

…and still chasing that fastball outside the zone. It was a great pitch for him on Saturday.

But ultimately, the Royals offense struggled quite a bit against Andre Pallante. They got a run in the third on a ball Isbel hit literally two feet that ended up a single and an error that allowed him to get to second. A groundout got him to third and a grounder scored him. That’s not exactly inspiring. But hey, a run is a run. And in the sixth, a two-out rally started by a DeJong walk and extended by a Melendez single led to a clutch hit from Fermin.

It’s hard to overstate just how good Fermin has been. I know I showed you the stats from the second half, but his overall line of .299/.349/.420 is just crazy impressive, particularly for a catcher. Among catchers with at least 250 plate appearances, he ranks second in average, fourth in OBP, 13th in SLG and ninth in wRC+. That’s out of 24 catchers. Oh and he does it while being fantastic defensively. He needs to play more.

The seventh brought some trouble for Wacha after Fermin’s single tied it up. He walked Goldschmidt and then gave up a single to Nolan Gorman, leading to Pham coming up in a spot where the Royals, once again, badly needed a double play. And he delivered on one that I don’t think I’ve ever seen before.

Yep, that’s a 3-4-5 double play. Everything basically had to work perfectly here, and it absolutely did. The Crawford strikeout you see above on Wacha’s fastball was an exclamation point on a heck of an outing and a heck of an inning.

That’s when Royals Time kicked in. Isbel singled and stole second. Garcia singled him home to give the Royals a lead. And after a hitless series to that point, Witt had a chance to do what he does so well and he came through.

That’s yet another triple for Witt to drive in Garcia. It was his 11th triple of the season. He now has 33 doubles, 11 triples, 22 home runs and 25 stolen bases. It’s totally arbitrary, but he is the seventh player EVER to put up that combination of statistics, joining Ken Williams, Jimmy Rollins, Willie Mays, Juan Samuel, Curtis Granderson and Vada Pinson. He’s only six doubles away from being the only one to put up his statistical combination even if he doesn’t get another triple, home run or steal. Again, I know it’s arbitrary, but it really shows how crazy his season has been.

If four runs was it, then it was it, but this is the 2024 Royals and there always needs to be an exclamation point. It was delivered by Salvy.

That’s a four-run inning right after a momentum-shifting double play and big strikeout.

Kris Bubic struggled some in the eighth, but it was only one run and the Royals had a big enough lead. They also had Erceg come in and get a big strikeout with two on and two out. Once that happened, the Royals did what they do so often and they tacked on with a double from Frazier and Isbel’s second triple in as many days. Witt added on one more with his second hit of the day and then Erceg closed it out for his first save with the Royals. It was a good win.

Player of the Week

They played just five games, but as I mentioned above, they hit, scoring at least five runs in all five games they played. They actually scored exactly five in their three losses and exactly eight in both of their wins. So that’s 31 runs over five games at home, which means there will be candidates for the player of the week. Six players posted a wRC+ of 175 or better. Isbel hit .333/.412/.600 in 17 plate appearances. Melendez hit .385/.500/.462 in 16 plate appearances. Frazier hit .286/.444/.571 in nine plate appearances. Perez hit .313/.450/.563 in 20 plate appearances. And Massey hit .412/.421/.765 in 19 plate appearances.

But we all know who I didn’t mention, and he’s the player of the week once again. Yep, Witt hit .381/.435/.857 in 23 plate appearances, which was good for a 249 wRC+. And he did it all with a hitless game on Friday night!

The Week Ahead

Here are the standings:

I show you that because when those are the standings with 44 games to play, every week and every series is important. But you might notice that the team they play to start the week is the team directly in front of them in both the division and the Wild Card standings. So as important as all the series are, this one is probably a step above the rest. Three in Minnesota is just massive at this time of the season. Here are the pitching matchups:

• Monday: Brady Singer vs. Pablo Lopez

• Tuesday: Seth Lugo vs. TBD (maybe Randy Dobnak?)

• Wednesday: Cole Ragans vs. TBD (probably Bailey Ober)

Two TBDs is not something you want at this time of year, but I think the Wednesday one is just that the Twins haven’t officially confirmed Ober is the guy yet, but Wednesday is his day to start. Tuesday’s is a bit more complicated because that would be Joe Ryan’s start, but he’s on the IL. That’s a huge loss for them. Lopez is still tough even if he’s not having an especially good season and Ober is one of the league’s best pitchers…when he’s not facing the Royals.

He’s made 22 starts this year and given up three runs or fewer in 17 of them. He’s given up four runs or fewer in 19 of them. He’s allowed five runs once. Against the Royals, he allowed eight runs on nine hits in 1.1 innings on the season’s third day and six runs on nine hits in five innings in late May. Take out two starts against the Royals and his 3.52 ERA drops to 2.66. My money is on him having a much better start this time.

So the Royals have their three best set up for this series, which is great, but the Twins have been a bad matchup for the Royals. Even with Carlos Correa and Brooks Lee on the IL, they still have a really solid offense, led by a now healthy Royce Lewis, a mashing Byron Buxton and a nice combination that includes Trevor Larnach, Matt Wallner, Carlos Santana, Max Kepler and more. Their bullpen has some dominant arms. It’s a good team. The Royals can only afford one more loss to them in their final six games because two losses means the season series goes to them and they lose the tiebreaker.

After they finish in Minnesota, they get to take a breath with an off day on Thursday before heading to Cincinatti. As of right now, they’ll miss Hunter Greene, but they’ll get two lefties in Andrew Abbott and Nick Lodolo and also Nick Martinez, who has had a really good year for them. The Reds have some dynamic guys like Elly De La Cruz and others and signed Ty France, who is a Royals killer even if he’s not very good. Even though they’re under .500, they’re a better team than that, so it won’t be easy on the road. Every week the rest of the way is going to be big, and this one is just the latest in that bunch.