Weekend in Review: Changes, A Winning Weekend, Player of the Week and the Week Ahead

The Royals had another winning week and finally had a winning weekend after struggling for the last few.

I wrote this the other day, but hadn’t realized before that the Royals hadn’t played a single full week with a losing record this season. They still haven’t, and had clinched that with their win on Friday that I’ll get to. What does that mean for a team? Other than the obvious, it’s a sign of very real consistency that the best teams show off. Look at the Orioles, for example. They’ve had losing weeks (I think), but they haven’t been swept in the regular season since 2022. And what’s their record over the last two years? They won 83 games that season (and did that after starting 24-35 and then 101 games last year and they’re pacing for another 100+ this season.

No, the Royals aren’t that good, but if you never have a losing week, you’re not going to have a losing record. That’s a pretty obvious statement, but I think it’s worth noting. It’s about always being in a good position. Everybody has their own viewpoints on how a winning record is created. Some will say that you go .500 on the road and win two of every three at home. Yeah, that’ll work. That’s a 95-win season. But pretty much every week has six or seven games in it. If you go 3-3 in every six-game week and 4-3 in every seven-game week, you’re going to win about 85 games. Turn one out of every three six-game weeks into a 4-2 week and you’ve got 90 wins. There are a million ways to look at it, but I can promise you that if the Royals don’t have a losing week, they’ll be playing meaningful baseball down to the last week of the season.

Changes Are Coming…Eventually

The record indicates that everything is more than fine, but the Royals in 2024 have relied way more than you’d like on their starting five. So far, there haven’t been any persistent cracks in that group, but it’s a long season and generally there will be. So that’s when the offense is going to be asked to pick up the slack, and the bullpen as well. To this point, that’s a risky proposition. Starting with the offense, there’s a pretty clear dividing line between the good and the bad. Bobby Witt Jr., Salvador Perez and Vinnie Pasquantino have all been good, though even Pasquantino has gone through it a couple of times with semi-extended slumps.

On the bad side, Hunter Renfroe has been nearly useless offensively. MJ Melendez, save for a great start to the year, has somehow stayed in the lineup because of his defense. Nelson Velazquez had that great start as well, but has tailed off wildly. Kyle Isbel was always in there for his glove, which is fine when you’ve got six or seven guys hitting, but a little tougher to swallow when there’s three to five. I think Maikel Garcia and Michael Massey have generally been right on that line. Massey has mostly been good and even since his hitting streak ended has been productive. And Garcia has also been more than enough when he’s been enough but is still weighed down by that brutal stretch he had.

Obviously the bench with Adam Frazier and Garrett Hampson has been a question as well. Dairon Blanco has done his job and Freddy Fermin hasn’t hit like last year, but he’s an excellent defender and we know the bat potential is there for him. So I guess the three guys everyone asks about are Renfroe, Frazier and Hampson and when the time comes that they’re done. And the answer varies per player.

With Renfroe, the contract is an issue. The Royals walked away from another Hunter, Hunter Dozier, with a year and about four months left on his contract, so they’ve shown they’ll eat money, but it’s very tough to walk away from a guy less than two months into his deal. I don’t think anything is going to happen to him anytime soon, but we’re already seeing him playing less in May. I would anticipate that if he doesn’t pick it up, he’ll be playing even less by the end of may and a DFA candidate by the break.

Hampson and Frazier are different because they’re only on one-year deals. The Royals were never going to cut them as early as fans wanted because it’s just bad business to sign a free agent and then move on that quickly. When I mentioned that weeks ago, someone pointed to Franmil Reyes last year, but that was different because he was on a minor league deal. These are big league contracts. You can’t just cut bait on April 12th or whatever. But it’s now May 13.

Hampson is hitting .250/.294/.292, which is good for a 66 wRC+ in 51 plate appearances. In AAA, Nick Loftin is hitting .304/.409/.393. Devin Mann is hitting .319/.429/.489. The problem is that Hampson plays center and the Royals clearly don’t fully trust Blanco in center field. So is Drew Waters the guy? He’s hitting .303/.392/.505, but with a 26.4 percent strikeout rate. I guess it’s only fair to note Mann’s 26.5 percent rate as well. Or maybe it’s time for Nate Eaton to get another shot. He can play infield and outfield and he’s hitting .333/.376/.529 with a 16.5 percent strikeout rate. I think the time is coming soon for Hampson.

I don’t think Frazier is going anywhere because the Royals like what he brings to the team beyond the numbers (and we’ve seen him have two incredibly clutch two-run plays in the last couple of weeks alone with the catch in Detroit and the home run in Anaheim this weekend). But I do think Velazquez might find his way down to AAA at some point to find that power stroke again. That’s where a guy like Waters might come into play or maybe even a shot for CJ Alexander, who I don’t think will do anything at the big league level long-term, but could have one of those crazy debut couple of weeks where everyone wonders who the hell he is.

One thing I want to caution everyone on with looking at what guys are doing in AAA is how big the gap is between that level and the big leagues right now. There was a great article in The Athletic about it last week. I think for guys who have been in the big leagues before, it’s an easier transition, but I wouldn’t just assume that because a player is dominating in AAA that he’ll come up and the numbers will just be like 15 percent worse, but still good enough. Yes, better than what the Royals have, but I don’t think anyone would anticipate that what the Royals have would have been this bad. Still, I do think there are changes coming in the next week to 10 days on the offensive side that will at least shake things up.

I won’t get deep into the pitching because I’ve written too much here, but decision time is coming soon for the bullpen. It’s not because they’ve struggled, which they have in a lot of ways recently but also haven’t as much as it might seem. It’s because of guys rehabbing. Carlos Hernandez will need to be activated or optioned by May 28. Jake Brentz will need to be activated or optioned by May 21. Kris Bubic has a little more time, but he’ll need to be activated or optioned by June 6. My guess is Hernandez comes up for Tyler Duffey, Brentz gets optioned and Bubic gets optioned. All of this is assuming health remains for those currently on the roster. But I do think there will eventually moves to get Will Klein back, hopefully John McMillon back if he can regain form and maybe even Steven Cruz to add some power to the bullpen along with Hernandez.

The Games

Friday - Royals 2, Angels 1

Oh man, this was one of those games that felt like it was going to leave a bad feeling in the pit of your stomach but ended up making it tough to fall asleep after a late night. It started with Alec Marsh’s return to the active roster, which I don’t know how many people would believe me if I told them two months ago that I was super excited to watch him pitch. But I was because he had been so good before he went on the IL after being hit on the forearm by that line drive. And I have to say he didn’t disappoint.

He ended up going 5.1 innings with one run on four hits allowed and seven strikeouts against two walks. I don’t think I can stress enough how crazy it is after watching the starting pitching we’ve been subjected to over the last few years that Marsh is the number five starter in this rotation. His development has been interesting and encouraging and everything in between. Marsh, like so many others in the Royals rotation, has a lot of pitches to choose from, and one of the things that those guys need to figure out is how to determine which one is the best on any given day and how to figure that out quickly. It’s one of a handful of reasons why he and others are a little easier to get in the first inning. They haven’t quite figured out the formula for that night.

In this one, I think he fell in love with his fastball pretty fast, and with good reason. He ended up throwing 43 of them out of his 85 pitches and it was one of the best fastballs he’s had in his career. He got it up to 98.2 MPH, which was the hardest pitch he’s ever thrown at the big league level. I just loved the way he was locating it.

The number I keep looking at and wondering if it’s wrong is that he got 10 swings and misses on it. Those 10 whiffs were the most by a Royals pitcher on a four-seamer or a sinker this season, topping Marsh, Jonathan Bowlan and Cole Ragans, who have each gotten seven whiffs on one of the two pitches once this season. It’s actually the first double-digit whiff game for a Royals pitcher on a four-seamer or sinker since Kris Bubic on October 1, 2022.

Marsh made one mistake in the game. He left a sinker in the middle of the plate against Jo Adell, who did not miss it. He crushed it 436 feet at 111.9 MPH. He ran out of steam in the sixth when he walked his only two of the game and Matt Quatraro came to get him at 85 pitches, but that’s a heck of a first outing back after getting hit by a line drive. The only real hiccups other than the home run were his fielding, which I hadn’t thought about until this very moment, but I wonder if getting hit by a ball back up the middle played a role in a couple of bad throws. Probably not because I think the first one just slipped and then the second one was thinking about that, but I guess you never know.

After Chris Stratton got out of that jam in the sixth, Will Smith worked a perfect seventh and Tyler Duffey worked a perfect eighth. That brings us to the top of the ninth with the Royals trailing 1-0. They had lost 85 games by a 1-0 score in their history, but hadn’t lost once since July of 2022 against the Yankees. Of course, a lot of that has more to do with a pitching staff that rarely gave up only one run. Still, it’s not a common occurrence for the Royals.

When MJ Melendez singled with one out in the ninth, I noted on Twitter that it was nice to see him get his third hit (and it was!), but I wasn’t expecting much out of the bottom of the lineup to get him in. It took three pitches for Adam Frazier to tell me that I don’t know what I’m talking about.

What a time for your first home run of the year! I still don’t support the signing, but for that moment, boy did it pay off in a big way. The Royals last 1-0 loss remains nearly two years ago because of Frazier’s heroics.

John Schreiber got the ninth, which I thought was interesting, but I think they wanted to get James McArthur another day after he had to get hot and work a lot in the previous few days, and he got the job done to get the Royals a win to open the weekend on the right note and secure at least a series split.

Saturday - Angels 9, Royals 3

Sometimes a pitcher just doesn’t have it. Other times, they have some of it, but not enough of it. That was the case in this one with Cole Ragans. The stuff was actually really good, but he was having a very difficult time locating it. That doesn’t always mean his control is bad. He only walked one batter and he pitched into the seventh (I’ll get to that shortly), but he was just not getting the ball where he wanted it way too often early in the game.

And I guess it’s not entirely fair to say he had good stuff. He had a great changeup. The rest didn’t seem to really be there for him. His slider, which is easy to forget is a pitch he hasn’t even been really throwing for a year, just didn’t slide enough to Adell, who made him pay with another very impressive home run. That was the big blow early. But in the third, Ragans got beaten by some soft contact and a wild pitch. Those innings will happen. They matter less when the other innings where you make mistakes and get hit hard don’t happen. It’s sort of like a three-run homer after two walks. Home runs happen, walks don’t need to.

Still, after having five runs allowed through three, he had those same five runs allowed through six and the Royals offense had scratched and clawed their way back to in the game, trailing just 5-3. He had thrown 90 pitches through six and after those rough first three innings, he gave up just one hit over the next three. I would have probably pulled him if I was Matt Quatraro, but I also don’t hate him getting back out there given how he’d looked over the last three innings with the eight and nine hitters coming up.

Ragans gave up two soft singles and a sacrifice bunt before Nick Anderson came into bail him out. Anderson got Mickey Moniak to fly out to shallow center on one pitch, but then just couldn’t get that third out. He walked Taylor Ward, gave up a hit to Kevin Pillar and then a two-run double to Logan O’Hoppe and that was that.

I’m pretty surprised by the sentiment I saw regarding Ragans on Twitter. I know that social media is a cesspool and nobody should be judged based on their immediate reactions, but I think it’s silly to question much about Ragans. Is the Cy Young talk premature? I guess maybe so given that he now carries a 4.22 ERA, but he also has a 2.67 FIP and a 3.35 xERA. Neither of those numbers are what he’s really doing, but they also give a pretty good indication that if he maintains his current ways, those numbers will come down. His 19.6% K-BB% ranks 20th in baseball. A top-20 pitcher in strikeouts and walks who doesn’t give up many home runs is one that you want on your side and is a legitimate ace to me.

Sunday - Royals 4, Angels 2

So, uh, Seth Lugo for Cy Young? I’m mostly joking, I think, but after a masterful performance that I’ll get to in a second, here are his ranks among qualified pitchers:

• 1st in innings (obviously 1st in AL)

• 3rd in ERA (1st in AL)

• 14th in fWAR (9th in AL)

• 28th in FIP (15th in AL)

Okay, so a couple of the stats paint him as more of just a number one than a Cy Young contender, but it’s hard to overstate just how good Lugo has been. And yesterday was his masterpiece. He went eight innings with 12 strikeouts, no walks and just one run allowed. He had 17 whiffs and 26 called strikes. The combined 43 CSW was the third-most in any start this season by any pitcher. Let me put it a different way. He threw 112 pitches over his eight innings. Just over 38 percent of them added a strike to the count (or ended it with a strikeout). That’s wild.

His curve was his money pitch, as usual. He threw 21 of them, got 13 swings with eight whiffs and two foul balls. Angels hitters swung at 40 percent of the curves that were out of the zone. But what’s amazing to me is that he’s able to access velocity when he needs it. I was on the Kauffman Corner podcast last night with Rany Jazayerli and he made a great comparison for Lugo and it was Zack Greinke at a similar point in his career. And what’s really fun about that comparison is that the only other Royals pitcher in history to go 8+ innings with no walks and 12+ strikeouts was Greinke.

Look, I know the Angels lineup is two scoops of horrific, but that performance was something special for Lugo. I’m surprised he went out for the eighth inning, especially considering he turned the lineup over a fourth time, which is something that a Royals pitcher had only done twice this year (they still haven’t allowed a hit, which is kind of interesting but meaningless). But in that eighth inning, he added two more strikeouts to finish with his new career-high.

I wondered where the strikeouts were for Lugo earlier in the year when he struck out 14 through his first five starts and had just an 11.1 percent strikeout rate. But since then he’s made four starts that have spanned 28.2 innings (yes, he’s averaging more than seven per start now in those four) and he’s struck out 34 batters, which is a 32.1 percent rate. And he’s done it all with a 4.7 percent walk rate. At some point, Lugo is going to have another bad start, but what he’s shown this year with eight of his nine starts ending with two earned runs or fewer and last year with 18 of his 26 ending with two earned runs or fewer allowed is that more often than not, you’re going to be in the game with him. And sometimes he wins you one.

He didn’t have to win the Royals this game, but only because of one inning where the first five batters all reached and four of the five scored. It was a double from Salvador Perez, followed by a Nelson Velazquez single, a Freddy Fermin single on a great AB, a bunt single by Dairon Blanco, a Hunter Renfroe single and then a Michael Massey squeeze. That was the offense for the Royals and that was all they ended up needing.

I think one thing I want to note about the offense is that Velazquez appears to maybe be getting back on track, at least a little bit. That hit in the fourth was one of two in the game. He had a terrible game on Thursday with four strikeouts, but the swings do seem to be at least a little bit better. It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if he still ends up getting sent to AAA, but he came in as a pinch hitter on Friday and got a hit and a walk. Then he was 1 for 4 on Saturday and the 2 for 3 yesterday. I’m not sure I buy into it yet, but some production is better than no production and that’s nice to see some.

Player of the Week

I have given this award to a bat every single week of the season. And there are some who are deserving enough. Blanco hit .429/.467/.714 with a homer, six runs scored and two stolen bases. But he only had 15 plate appearances. Vinnie Pasquantino hit .333 with a .625 SLG. Salvador Perez hit .333/.385/.500 with four doubles. But the player of the week has to be Lugo, who had two starts this week that would have been among the best on the team last year. Of course, the most recent one was tied for the best start of the season by a Royals pitcher in game score. Over two starts, Lugo went 14.2 innings with 10 hits allowed and 4 runs (3 earned). He struck out 17 and walked one with a 1.84 ERA. He’s the best they’ve put out there this week on either side of the ball.

What’s Next?

The Royals will stay out west and head to Seattle for their first look at the Mariners this season. Seattle got off to a slow start. They were 6-10 through the first week and a half or so of the season, but they’ve gone 16-9 since then after their win yesterday against Oakland. Even with some runs scored yesterday, they’re still not hitting too much. They made an effort this winter to cut down on strikeouts and moved some guys off the roster who were a big part of their whiffs and coming into play yesterday, they had the highest strikeout rate in baseball by a full two percent. Julio Rodriguez had a big day yesterday, but he’s had a brutal start to the season. That said, they can really pitch. Here are the matchups this week:

• Monday: Brady Singer vs. George Kirby

• Tuesday: Michael Wacha vs. Logan Gilbert

• Wednesday: Alec Marsh vs. Bryan Woo

The Royals will see two of Seattle’s best while the Mariners get the back half of the Royals rotation. Both Kirby and Gilbert throw a ton of strikes while Woo is scheduled to go in game three, but did leave his last start with an injury so that could change. He has good stuff too. The Mariners are a pitching factory, it seems like lately. The Royals have made a habit of coming back against bullpens, but that will be tougher against the Mariners with a ton of really impressive arms.

After leaving Seattle, the Royals are off on Thursday and then welcome the A’s to town. Oakland has been a big surprise this year at 19-23, but they’ve struggled in the last week. They went to 17-17 with a 20-4 win against the Marlins right after the Marlins dealt Luis Arraez, but are just 2-6 since and have given up a ton of runs in those eight games. They’re a good story and they’re a better team than the one that lost 112 games last year, but they just aren’t talented enough to hang around. That said, they do have some very impressive bullpen arms and some veteran stabilization in the rotation.