Weekend in Review: Clinched

For the first time in nine years, the Royals aren't stopping with the season's last weekend.

As the fourth Royals regular season on Inside the Crown came to a close, I realized that the final Weekend in Review of the season for the first three has always been bittersweet. The seasons have all ended in disappointment and this very weekly edition has generally reflected that. The end of a bad season, though, comes with hope that the next season won’t be quite so bad. Little did we know when last season’s final Weekend in Review hit your inbox just how much better the next season would be. And because of that, the Weekend in Review won’t have a whole lot to do with the weekend in the past. Because this season isn’t done.

We know now that the Royals are heading to Baltimore for a best-of-three series with the Orioles with all games being played on the road. The Royals are going to Baltimore because of their win yesterday and the Tigers losing their second of three to the 121-loss Chicago White Sox. I’ve been torn about the path for the Royals in the playoffs. Because the league doesn’t re-seed, the winner of the 4/5 series (that’s what the Royals are playing) will play the top seed (the Yankees) in the ALDS. The winner of the other series will play the second seed (the Guardians) in the ALDS. There’s an argument to be made that the aggregate “easier” path to the ALCS is Houston and Cleveland.

But the Orioles did not finish the season on a high note. It took a series sweep of the completely in the tank Twins to get to 33-33 after the break. Their struggled started a bit before the break with a five-game losing streak before winning the final game before it, so they’re 34-38 in their last 72 games. That’s a large sample. I’ll preview the series tomorrow, so I’m not going to dig in too much to Baltimore today, but they’re struggling. The Astros, on the other hand, did finish the season quite well. We know how well they were playing when the Royals were there at the end of August, and we can argue all we want who is the “easier” opponent for the ALDS, but isn’t it more important to face the team who you feel like is more likely to be beaten?

And, anyway, the path to a World Series title isn’t going to get paved with a pathway that is simple. Any team playing Wild Card week is going to have to beat four good teams to win the World Series. The four teams on a bye are going to have beat three good teams. I get that you’d probably rather get a Guardians team that has looked quite vulnerable at times, but the Yankees didn’t exactly end the season like a juggernaut either. They were 49-21 after they won their third straight in Kansas City in June. They were 45-47 after that. That’s 92 games of mediocrity. They have two of the best players in the playoff field in Aaron Judge and Juan Soto and have Gerritt Cole at the front of their rotation, so they’re obviously dangerous, but every team in this field is flawed.

The point is that the path is going to be difficult no matter what. But I’ll tell you something about the Astros that makes me happy to not have to see them until the ALCS, if they see them at all - they win in the playoffs. You can believe in that or not, but they have been to the ALCS seven straight seasons. That’s not an accident. They also have the type of lefty arms that I think will cause the Royals all sorts of trouble, particularly with how their lineup is looking right now. To avoid them until the ALCS is good to me. But I’ll make the point I’ve made throughout this season - it’s all good to me after following the team as they finished 50 games below .500 just a year ago.

The Playoff Roster

The Royals don’t have to announce their roster until tomorrow, but I want to give my thoughts today. The rosters revert back to 26 after the two added spots for September, so there’ll need to be some changes made from what we’ve been watching regardless. I’m going to start with the pitching because I want to save something else for last.

Starting Pitchers

The Royals have already announced this, and I agree with their choices.

Game One: Cole Ragans
Game Two: Seth Lugo
Game Three: Michael Wacha

That’s easy, and exactly what I expected. I wrote about setting up the playoff rotation a few weeks ago, so if you want to check that out, you can read it again, but they’re following my blueprint that you can see in the below newsletter.

I should say that this isn’t me tooting my own horn. This order is pretty obvious, but I’m glad they’ve chosen Wacha as the third starter after the way he finished the season, his final start in Washington notwithstanding.

That leaves the bullpen, which I anticipate will include nine relievers. Here’s the direction I’d go with most of these obvious:

Lucas Erceg
Kris Bubic
John Schreiber
Daniel Lynch IV
Brady Singer
Michael Lorenzen
Sam Long
Angel Zerpa
Alec Marsh

The only pitcher missing from the final regular season roster is Carlos Hernandez, and I honestly don’t know if we’ll see him instead of Marsh. He’s looked pretty darn good in September with a 2.38 ERA and 11 strikeouts in 11.1 innings. He has walked six, but he’s only allowed seven hits and all the earned runs allowed came in that one game against the Giants. I just think the Royals trust Marsh more than they trust Hernandez, but if Marsh gets this series off after throwing 77 pitches yesterday, it won’t surprise me much.

Again, I’ll get to more about the Orioles tomorrow, but they have so much from the left side that I’m a bit skeptical how useful Singer will be as a reliever in the upcoming series, and if they require three games to win it, Singer is going to need to start the first game of the ALDS. We know he’s going to be part of the roster in the bullpen because they’ve said so, but I don’t know how much he’s actually going to be used.

That leaves 14 spots for the position players.

Catchers

Salvador Perez
Freddy Fermin

Duh.

Outfielders

Tommy Pham
Kyle Isbel
Hunter Renfroe
Garrett Hampson
Dairon Blanco

Nobody wants to see Hampson on this roster, but the reality is that the Orioles have four lefty relievers who could make their roster and Isbel has a good shot to be pinch hit for against one of them. When he is, they don’t trust Blanco defensively, and I think they’ve been proven right in that. Hampson is going to be on this roster to play center field after Isbel has been hit for earlier in the game. I would imagine they start all righties, so Isbel will start all the games, but they might need someone to come in to play defense.

And you might be surprised to not see MJ Melendez, but the way he finished the year (.152/.273/.227 since August 28), I just don’t see a spot. They’re currently carrying 15 position players, so they have to cut one and will have to cut a second one from the active roster to add another player. I’m just not sure I see I fit for Melendez, at least not on the roster for this round. If they go with one pitcher less in the ALDS if they get there, he has a shot to be back on the roster, but this makes sense to me.

You might think it’s weird that I skipped infielders, but it’s because I’m building the tension here since you’re all waiting to hear about the guy who has his own Sasquatch in the Hall of Fame building.

Infielders

Yuli Gurriel
Michael Massey
Maikel Garcia
Bobby Witt Jr.
Paul DeJong
Adam Frazier
Vinnie Pasquantino

This is actually the group that I’m the least confident about. I had Melendez gone from the roster in the outfield, but DeJong has been in the deep freeze since his game-tying home run in Houston and has all of six plate appearances since September 18. The more I think about it, the more I think he might be the guy to be left off the roster. Of course, Maikel Garcia could also be a candidate with the way he’s played. You might be screaming that Frazier should be off the roster, but they like him off the bench and he was 6 for 21 with three doubles in that role, so it’s paid off this season.

There are a lot of holes in these position players, but what I find so interesting about the holes is that they’re because of players you expect more out of, so if they start to play the way the Royals had hoped they would, it will feel a lot better immediately.

Oh yeah, and that Vinnie guy is playing. I’ve gotten to the point that I’ll be surprised if he isn’t. I know we’ll see how he’s feeling after taking live batting practice again in Baltimore today, but I think this is 100 percent trending toward him on the roster. I believe he’ll be limited to DH duties, which is why I kept Gurriel on the roster, but the Royals are going to get their number three hitter back, which is going to be huge in Camden Yards if he’s right. That’s the biggest question to me, but we’ll probably find out pretty quickly.

The Games

I can’t remember an important week where the final weekend’s games were so inconsequential. As I mentioned, I never took to the idea that one path was better than another for the Royals once they clinched because it there were so many plusses and minuses for either of them, so once they lost on Friday and then got in, it just all felt a little unimportant.

Friday - Braves 3, Royals 0

There have been times during this offensive malaise for the team that the opposing pitcher deserved less credit than the offense deserved blame. I don’t think that was the case against Fried. He was silly good, but I also think Royals hitters did what they could against him. They didn’t chase all that much. They didn’t whiff much. They did look at a few too many sweepers that caught the zone, but he hadn’t thrown that many in the zone all season. I guess it wasn’t that big of a difference, but he threw 12 of 24 in the zone on Friday after throwing 57 of 138 in the zone all season before that. Also, he threw 24 sweepers on Friday after throwing 138 all season. I can sort of understand the hitters not being fully prepared for that.

Still, they hit the ball hard enough, but Fried was just too good. He’s an excellent pitcher and he had an excellent outing. And on another night when the wind wasn’t blowing in, maybe the fly ball from Perez at the end flies a little farther. But it wasn’t another night and the bid for a game-tying three-run homer was not to be.

The best news was that Singer was better than he’d been in awhile. No, he wasn’t without his issues. He danced around the zone too much and walked two in the first. And then he had one of his classic “what are you doing?” pitches in the fourth when he put an 0-2 pitch in a spot that Sean Murphy could drive it, but the overall line was solid with two runs allowed over six innings of work.

What has me excited for him in relief this week and throughout the playoffs when he’s available out there is that he got whiffs on his sinker, slider and sweeper with four on the former and five on the two latter. He wasn’t getting the chase that he likely needs, but to get 14 whiffs is a big thing for him, especially when four of them come on the sinker. I’m wondering a bit if he goes more sweeper over slider int he bullpen because it just hasn’t been hit as hard and he gets actual chase on that, but we’ll find out soon enough. Maybe that’s the pitch that can neutralize lefties in a short stint. And if his sinker can go from 92.3 MPH on average to more like 93.5-94, then he could be in really good shape out there.

The biggest part of Friday came after the game when everyone waited to watch the Orioles finish off the Twins and make sure the final two games didn’t matter for anything but where the Royals would go next. The O’s took care of it, and that led to a relatively stress-free weekend of watching baseball.

Saturday - Braves 2, Royals 1

Hello, hangover game. Witt didn’t even play. Lugo did start, which had many concerned, but the scenario I laid out on Friday is exactly what the Royals had in mind. He was staying on rotation but only throwing enough pitches to get some work in and then he’d be the guy to start on Wednesday in the second game of the Wild Card series. Even in just two innings of work, Lugo had good stuff. He threw all nine of his pitcher and got eight total whiffs, including four on his slurve. He was hit hard, but he was pretty clearly just getting work in.

The offense, for the second straight night, had good reason to struggle. Reynaldo Lopez was good, but I also don’t think you can judge much of anything 20 hours after they were chugging Bud Heavy and smoking cigars in the locker room.

The big thing to note is that Lorenzen looked great out of the bullpen. So did Lynch. So did Schreiber, and if you saw him the night before, I wasn’t so sure he would be available at all. And then Long was fine too. He gave up the walk-off home run, but I don’t think anyone was too upset about it. There was no world where the Royals wanted an extended extra inning game. I’m not saying Long threw the game because that would be ridiculous, but I also don’t think anyone is cursing him in that clubhouse.

Sunday - Royals 4, Braves 2

The scenario was, of course, very different, but the Royals avoided a sweep once again, something they did so much before September. This one started off in a way that has to have people optimistic about the lineup, particularly if Pasquantino does actually return tomorrow.

Massey finished his season hitting .259/.294/.449. You absolutely want more OBP and probably 15-20 points more of average (which would help the OBP), but a 105 OPS+ and 102 wRC+ for a plus defender at second is big. He took a big step from 2023 as he raised his average 30 points, his OBP 20 points and his SLG 68 points. There are questions about his back and if he can be an every day second baseman, sure, but that’s a solid player, especially before he gets into his second and third arbitration years. And he finished the year hitting .286/.348/.452 over his final 14 games, so that’s a plus heading to October.

Three innings later with two outs, the Royals got another.

The power dried up over the last two weeks of the season. After the loss to open the Detroit series, the Royals were on pace for 179 home runs, which would have been 14 less than the team record of 193 set in 2017, but 11 more than the previous second-most of 168 set in 1987. Well, they only hit three in the final games, including this blast from Renfroe to get to 170. They still were second-most, but it was rough for the last few weeks.

Renfroe hit two of them, though, and you have to hope this is them getting their collective power strokes back. You need home runs in October. Renfroe hit just .114/.139/.286 in the final two and a half weeks of the season, but he did finish with two home runs in his last four games. Heading to Baltimore isn’t great for him with their massive left field, but the Royals need him to get going to provide some power in the bottom half of the lineup.

And that was really it. Alec Marsh was solid enough, giving up just one earned run (two total) over five innings. He did only strike out two, but showed at times why he should be a big relief weapon in the postseason. His velocity was up, and will likely bump more in short stints. His sweeper was really good. His curve was good. He can be a weapon.

And a special shoutout to the bullpen. They threw 12.1 innings this weekend with just three runs (one earned) on seven hits to go with 16 strikeouts and six walks. It’s a trend for the end of the season. Here are their September numbers:

91 IP
65 H
107 K (29.4%)
28 BB (7.7%)
2.77 ERA
2.73 FIP

Nothing matters now than how players are playing today and how they play over the next month. And, right now, the Royals bullpen is pitching like an actual strength. We may look back on this unit as the one that got them the Royals what they wanted, which is not something I expected to say a month ago.

Player of the Week

Even in a 4-2 week, the offense was still in the pits for most of it. They scored more than three runs just twice. They had two players with a wRC+ of 100 or better this past week and just five at 80 or higher. Massey hit .400/.471/.733 with the home run yesterday. He even walked twice in 17 plate appearances. The other guy who was over 100 was Renfroe, who 3 for 14 with two home runs. The offense will need to get it moving.

But that bullpen deserves it as a collective player of the week. I gave you the stats for the weekend, but here was their week:

27 IP
13 H
28 K (27.7%)
9 BB (8.9%)
0.33 ERA
2.57 FIP

Yes, a 0.33 ERA in 27 innings is enough to win a made-up award in a silly little newsletter.

Up Next on Inside the Crown

Usually I break down what’s coming up this week in this spot, but I’ll use it for programming notes instead since I’ll write a Series Preview tomorrow.

Tuesday: Royals vs. Orioles Series Preview
Wednesday: Game One Recap
Thursday: Game Two Recap
Friday: Game Three Recap/Looking Ahead/Looking Back

The other thing that I’m really excited about is that I’m going to hold a paid subscriber chat during all postseason road games the Royals play. I’ll be at the stadium for home games, so sorry, but I want to enjoy that, but while they’re on the road and we’re watching on television, there’ll be a live chat going on. I’m honestly not sure how it’ll go, so I may be super active or I may let y’all have your time in there, but I think it’ll be really fun either way.

Hopefully we’re in playoff mode here at Inside the Crown for the next month. I can’t freaking wait.