Weekend in Review: Coming Home a Winner

It looked like the weekend might be a bust for the Royals until the very end on Sunday afternoon.

I’m not afraid to tell you that I was sort of dreading writing this for today. Up until there were two outs in the top of the ninth, it sure looked like the Royals were going to drop the final two to the Tigers after a brutal loss on Saturday night. I’ll get to the games and talk more about them down in that section, so I won’t get into it here, but there’s a little more pep in my step right now after the way the series wrapped up. It’s so funny because I made a conscious effort before last season to not let baseball impact my mood. I think even my wife would agree that I do a much better job of that, but that doesn’t mean that a bad game or series doesn’t impact my desire to write here.

Still, though, I think we’d all admit that it’s pretty darn fun to be living and dying with every pitch even after the calendar turned to August. Here we are on August 5 and the Royals are 63-50. They are mathematically guaranteed to not lose 100 games already, and if that seems like a small point, anyone taking the time to read Inside the Crown knows it isn’t. Heading into a big series (I’ll get to that too) with a multiple game lead for a playoff spot is everything. We’re not quite to the point that the calendar is as important as the game, but every day that ticks off with the Royals sitting in a playoff spot is one day closer to the number of games left being a big number. No matter how this season shakes out, it’s important to remember that.

Setting Up the Bullpen

I’m going to write about what happened on Saturday down below, but the bullpen continues to lead to more questions than answers, doesn’t it? It seems like the setup for the late innings will look like some combination of Sam Long, Lucas Erceg and Hunter Harvey. I think you can probably throw in Angel Zerpa and Kris Bubic as well, but both have some questions about them. Let’s break down some of these guys.

Long appears to be someone who Matt Quatraro is comfortable putting in tough spots and pitching in multiple innings. He’s been really impressive for the Royals, posting a 2.22 ERA and 2.92 FIP in 24.1 innings. He has 28 strikeouts and eight walks. He even got his first save of the year earlier on the road trip. Erceg was acquired to be a late-inning weapon, but based on some things Quatraro has said, his role is going to be “leverage,” which I honestly love.

The idea of having one pitcher for the ninth inning is great, in theory, but if you’ve got a guy you think is your best, sometimes the save isn’t in the ninth inning. Those two are about the only two in the Royals bullpen who the fans have full faith in. I’m not saying fan faith is the most important thing or even important at all, but I find that interesting. The Royals seem to be ready to use those two in the spots that matter the most, even if it’s the sixth inning as it was on Thursday for Erceg.

From there, though, there are questions. Hunter Harvey has obviously had his struggles since the Royals acquired him. And he had them before too. You can’t deny the high octane stuff and that he has the look of a closer, but the results simply haven’t been there. We saw on Sunday that he was going to be back out there, which might have had something to do with the availability of the others out there, but Zerpa didn’t pitch on Saturday and Long had only pitched once since Tuesday, so it really felt like Quatraro was getting him a shot at redemption.

The issue with Zerpa and Bubic is back-to-back days. Bubic has yet to do it. He’s never been a reliever before, and I think the Royals are hesitant to do it now. If he’s going to be a key part of this bullpen down the stretch, they need to see how he handles it. And it’s easy to forget, but Zerpa is in his first year as a full-time reliever. He does significantly better with some rest. In pitching the second day of a back-to-back, he’s allowed a .323/.364/.387 line. That’s a decent slugging percentage, but a lot of runners. With one day of rest, it’s worse - .382/.447/.559. Then you get some rest an he’s nails. You simply can’t be a main part of a bullpen if you aren’t available more than every other day at best, so I get that these guys aren’t.

And it sort of feels like the cleanup crew now is James McArthur, Will Smith and Chris Stratton. There’s good and bad with this. McArthur has experience in huge spots and has been good in them. He’s terrible right now. Smith has been a closer for a long time and has a 1.63 ERA with a 0.98 WHIP since April 21. That’s a span of 30 games. In those 30 games, he’s entered with the game within two runs just 13 times. He’s had a clean slate (no men on) in 25 of those 30. The results are great, but he hasn’t been tested much. Stratton did pitch yesterday in a close game, but that’s just his third game coming in with the score within two runs since June 22 and all three were with the Royals behind.

So I think you can surmise here that, in order of importance, the Royals have the bullpen set up this way:

Erceg
Long
Harvey

Zerpa
Bubic

McArthur
Smith
Stratton

We’ll see where John Schreiber fits whenever he comes back, but I think it’s interesting that they’ve completely flipped things. Those bottom three were leverage pitchers when the season started. Four of the top five weren’t even on the roster at the start of the season. I’ll be curious to see if the Royals make a move with McArthur before the upcoming gauntlet. I wonder a bit if they were trying to get him going before that started and if they might swap him out for a guy like Steven Cruz, who has a 2.30 ERA with 22 strikeouts and seven walks in 15.2 innings since mid-June.

The Games

Friday - Royals 9, Tigers 2: Late Hit Parade

The Cole Ragans vs. Tarik Skubal pitching matchup looked awfully tasty on paper. I’m not sure it lived up to the billing entirely, but both guys had their moments. The end box scores didn’t reflect a great pitcher’s duel or anything:

Cole Ragans - 5.2 IP, 2 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 4 BB, 6 K
Tarik Skubal - 6.1 IP, 7 H, 5 R, 5 ER, 2 BB, 8 K

Still, Skubal struck out six batters in the first three innings while Ragans battled back from a rough first inning with a walk to the leadoff hitter and then a home run allowed and didn’t give up another run and only allowed one more hit. The game began to turn for the Royals in the second after Skubal looked dominant in the first. He threw a first pitch slider to Salvador Perez, which was a mistake.

That ball was absolutely demolished. It was the 24th home run of his career hit 110 MPH or harder and just the fourth hit 113 MPH or harder. If you were wondering, the hardest hit home run of his career came in May of 2021 against Cleveland against Sam Hentges. It was the 22nd of his career that was hit as far as 440 feet. It also gave him his eighth season of 20 or more home runs. The man is a machine.

The Royals offense went back to work in the fourth with two runs on a Hunter Renfroe RBI double and a Paul DeJong sacrifice fly. It was quiet until the seventh when DeJong made an out to start the inning and then the merry-go-round got started. Here’s what happened:

Dairon Blanco singled
Maikel Garcia singled
Bobby Witt Jr. singled
Vinnie Pasquantino singled
Perez doubled
Renfroe singled
Freddy Fermin singled
Garrett Hampson singled
DeJong singled

Yep, after an out, the Royals went 9 for 9 and scored six runs to turn a 3-2 game into a laugher.

Ragans continues to concern me a bit. His average fastball velocity was 94.2 MPH, which is way down from his season average and way down from earlier this year. He did get one up to 97.1, which was nice, and maybe he’s conserving energy here, but it does really feel like he’s wearing down a little bit. His changeup was outstanding, so what I’m about to say is a little bit weird, but the locations on it aren’t great.

That’s just a lot of middle. That said, I thought his slider locations were about as good as they’ve been in a long time, so maybe it was just some off command, but it’s something to keep an eye on.

Saturday - Tigers 6, Royals 5: Bullpen Blues Continue

If what happened yesterday didn’t happen, this game would have stung a lot. Don’t get me wrong. It still stings. It’s just not as big. The Royals got an excellent start from Michael Lorenzen in his first time in Royals blue. He went 5.2 innings and gave up just a run on five hits with five strikeouts and two walks. His changeup was otherworldly, particularly early. At one point, the Tigers had swung at seven of them and missed all seven.

They ended up swinging at 11 and coming up empty on nine. He allowed two balls in play on it, both softly hit. It was a clinic in how to use a changeup. He threw just four of his 20 in the zone, but they swung at seven of the 16 out of the zone and made contact with just one of them. I really enjoyed watching that pitch and hope he can continue to get more out of it.

One thing I thought was interesting is that I noted he had some slider issues before being acquired and he didn’t throw a single one in his Royals debut. He did, however, throw 10 sweepers after throwing just 61 with the Rangers this year. That’s something I’m going to keep an eye on.

The Royals offense came from home runs. The first, from a hot hitter, Pasquantino:

And the second, a clutch shot from the new guy, DeJong in the second inning.

You love to see him contribute like that so quickly because going to a new game is almost like starting a new season and if you don’t get it going quickly, it can get into a guy’s head.

I mentioned Long and Erceg getting leverage and Long was counted on to get Lorenzen out of a little trouble in the sixth and then he handled the seventh. Erceg needed just nine pitches to get through the eighth easily. I think it’s fair to question why not give him the ninth as well, but I don’t think it’s fair to question using him in the eighth at all. The Tigers were sending up their 2-3-4 hitters and that was the biggest point in the game. Using Erceg there showed that Quatraro wanted him against the heart of their lineup and wasn’t interested in saving him for the ninth. I like that part of it.

Of course, Harvey got lit up a little once again in the ninth and the Royals were fortunate to get to extra innings. The home run he allowed was a terrible pitch. The double he allowed to Zack McKinstry was a fastball that was meant to be three or four inches higher. The one thing I will argue is that he made a bad pitch to Javy Baez:

I think Harvey would have liked to get that a little bit more in and a little more off the plate, but Baez has whiffed on about 20 percent of pitches in that spot in the last three seasons with the Tigers. It wasn’t a great pitch, but I don’t think it was horrible. Still, a bad outing and a bad blown save.

Unfortunately, the Royals were only able to get one run in each of the extra innings while McArthur got lit up quite a bit in the bottom of the 11th. We can talk about Renfroe’s lack of range because he probably could have caught the game winner, but McArthur was getting lit up. That’s a really bad loss.

Sunday - Royals 3, Tigers 2: The MJ Game

I don’t know what there really is to discuss in this game. The offense just felt “off” all game long. They got a leadoff double from Garcia, which was great, but he was left there. They had just five total hits in the first eight innings against a bunch of Tigers long relievers. That’s not what you want. It felt a little like a hangover game after the late inning debacle from Saturday night.

I do want to talk about Michael Wacha a bit, actually. I mentioned this on Twitter, but I wonder if him following Lorenzen isn’t going to be a bit of a problem. Look at their repertoires:

Lorenzen

Wacha

That’s pretty similar. They’re not the same, but it’s just a lot of the same look. And Wacha only had two whiffs on his changeup out of 14 swings. He only got chases on four out of 17 thrown. It’s just one start and I’m willing to say it could be a one-off, but when these two go against the same team on back-to-back days, you might see Wacha struggle a little bit. The good news is there are some off days over the next three weeks, so they might be able to reconfigure.

The results for Wacha were still solid. He gave up just two runs in six innings, but he did walk four and only struck out two. That’s the other reason that I’m not completely convinced it’s a Lorenzen issue. Wacha’s command was pretty rough in this game. So, again, I’m fine to wait and see, but it’s just something that has popped in my head.

Let’s fast forward to the ninth because Smith and Stratton kept the game at 2-0 before the Tigers went to Shelby Miller in the ninth for some reason instead of Jason Foley. Foley is not a dominant closer and he threw two innings on Saturday night, but when AJ Hinch had him warming up anyway, you had to wonder why he wouldn’t have just gone with him. I get the whole “break glass in case of emergency” thinking and I guess they did already use four pitchers after counting on Tyler Holton for three on Saturday night, but it just seemed odd to me.

The inning started with Renfroe doing what he’s been doing for awhile now and getting on base. Fermin had a one-out single and the Royals emptied the bench. Adam Frazier came within a few feet (maybe less) of a go-ahead home run, but it went foul and then he ended up flying out to center. That brought up MJ Melendez, who I wanted to hit instead of Frazier the batter before. Normally I do gifs here, but I want to upload a video because hearing Rex Hudler’s noises when he knows a ball is going out is worth everyone hearing.

Wow. I know Melendez is not a favorite of many of you, but that’s a huge hit. He’d only gotten action in one game this series before this at bat and has struggled some since the break. But still, with that home run, he’s now hitting .268/.324/.526 in 105 plate appearances since mid-June. That will work. And so will a three-run homer with two outs in the ninth down by two.

Oh yeah, and Harvey shut the door in the ninth. Yes, he gave up a single, but got a lineout double play to end the game and earn his first save with the Royals. You kind of feel like that’s a net neutral with Saturday’s game. Yes, they had a chance to sweep, but to look at it objectively, they lost one they should have won and they won one they should have lost. Could have been better, but it could have been worse too.

Player of the Week

You go 6-1 in a week and there are always a lot of candidates for a player of the week. Witt going hitless on Saturday and getting just one hit on Sunday (though that may be changed to two at some point) opened this up to the field for the first time in a bit. Of course, Witt did hit .379/.441/.655 even with the last couple of days being a slog for him. He was not this week’s winner. Renfroe had a solid .357/.406/.536 week. He was not this week’s winner. Perez hit .333/.375/.533 this week, but, no, he wasn’t this week’s winner. Fermin hit .385/.429/.500 this week, but he also wasn’t the winner. The only starter with two starts was Wacha and he had a 2.77 ERA in 13 innings, but he wasn’t the winner either.

Nope, this week’s winner was Pasquantino, who hit .344/.364/.750 with four homers and 12 RBIs. He looked really good this week, and the Royals needed it.

The Week Ahead

The soft schedule is over. The Royals now play 31 of their next 37 games against teams that are currently over .500. It’s possible that a few of the teams could flip on either side of that line with a good or bad week, but this is a tough stretch of baseball, and it starts with three against the Red Sox and then two against the Cardinals. The Red Sox are the team closest to the Royals at 2.5 games behind them. That means the Royals need to win at least win to stay in a playoff spot by the end of the series, but a series win or, even better, a sweep would be absolutely massive. Here are the projected pitching matchups:

• Monday: LHP James Paxton vs. RHP Brady Singer

• Tuesday: RHP Brayan Bello vs. RHP Seth Lugo

• Wednesday: RHP Kutter Crawford vs. LHP Cole Ragans

The Royals will miss Tanner Houck, which is good for them, but these are some good matchups. Paxton went just 4.1 innings in his Red Sox 2024 debut (he spent 2023 with them) and gave up six runs on six hits, but only three of the runs were earned. He had struggled with the Dodgers, but the peripherals were much better in that first start with Boston. He’s not what he used to be, but he can be tough. Bello is having a rough year and gave up three runs on seven hits against the Royals last month in Boston, giving up two homers in the process. And Crawford stymied the Royals, but might have been in the middle of a great stretch. He had given up one run on seven hits in his previous 13 innings before that start. He comes into this one having allowed 16 runs on 21 hits in 15 innings since the break.

The Royals need this series badly, as I mentioned. If they can put an additional game or three of distance between then and Boston, they’ll do that with 46 games to play. I said it earlier, but at some point, the clock starts to matter, and that point is approaching quicker than you might realize.

After Boston, the Royals will finish their home-and-home with the Cardinals and play a weird weekend series where they’re off on Sunday. Prior to the Royals sweeping that doubleheader in St. Louis last month, they were 30-17 following their slow start. They’re 9-13 since and including the Royals series now in their last 22 games. They made some improvements at the deadline and they have what I think is a pretty solid team, but they’re just super inconsistent, which is kind of the name of the game across baseball this year. Things can change by Friday, but it looks like it’ll be Miles Mikolas vs. Lorenzen and Andre Pallente vs. Wacha. This will be a big series too, against two guys the offense should have no real problem against.