Weekend in Review: An Actual Logjam, A Non-Sweep and the Week Ahead

The Royals got a win! Sometimes you have to take the time to enjoy the rarities of life.

I could easily be writing this as the Royals are ready to hit the road while on a 12-game losing streak. But they aren’t. They had an improbable comeback that I’ll get to shortly, but what the comeback represents is something that I want to touch on before I get into anything else. This team doesn’t quit. They very easily could. They are now 19-52 (I think it looks worse to see it than to say it) and it seems like just about every night, they’re out there busting it until the last out. I know it’s their job and they’re paid handsomely to do that job, but that doesn’t mean that we haven’t seen countless examples of teams giving up.

Maybe it doesn’t crop up day to day on some teams, though it probably does on a few bad ones. But it would be very easy to be staring at a big deficit late and think, “well let’s just add another to the list.” And they don’t. And I credit the leadership of this team for that. Some of that is on-field leadership with a guy like Nicky Lopez. But a lot of that comes from the manager and his coaching staff. The beauty of social media is that everyone has a voice. The worst part about social media is that everyone has a voice. And a lot of voices are unhappy with the job Matt Quatraro has done as manager.

I can’t say it’s hard to understand why. This team is pacing for one of the worst seasons in big league history and he’s the man in charge. I think I wrote this last week, so my apologies for the repeat if so, but I would like to see him adjust a bit the way he handles the team. I think there’s probably a little too much leniency and that’s maybe led to some of the mental mistakes. So there’s some adjusting to do, but so much of the job does beyond the in-game decisions. In baseball in 2023, the job of a manager is to manage the people and I stand by my belief that they have a good one in that regard. I wouldn’t give Quatraro an A or anything like that, but the issues he’s had can be fixed. What he does well are going to be traits that benefit this team in the future.

A Roster Crunch? On a 19-52 Team?

The Royals are bad, but what’s kind of amazing is that there are legitimately very difficult decisions that need to be made night in and night out regarding who plays and who plays where. Some things tend to work themselves out over the course of a season, but think about what the Royals have in terms of position players.

First Base - Matt Beaty, Matt Duffy, Nick Pratto

Okay, that one is easy. Pratto plays most days outside of days off, though he could be in the outfield some games if they want to get a little OBP from Duffy or some power from Beaty.

Second Base - Duffy, Maikel Garcia, Nicky Lopez, Michael Massey, Samad Taylor

I listed these alphabetically but Garcia is only an option here and Duffy is clearly a backup/platoon option. Massey being out makes this a little easier for the moment, but I imagine he’ll be back pretty quickly as it’s just a laceration that should theoretically heal fast. So Lopez will play there a lot, but Taylor deserves a look as well, especially while there are extra at bats to be had.

Third Base - Duffy, Garcia, Lopez

This is pretty easy. Garcia is going to play third most games and the other two can slide to third if Bobby Witt Jr. gets a day off or something and Garcia is at shortstop.

Shortstop - Garcia, Lopez, Witt

This is Witt unless he’s getting a day off. It’s nice to have options.

Left Field - Dairon Blanco, Edward Olivares, Pratto, Taylor, Drew Waters

The Royals brought up Blanco because he plays good defense, can run, knows the strike zone and can hit a little. Then they brought up Taylor who plays solid defense, knows the strike zone and can hit a little. They also have Olivares who does not play good defense, but he can hit. Pratto wasn’t bad in left, but he should just be there for weird defensive moves. Waters can play any outfield position and likely will be good there. Taylor and Waters are more important than any of the rest as left fielders, but I get wanting to get a look at Blanco and, on a struggling offense, Olivares is important.

Center Field - Blanco, Kyle Isbel, Waters

I’m including Isbel here because he’ll be back soon as he’s been on a rehab assignment since Tuesday with Omaha, which means he only has 15 days left for his maximum time there. I assume he’ll be taking over in center field most days when he gets back because his defense is so fantastic and Waters isn’t exactly hitting.

Right Field - Beatty, Blanco, MJ Melendez, Pratto, Waters

This is a little easier. Melendez is the right fielder outside of days off.

You may argue that there aren’t enough players who project to or are impact players to matter here, and that’s probably true. Even so, there are a bunch of players who need to play in an evaluation season. I anticipate the trade deadline will clear some of this up. I had a text from a contact yesterday when Olivares wasn’t in the lineup saying he thinks there’s a trade about to happen. Then he said that was only based on him not in the lineup, but I think Olivares gets traded soon enough. The Yankees are a good option for him, for whatever that’s worth.

I think Lopez is going to get some attention as well, so I wouldn’t be too surprised if he’s on a new team within the next six weeks or so. And there’s always designated hitter to help give some guys a half-day off. Even so, I don’t necessarily envy the job of Quatraro and Co. to put together a lineup every day that satisfies the idea of getting enough of a look at all of these young players to determine who can and can’t be a part of the solution moving forward.

The Games

Friday - Angels 3, Royals 0

Brady Singer had another mixed bag of a start, which isn’t all bad. Part of the mix is actually solid pitching. The other part is things to be concerned about. The overall line was fine enough. He gave up two runs over 5.1 innings with five strikeouts and two walks. You’ll take that all day. But you’d like more innings. And you’d also like for him to not allow eight hits in that timeframe and leave a jam for Carlos Hernandez to clean up.

I was at this game, so I didn’t get the same view as you get from television, but I thought his slider was pretty good. I wouldn’t say it was his best of the year, but he can absolutely win with the slider he was throwing on Friday night. He got a lot of chases on it, though it was hit hard when it was hit. I just think he caught too much of the plate with it too often and this is an Angels team that can hit a mistake.

His sinker was what still has me concerned from a command standpoint. Take a look at the locations on his sinker from Friday:

When he’s right, he’s painting that glove-side corner. I actually don’t hate the idea of working the other side of the plate because the Angels did put six lefties in there against him, but there is just too much of the plate getting covered by these sinkers. He’s never gotten a ton of swings and misses on the sinker, but one in 20 swings is not what you want there. I did like that his velocity was up a bit and I certainly won’t complain about the end result, but it was yet another game that took us another start away from what looks like a bit of a fluke season in 2022.

The offense was up against Patrick Sandoval on an excellent night for him. When you combine a struggling unit with a good performance, this is the sort of thing you see. I appreciated that they worked the count and worked some walks, but they just couldn’t capitalize on much of anything, which was getting to be an awfully tired tale for them. Sometimes it’s not about swinging at the wrong pitch. They just didn’t do anything with them.

For example, in the first inning, the Royals had two on and nobody out to start the game. Olivares got a pitch that when things are going good, he takes to right-center.

But he rolled it over and did exactly what Sandoval was hoping. To be honest, it was probably a pitch that should have been a touch lower than it was, but it didn’t matter.

In the fifth, it was the same situation with Witt at the plate. Sandoval left a sweeper out over the plate, but Witt just didn’t get the swing on it he needed to and he rolled over it.

Witt’s been a lot better, but that was a rough one. You have to give credit to the pitcher too, but that’s also probably a pitch that when things are going well, he hits it hard to the outfield at the very least. After that, they had one more runner in the final four innings, so there was never even an opportunity to get the game tied.

On the bright side, Austin Cox came in and pitched the final two innings and looked very good, even striking out Shohei Ohtani. With the DFA of Mike Mayers over the weekend, it’s fair to wonder if Cox is going to get the opportunity at a start or to be the bulk pitcher. The next time that spot will come up is Thursday. So it’s only against one of the best offenses in baseball. No biggie.

Saturday - Royals 10, Angels 9

Mike Mayers got the start in this one rather than working in a bulk role and it went about as well as we figured things would go for Mayers when he was first called up. And then before Sunday’s game, he was DFAed. So I can spend time talking about his work to help put the Royals in a hole (with an assist from what I thought was a poor decision by Quatraro to leave him in) or I can move on. I’m going to move on.

Down 2-0 in the fourth, the Royals got an infield single from Salvador Perez, as they do and Melendez came to the plate after striking out in his first at bat. I thought he had a great at bat. Griffin Canning can come at you pretty hard with a changeup and with the count 2-1, he tried three in a row. Once he realized he wasn’t going to get Melendez out, he went to a slider and it was a mistake.

Things got annoying for a bit after that. Mayers immediately gave up singles to the bottom of the Angels order and even though he got the next two batters, including Ohtani, to ground out, that scored two runs. Then, Quatraro made a mistake and put Mayers out there for the sixth inning and he immediately gave up a double and a home run to make it 6-2. Jackson Kowar came in to the game and that didn’t work too well either as he gave up a run pretty quickly. Taylor Clarke also gave up his first run in a long, long time to make it 8-2.

This is when it was pretty clear the Royals were going to lose their 11th game in a row. But baseball is weird sometimes. The seventh inning started innocently with a flyout by Garcia. Lopez then singled, Taylor walked for the first time and Waters doubled to make it 8-3. A walk from Pratto loaded the bases for Witt.

With the bases loaded, I think it’s fair for Royals fans to assume that this inning was over as they only had 10 bases loaded hits all season heading into the game. But, as we’d find out, this was no ordinary game. Witt ripped a double to left to make it 8-5. That would be it for the seventh with Salvy striking out swinging and Olivares grounding out after a Melendez walk, but they were at least back in the game.

The eighth started like the seventh. Garcia hit a fly ball to start the inning. But Lopez again started things. This time it was a walk and Taylor followed with another walk. Angels pitcher Jose Soriano gave the Royals another gift when he hit Waters to load the bases. But, remember, the Royals haven’t accepted many gifts this year. That’s when Pratto got their second bases loaded hit of the day with a ball into the right field corner. But Taylor made a huge error on the bases by going back to tag at second when the ball was clearly not going to be caught. He only ended up at third, so it was a looooooooong single and the bases were still loaded. But Witt picked him up and drove in two to tie the game.

Aroldis Chapman had a rough top of the ninth, though I tweeted this and I don’t think that makes much of a difference for his trade value because he was still throwing hard with great stuff. But the game was 9-8 Angels heading into the bottom of the ninth.

This time, it was started with a single from Olivares. Blanco ran for him and immediately stole second and advanced to third on an error. He took a little too long to realize the ball was in center field and the play at third was a little closer than you’d like, but he made it anyway. Garcia, with the infield in, singled to center to drive him home to tie the game. Then he stole second and Lopez, in a rare instance of a bunt I liked, sacrificed him to third and that set things up for Taylor in his big league debut.

Holy hell. What a game. What a moment. It doesn’t matter the record. Games like that and stories like that are always amazing. And I think this image of Witt who ran to get the ball will be used quite a bit if the Royals do ever turn things around.

Sunday - Angels 5, Royals 2

I mentioned last week a bit of a different way to look at the Royals moving forward. This game was of no interest to me outside of just seeing how guys performed. Zack Greinke may even be on the team next season, but he’s not part of the future and when you haven’t cracked 20 wins by Father’s Day, anyone not part of the future is boring to me. Okay, that’s not fair because Greinke is always at least somewhat interesting to me, but his starts don’t matter.

I liked that Taylor picked up an RBI single. I loved that Garcia had three hits and almost had a fourth. I liked that Witt hit the ball hard again a couple of times. I liked that Pratto came on as a pinch hitter and worked a walk. I loved Fermin throwing runners out in the eighth. I didn’t like that Waters continues to look lost at the plate. I didn’t like Blanco's swing decisions a few times.

Ultimately, the Royals scored two runs and Greinke gave up home runs to two of the best players to every play the game and the Royals lost. This game had zero effect on me as a fan and as someone who analyzes the team. We did get another very good Cox inning to add to the lore, though.

The Week Ahead

The Royals hit the road to take on the Tigers for three before they head into the lion’s den to play the Rays in Tampa for four. I’ll start with the Tigers series. Detroit is obviously in a much better position in the standings than the Royals, but I don’t know that I’d argue they’re significantly better, especially with Riley Greene and Eduardo Rodriguez out. They’ve done some things well, though. They still can’t hit, but Spencer Torkelson has looked better. Zach McKnistry has been very good for them. And so has Matt Vierling, though he’s had back issues and missed yesterday’s game.

Matchups

Monday - Jordan Lyles vs. Reese Olson

So, legally, this is a Royals loss. If you don’t know about Olson, this’ll be his fourth career outing. He throws a lot of sliders to go along with a 95 MPH fastball, a sinker and a changeup I’m worried about for the Royals offense. He hasn’t been good and he wasn’t good in AAA, but these guys have always hurt the Royals.

Tuesday - Daniel Lynch vs. Michael Lorenzen

Lorenzen has been solid this year and Lynch has had moments against the Tigers throughout his career, so this is maybe the most interesting game of the series.

Wednedsay - Brady Singer vs. Matthew Boyd

The Royals have gotten to Boyd in the past and he’s also dominated them. He hasn’t been good at all this year and Singer is always interesting at least with reference to the future, so there’s at least something worth watching in this one.

Pitching matchups are fickle a few days out, so I’m not going to get especially deep into the Rays series, but they’re 31-7 at home and the Royals have to play four games there. This is another example of the absence of good luck. Why a four-game series? They only play two four-game series against non-division opponents on the road all year and this is one of them. On the bright side, they seem likely to miss Taj Bradley. On the downside, they’ll probably see Shane McClanahan, Tyler Glasnow and Zach Elfin. I’m going to go out on a limb right now and say we’re not talking about a win in the next Weekend in Review.