Weekend in Review: Saying the Right Things, A Wild Series Win and What's Upcoming

The team that couldn't come back had their biggest comeback ever to win a series. Baseball is weird.

The 2022 season has been an absolute disaster, but the one thing that ended up reasonably okay was how they played at home. They finished their home schedule 39-42, which nobody is going to celebrate as anything great, but at least gave fans a chance to see a winner on many nights. With a 5-1 homestand to finish their home schedule, they finished 25-17 at Kauffman Stadium since the start of July. Sure they’re 24-48 on the road overall, 7-19 since the break and 11-26 since the start of July, but at least they have home. I’ve written about this before, but I find it interesting how people can basically make any result work for their point. I’ve seen that young teams play better at home because they’re more comfortable in their home park and I’ve seen that they play better on the road because there isn’t the pressure at home.

I suppose a friendly home market like Kansas City is one that would be a little easier to play in than some others, so there’s that. Of those 37 games since the start of July, only nine have been played by teams that weren’t part of the playoff race when the series happened. The Royals went 5-4 in those games (against Detroit and Boston). They lost three of four in Houston, Toronto, New York and Tampa. They lost all six games they played in Minnesota. Then went 2-4 in Chicago. So maybe, just maybe, some of their road issues was their opponent. But regardless, it’ll be interesting to see how this young team fares on the road next season. While I’m not expecting them to win 90 games or anything, the difference between 77-82 wins and a season roughly like 2022 could be how they take care of business away from home.

Hitting the Right Notes

It’s now been five days since the Royals announced the firing of Dayton Moore. Forget for one second that the Royals have gone 4-1 since then (which is mostly a coincidence) and realize what has been said since John Sherman’s press conference. I touched a fair bit on Sherman’s comments Wednesday, but I think he hit a home run in his remarks. He hit on the organizations he admires - Cleveland, Tampa Bay, Oakland and Milwaukee. He discussed being more transactional and even used the word “churn” even though he said he didn’t want to use that word. And he, of course, discussed the use of data in the decision-making process.

My takeaway from Sherman’s press conference was that this organization is going to look very different in short order. Many criticized the firing of Moore as a move that was not nearly enough, but I think it was pretty obvious that it was the first move of many, not the only move. And, if anything, when JJ Picollo spoke on the field on Saturday afternoon, he corroborated that belief. KC Star columnist Sam McDowell asked Picollo about Mike Matheny and his future with the team. Picollo responded by saying he hadn’t made a decision on any of his coaches yet. As I tweeted, I feel like any answer that didn’t include a verbal takedown of his manager was going to be taken poorly by many, but Picollo had an easy out if Matheny was going to remain as manager or even had a real shot to remain as manager. He could have quite easily said, “Mike is my manager” and been done. But he didn’t. He was even asked about Matheny’s success and, boy, I’m not sure he even answered that question. That says a lot.

Instead, he addressed a wide variety of topics. He was appropriately reverential to Moore, but was very clear to address why he’s different. He spoke about the research and development department. He spoke about the deficiencies in the organization’s development process. He talked about being more nimble with the way the organizational philosophy. He basically said everything you want to hear from the new head of baseball operations. Saying and doing are two very different things, so the action still needs to come, but I think there’s a decent chance the terrible 2022 season will end up being what changed everything for the Royals as they joined modern-day baseball thinking because of it.

The Games

Look, the Royals played three games, but come on. Yesterday was absolutely bonkers, so I want to write about Brady Singer from Friday, a few brief thoughts on Saturday’s mini-debacle and then get to the fun of yesterday.

Friday - Royals 5, Mariners 1

Watching Brady Singer turn into a top-tier starter has been such a joy this season. He’s also a reason why I think it’s possible we see some big jumps for some of the other Royals starters if they make the right moves to fix the pitching instruction throughout the organization. Think about this. Singer posted a 4.91 ERA last season. His FIP was 4.04, but both xERA and DRA weren’t quite so kind to him. So looking at pitchers like Daniel Lynch, Kris Bubic and Jonathan Heasley, at least you have a reference point on their team that things can turn quickly.

Singer has made obvious strides with his command, but I look at the way he handles adversity as the biggest change for him. With men on base, he allowed a .303/.396/.447 line last season and that’s dropped to .267/.320/.408 this year. With runners in scoring position, he allowed a .310/.400/.492 line last year and that’s dropped to .177/.277/.271 this year. Some of that is small sample and unsustainable, but there have been so many scenarios where you have to feel like he’d have folded a year ago and managed to get through it this season. It may be confidence or just a different mindset, but it’s made such a huge difference for him this year.

In this start, he didn’t have it early. His second inning was filled with far too many pitches in the middle of the plate. He got beaten on one of them on a sinker that Cal Raleigh hit for a home run. He threw his first changeups in the third inning and found himself at least avoiding the middle with his slider, but he was back in the middle in the fourth inning, but that’s when the worm turned for him.

He gave up a leadoff double to Carlos Santana and walked Raleigh with one out. He took advantage of Jarred Kelenic’s aggressiveness with a slider in the dirt. He spent too much time in the middle of the plate against Jesse Winker, but ultimately got him with a sinker that ended up center cut but Winker gave up on him. Starting with Kelenic, he struck out six of the next nine hitters he faced and Matheny gave him a chance to get through seven and he worked around a leadoff double there to finish his outing with a strikeout of Adam Frazier.

It wasn’t always pretty. The Mariners had the leadoff man on in five of seven innings. In three of them, they had a leadoff double. None scored. His slider was nasty when it was right. He ended up with 11 whiffs on it. That’s the fourth most he’s had in a game in his career. What’s crazy is seven of those came in the last three innings.

I just don’t know what you do with that. Well, other than what Santana did. I’ve spent so much time over the last few weeks looking at Singer’s numbers since coming back to the big leagues, but overall, the numbers are fantastic right now. Here they are with his American League ranks in parentheses using players with 140+ innings.

2.99 ERA (11)
24.2% K (15)
5.7% BB (10)
3.55 FIP (14)
81.6% LOB (6)

As a starter, the 2.85 ERA ranks ninth, his strikeout rate of 24.3 percent bumps up a spot to 14. His 3.52 FIP jumps up to 13th. Regardless of the role, Singer is legitimately a top-of-the-rotation starter in the American League. It’s an incredible season that I’ll be sad to see end.

Saturday - Mariners 6, Royals 5

The Royals should have won this game. They scored five runs against Logan Gilbert when Gilbert had allowed two runs in September to that point. But Bubic had another poor outing where he couldn’t make it through five and the Royals bullpen gave up runs for the first time in nearly a week. It started with Collin Snider giving up two runs on two hits with two walks allowed to four batters. If it wasn’t for Carlos Hernandez pulling a rabbit out of his…hat, Snider could have looked much worse.

When Brad Keller was called on to pitch the ninth after a very shaky two outs in the eighth, he did what was predictable. He ultimately couldn’t finish the inning and was bailed out by Jose Cuas. And the whole thing was such a shame because the Royals defense had a fantastic game. Nicky Lopez made multiple outstanding plays. Double plays saved the day a couple of times. Vinnie Pasquantino made a pick on a nice play from Nate Eaton that made the crowd audibly gasp. And he hit a big home run in the first inning.

But the bullpen let them all down. Actually, Snider and Keller let them all down as they allowed three runs on six hits with four walks in 1.1 innings between them. And that ultimately cost them a perfect homestand.

Sunday - Royals 13, Mariners 12

In some ways I want to write 1,500 words on this game alone. In some other ways, all I want to do is post this:

The Mariners win probability in this game reached as high as 99.7 percent after JP Crawford singled to drive in two and make the score 11-2. It got back there when Pasquantino struck out to start the bottom of the sixth. Before we get to the comeback, let’s take a look back at how the Royals got to the point that they were 0.3 percent to win in the sixth inning.

Max Castillo got the start, which was going okay enough until the fifth inning. I thought he was walking on thin ice before the fifth, but I didn’t expect the implosion. He walked Crawford and hit Ty France. Then a single and two walks brought Matheny out to make a change and he called on Amir Garrett to clean up the mess, which is certainly a choice Mathney made. Garrett did get an out without a run scoring, but hit Winker, walked the next hitter and sandwiched a strikeout between two more run scoring singles. Cuas came on to clean up the mess, but this time he did allow a run to core on a single before ending the inning.

The Mariners scored eight runs on four hits. I’ll say it again, but in all caps - EIGHT RUNS ON FOUR HITS. How in the hell does that even happen? Four walks in one inning? And a hit batter? The Mariners scored two more runs with just one hit because of three more walks in the top of the sixth inning to go ahead 11-2. The Royals walked eight hitters in the first six innings! It was the 11th game this season the Royals have walked eight or more hitters, which is the most in baseball by three full games. I know it’s beating a dead horse given that they’re going to make these changes soon, but yikes.

But on the bright side, all this terrible pitching allowed for the offense to give us the most fun inning of the season. As I said, the sixth started off with Luis Castillo striking out Pasquantino. This is what happened next:

Edward Olivares walks
Michael Massey homers

Ryan O’Hearn walks
Hunter Dozier walks
Drew Waters singles
MJ Melendez grounds into a forceout (still drives in a run)
Bobby Witt Jr. doubles

Salvador Perez walks
Vinnie Pasquantino walks
Olivares singles
Massey singles
O’Hearn doubles
Dozier singles

I was lamenting the Royals walking four batters in an inning and the Mariners walked five! Given that the inning ended with Dozier getting thrown out trying to stretch a single into a double, the Royals went 7 for 9 with those five walks in the sixth inning. The Mariners had just given Castillo a big five-year deal on Saturday and he ended up giving up five runs in 5.1 innings against the Royals. They used three relievers in an inning that started with them up by nine runs.

By any measure, this was about as big of a disaster as there could be. Fortunately for them, the Orioles also lost, so the Mariners remain four games up on them with 10 games to play for each of them, but it’s amazing that they gave up a nine-run lead to a team that hadn’t even overcome a three-run deficit before Tuesday night’s game against Minnesota.

The game got closed out with another solid performance from the Dylan Coleman/Scott Barlow duo. Coleman has been quietly excellent. He was sent down on May 22 and recalled on May 26 when Garrett went on the IL. Since then, Coleman has a 1.99 ERA in 49.2 innings. I’d expect a better strikeout rate than 22.2 percent, but it’s impressive. Since the break, he’s been legitimately dominant with a 1.61 REA in 28 innings and a 26.2 percent strikeout rate to go along with a 7.5 percent walk rate. If the Royals are going to have a good bullpen next season, it’s likely going to be because Coleman continues this and maybe even takes another step forward.

Back to the craziness. In total, this game featured 25 runs on 26 hits with 15 walks, just 12 strikeouts and three batters hit by a pitch. Amazingly there was just one home run in all of that. Of all of that, though, 21 runs on 12 hits (yikes) with 13 walks, one strikeout and two hit batters came in the fifth and sixth innings. I know it’s a little weird to look at it this way, but there were four runs on 14 hits with a perfectly reasonable two walks and 12 strikeouts in the rest of the game. What an absolutely bonkers couple of innings.

This season, teams allowing 12 or more runs were 2-124. To extend that out, teams allowing double digits came into the day at 13-293. The win for the Royals pushed them to their third win when allowing double digits. It was the first game this season the Royals won when walking eight or more batters. Before today, teams were 18-88 when walking eight or more. We all know this was an improbable win, but I just can’t stop thinking about how crazy it is that not only was it this improbable, but it was the Royals who won that game.

The Week Ahead

The final off day of the season is today before the Royals head out on their final road trip of the season. It would be the final week of the season if the lockout hadn’t forced them to spend their last nine days of the year in Detroit and Cleveland. But they’ll head to face the Tigers, who have been playing better of late. They’re 6-3 in their last nine with a 3.14 ERA. Joey Wentz, Matt Manning and Eduardo Rodriguez are scheduled to start for Detroit right now, though this time of year can bring some surprises. The Royals are currently 2.5 games up on the Tigers, which means this series could be the difference between the Royals finishing in fourth or fifth. And I’m not sure it matters.

After that, they head to Cleveland for the first three of six in a row there. A few weeks ago, that looked like a series that could be absolutely huge for the Guardians. It no longer will matter. They clinched the division over the weekend. With the new playoff format, the Guardians will get a day off following the season before they play a three-game series against the six-seed with all three games in Cleveland. What that means is while they are scheduled to face Zach Plesac in what should be his first game back from his injury, followed by Cal Quantill and Aaron Civale, things could get weird quickly. Do the Guardians choose to go short with their starters just to prep them for the playoffs? It’s just hard to say right now. In a weird way, these meaningless games between one bad team and one playoff team can be kind of fun, so I’m sort of looking forward to that series.