Weekend in Review: Trade Deadline Recap, Swept in Canada and a Look Ahead

The Royals were going so well...and then they had to be the Blue Jays' first opponent in Toronto.

I don’t want to say that the Royals played well enough to win this weekend. There were moments that they looked fine, sure, but the Royals never led at any point when they got to Rogers Centre. Still, I don’t think they stood much of a chance with it being the first series back in Toronto since September of 2019. It sure feels like the Royals are faced with those situations a lot. Never forget them being in Boston after the Boston Marathon bombing and the first games back at Fenway.

Of course, they handled that weekend a bit better than this one, but if you had asked me before the season when the Blue Jays could get back to Toronto, I’d have looked at the schedule to see when the Royals were there and bet on that. Again, that’s no excuse for a poor weekend on the field, but it just seems to fit pretty perfectly. The Blue Jays are a very good team boosted by their return to Canada while the Royals continue to struggle quite a bit on the road. They’re now 4-21 since the start of June away from home. They’re 15-12 at home in that time. That’s about all I have to say about that.

Trade Deadline Recap

The Royals ended up making just two deals, sending Danny Duffy to the Dodgers for a PTBNL, so it’s hard to evaluate that, and Jorge Soler to the Braves for Kasey Kalich. The Duffy deal is hard to evaluate due to not knowing who the return is, but I’ve heard it could come anywhere from around the 8-14 range in the Dodgers top prospects and then another one down the list. Considering their system, that’s a pretty decent return for a guy who will likely not pitch until late August/early September for them.

The Soler return has to be considered a success simply because there’s a return for Soler. The numbers for him are a bit underwhelming with a lot of walks and too many hits, but he does strike hitters out and he has a live fastball and a slider that looks like it could be a plus pitch if he can ever get his command right. It’s a flyer acquisition, but, again, what was anyone expecting for Soler? The fact that he had a great week and a half or so leading up to the deadline is likely what allowed the Royals to get any return. We may never hear Kalich’s name again and it’ll be a good trade.

The players they didn’t trade probably made more news. I honestly see no reason to have hung on to Michael A. Taylor. I don’t especially care what the return was for him. Of course, the Royals hung on to Whit Merrifield, who is having a thoroughly average year with the bat. They also hung on to Greg Holland, Jarrod Dyson and Cam Gallagher, all players who I thought could get moved. And while the reliever market was crazy and it made me think that Scott Barlow could fetch a really nice return, the return the Pirates got for Richard Rodriguez would have annoyed me had the Royals traded him for Bryce Wilson and Ricky DeVito. They’re not exactly the same with Rodriguez older and a year closer to free agency, but they’re fairly close to assume they would have had a similar offer on the table. I do wonder if they’ll be active in the trade market this winter. I’ll be surprised if they are, but I at least wonder.

It would be nice if there was more to say about the deadline, which was absolutely insane, especially at the finish. I had forgotten that this was the first year without the second deadline on August 31 for waiver deals. It was supposed to be last year, but that obviously changed with the short season, so while there weren’t waiver deals last year, it just didn’t feel that different. I think that made a huge difference as teams knew they had to load up right now or else they were done. I also found it really interesting that teams weren’t hoarding prospects the way they had for the last five or six seasons. It was a fun deadline. It would have been more fun for me (and probably a lot of you) if there were more Royals trades to discuss, but we can only work with what we’re given.

The Games

Again, the Royals had a bad weekend. There were some highlights that I will touch on, but the games were not ones that need to be re-lived.

Friday - Blue Jays 6, Royals 4

Daniel Lynch had a phenomenal start against the Tigers last weekend. It was honestly one of the highlights of the season. And he was rewarded for that by getting to be the first opposing starting pitcher in Toronto in nearly two years. I’ve probably beaten that point to death, but I just can’t believe the Royals luck there. This was one of those situations where if Lynch wasn’t good, you chalk it up to a terrible circumstance, but if he can be good, it’s insanely encouraging.

He was very good in the first. It took eight pitches, but he was living on the inner third against George Springer and that was impressive. He gave up a hit to Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and then got a little lucky with Marcus Semien as he caught too much of the plate, but then he got a groundout from Bo Bichette and the first inning was in the books, which was a very good sign.

He ran into some trouble in the second and third. I think he actually made a decent first pitch to Teoscar Hernandez, but Hernandez turned on it and destroyed the ball.

A couple of walks and a Springer double gave the Blue Jays a 2-0 lead. He gave up a two-out RBI single to Lourdes Gurriel Jr. to extend their lead to 3-0 in the third inning, and that’s where I think the encouragement really started.

In the fourth, he got a double play on a great pitch to Alejandro Kirk after a leadoff single.

It wasn’t his best slider, but the location was fantastic, and Kirk did exactly what Lynch wanted him to do. Then he was able to end that inning with his first strikeout. Pretty good hitter to get it against too.

You probably know if this isn’t your first time reading Inside the Crown that I love a good fastball at the top of the zone (and slightly above).

Lynch struck out Semien looking to start the fifth and ended up retiring the last seven hitters he faced including those two strikeouts. I mentioned last week that seeing Lynch get out of trouble against the Tigers in a couple innings was really encouraging, but he was up against an incredibly difficult lineup in an incredibly difficult situation and was solid. As I said on Twitter, the line was just so so. Only striking out two hitters isn’t something to write home about, but he also only walked two and he came back from a tough beginning of the game to fire three scoreless innings.

He did it too with his changeup, which is a really veteran move. Of course, Salvador Perez had a lot to do with that, but he threw his changeup more than anything. It was the pitch that was getting the weak contact against a righty-heavy lineup and he went with it. It’s hard to argue against that. I’d still like to see more swings and misses from it, but the Blue Jays make a lot of contact. In the battle of processes vs. results, sometimes you take the results against a tough opponent and enjoy those.

The Royals made it a game with a Nicky Lopez RBI triple in the fifth and then a Salvador Perez home run in the sixth, but with the score 3-2 in the seventh, they went to Domingo Tapia, who just didn’t have it. That’s the issue with Tapia. He has the electric fastball and a cutter that can look nasty at times, but it just wasn’t working. He ended up giving up three runs, so the two runs the Royals scored to make the score respectable didn’t end up meaning much.

Saturday - Blue Jays 4, Royals 0

Mike Minor’s mistake was pitching to George Springer at all. He gave up a home run on the first pitch of the bottom of the first. It was a fastball that I would bet Minor thought was a good first pitch to get the game going. Springer decided to swing and the ball soared. Then he was outstanding to get through the rest of the inning. Then he got the Blue Jays 1-2-3 in the second with two strikeouts. In the third, he made a nice pitch to Kirk, but Kirk singled to left and then he gave up another home run to Springer on a better pitch.

From that point forward, he was again very good. Guerrero reached on an error, but then he got the next two. Then it was a 1-2-3 fourth. And then a 1-2-3 fifth. Then the sixth was his final issue.

The inning began with an infield single by Guerrero on a play that Hunter Dozier absolutely should have made, but didn’t. Then Semien tripled to drive him home and Minor again went to work and was brilliant. He got a groundout of Bichette with the infield in. He got Hernandez to pop up and then with two outs, the infield could move back and he got a Gurriel groundout. That was pretty masterful.

In the seventh, he was back out there and gave up a walk, but got a double play and struck out Kirk to end the game. It’s a shame that Springer had his number because other than that, Minor had it going. He had 16 swings and misses from a team that doesn’t swing and miss that much. Every one of his pitches was working…when he wasn’t facing Springer.

Of course, it doesn’t matter how good he was because Alek Manoah was absolutely nasty. The Royals offense has a way of completely disappearing at times and people tend to credit the opposing pitcher much more than they should, but in this case, Manoah was nails. His slider was biting and when that’s the case with him, he’s tough to hit. That’s definitely an impressive arm the Blue Jays have. All they could muster was three hits and two walks. So, uh, yeah, there’s not much else to talk about.

Sunday - Blue Jays 5, Royals 1

This isn’t even a game to spend time on, but I feel like I should say something. Brad Keller looked really good in the first two innings. He did give up a couple hits in the second, but he was looking a lot like the guy with the great July. The third inning was a bit of a mess. He gave up hits to the first four batters of the inning and was bailed out by Springer running into an out.

After a mound visit, he struck out Bichette, but he gave up a hit before getting a visit from the training staff. He did stay in the game to get Cavan Biggio, but then was pulled from the game with a back issue. The Royals are pretty confident that he’ll make his start and they were very quick to call it precautionary, but I found it really interesting how annoyed he seemed when he was talking to Mike Matheny on the bench after that third inning. I don’t know if that’s anything to watch for or not, but I found it interesting at least.

And really from there, the game didn’t have much intrigue. Josh Staumont struggled a bit, but did see his velocity back with some upper-90s heat, so that was both unsettling and encouraging. Jake Brentz continued his struggles with three straight two-out walks that led to him getting pulled in favor of Richard Lovelady, who promptly walked the first batter he faced before getting a flyout to center. Tapia, Barlow and Ervin Santana kept the Blue Jays off the board in the sixth, seventh and eighth, but the offense was silent again.

Unlike Saturday’s game, I don’t think Jose Berrios was that good in his Blue Jays debut. The Royals had two on and one out in the first and didn’t score. They had two hits in the second, but a double play wiped out the first and they didn’t score. They had a runner on and one out in the third and didn’t score. They had a runner on and two outs in the fourth and didn’t score. Berrios had a good fourth and fifth, but they had two on and one out and then loaded the bases with two outs in the sixth and didn’t score.

It wasn’t until the top of the ninth that the Royals finally got on the board after 17 innings of nothing. Actually, it was 17.2 innings. It would have been even more perfect if it was with two strikes, but on a 2-1 pitch, Tim Mayza put a 94 MPH sinker down the middle. And Edward Olivares did what he was supposed to do.

To go back to the Soler trade, if Olivares get the playing time he should after what he did in AAA this season, it really won’t matter what Kalich does. It’s all about getting Olivares 200 plate appearances to see what he can do and if he can be a part of the future. He’s looked good in his most recent big league exposure, so hopefully he can continue that.

What’s Ahead

The Royals have a full week on the road after an off day today. They head to Chicago for three after taking three of four from them in Kansas City last week. They bounced back nicely to take two of three from the Indians and extend their division lead to nine games. The good news is that they’ll miss Lance Lynn again, but the bad news is that these games will have to be played on the road. Once again, they’re 4-21 in their last 25 road games, which is not good if you were curious.

After leaving Chicago, they head to St. Louis, who are on the fringe of the playoff race, 9.5 games out of first and 6.5 games out of the second wild card spot. Though they only have a couple teams to pass in each race. Still, they’re not an especially good team. They’re also not a bad team. They’re surprisingly 26-26 in St. Louis all time, which is surprising because they’re 23-42 at home against the Cardinals. But again, it’s three road games, so it’s kind of hard to expect much, but at least we’re getting to see mostly young starting pitching, which is better than watching guys who have no future in the organization.