Weekend in Review: Ugly Losses, Manager Complaints and More

The road trip was off to a promising start, but the Royals had a rough weekend against a team they're better than.

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If you don’t believe momentum is a thing in baseball, this weekend series the Royals played against the White Sox probably affirmed that belief. The Royals had just gone to St. Louis and took two of three and probably should have won all three. They were headed to Chicago to face a team they went 12-1 against last year and swept a four-game set from in Kansas City earlier this season. You absolutely were expecting a series win and many were saying that a sweep was likely. Except it wasn’t. The White Sox got a bit of a boost from their top hitting prospect coming to the big leagues and looked, quite honestly, like the better team.

I do think there will come a time when the White Sox are no longer a punching bag. Maybe that time has come. Before the Royals came to town, they split a four-game set with the Tigers, who have the best record in baseball. I don’t say that to downplay how poorly the Royals played in the first two games of the series, but to show that the White Sox may have the record of one of the worst teams around, but I don’t think they’re playing like that. In fact, they’re 12-16 now since the Royals swept them. No, that is not good. It’s a 69-win pace. But if you know anything about baseball, you know that a merely bad team can beat a good team in any given series. It’s the historically awful that you can kick around.

So maybe over the last week, the White Sox have shown that you can’t come to town expecting a series win or a sweep. Good for them, bad for the Royals. The White Sox are doing some nice things with their pitching, led at the top by Brian Bannister. They’ve got some really impressive pitching prospects coming. Yeah, it might be over. They aren’t going to make a run to win the division or anything, but teams will just have to settle for going 8-5 or 9-4 against them for now and find those three or four wins elsewhere.

Free Tickets

I’m making this its own section and bolding it because tomorrow morning is when I’m giving away those tickets to see Alex Gordon get inducted into the Royals Hall of Fame on Friday night. Make sure you’re a paid subscriber now so you’re eligible when I randomly select two winners. Don’t forget that I’ve got two sets of two tickets and both come with parking!

The Games

Friday - White Sox 7, Royals 2: The Ugliest Game of the Year

Let’s start this off by saying that Seth Lugo was…fine. That’s a huge improvement over his first start back, which I think we can all agree should have been a rehab start and not in the big leagues. He went five innings and gave up two runs on five hits with five strikeouts and two walks. I thought his command was still iffy, but certainly better. He got almost all his pitches in the mix, throwing nine of them, but just four at least 10 percent of the time.

His fastball velocity was still down a touch. In fact, velocity and movement was still all over the place. In some ways, I think that’s to be expected, but also he wasn’t out that long, so I find it sort of interesting. He also didn’t get many whiffs at all with just six. It was one each on his sinker, curve, slider, cutter, slurve and slow curve. His sweeper was only hit once, but it was hit hard. He didn’t get much chase at all, which is something I’ve noticed from the White Sox now in seven games against them. They seem to do a decent job of staying within the zone. And with Lugo, they ultimately made good contact against him, averaging 97.3 MPH on the exit velocity with 10 hard-hit balls.

The Royals offense consisted of about two minutes of action. It started with Maikel Garcia in the third.

And continued on the next batter, Vinnie Pasquantino.

And then they didn’t score again. But it isn’t because they didn’t have opportunities. Drew Waters singled in the fourth with one out and was caught stealing. That’s a familiar story. Waters singled again in the seventh but didn’t move up. But the big story was the eighth inning.

It started with a Jonathan India walk and then Bobby Witt Jr. singled to center. With two on and nobody out, the Royals were sending Garcia to the plate. The White Sox brought their corners in, expecting a bunt. I was surprised because I didn’t think Garcia would be bunting here. But he squared on each of the first two pitches and missed them. Maybe it was a decoy. Then on the 2-0 pitch, he bunted right back to the mound. The White Sox got the lead runner, so it was a wasted bunt.

The very next batter was Pasquantino, who scalded a ball to second and Josh Rojas made a really nice play to snag it and get the force. Then Salvador Perez popped out to end the inning. What a disaster. I’ll get into some managerial things down below (please read it, it’s important to me), but I didn’t like the bunt there. I’ll say that a million times. Let your three-hitter swing away, especially when he’s hitting as well as he has been. I’ll get into it more below, but I at least understand the reasoning. It’s late and you have a chance to turn it over to the late-inning guys and snag a win. Fact is that Garcia didn’t execute.

The biggest problem is the Royals had their worst half-inning in two years in the bottom half. It started with a dobule and a groundout, but then two straight walks and a single made it 4-2 White Sox. The Royals got a forceout to get to two outs and then it all fell apart. First, it was another walk to load the bases. Then it was a wild pitch. Then an error by Garcia. Then an error on a pickoff attempt. Almost before you could blink, it was 7-2 and this one was over. Defeat snatched from the jaws of victory.

Saturday - White Sox 4, Royals 1: Missed Opportunities…Again

This one was just as frustrating, but in a different way. The Royals got on the board early again with another solo home run.

But, once again, it was the last time they’d cross the plate. And once again, it wasn’t for lack of opportunities. They had a leadoff single in the third and India hit into a double play to wipe that away. In the sixth, they got a leadoff single from Witt and Garcia hit into a double play. In the seventh, Nick Loftin had a one-out single and never got to second. In the eighth, they had two on with two out. They obviously didn’t score. They had a two-out walk in the ninth and, again, didn’t score.

I left out the fourth. It’s the big inning in this one. It started with a Garcia single and then continued with a Pasquantino single. They advanced immediately on a wild pitch. So now the Royals had second and third and nobody out for Perez, Jac Caglianone and Waters. Surely they’d get one, right? Right?!?!

WRONG.

I can’t even begin to tell you how upset I was with Perez in this at bat. He fouled off two pitches that were down the middle. Adrian Houser deserves some credit for changing speeds, I suppose, but they’re hittable pitches. I’ll put the chart up in a second. Then he took a fastball up that was designed to get a chase. Then he took a sldier away and I felt like maybe he was seeing the ball well. But the final pitch was a changeup that was never a strike and then became even less of a strike.

The problem I have with the last swing is that it’s not even understandable. Houser doesn’t have a pitch that would start below the zone and stay hittable. I suppose maybe his fastball could be fouled off, but, again, it was NEVER A STRIKE.

Next up was Caglianone, who finally had a hit fall in his first time up. This was the moment for him. Nope.

He correctly took the first and third pitches, but that second pitch, an 82.1 MPH curve, was ripe for the crushing. The fourth pitch, a 95.6 MPH fastball down the middle, was ripe for the crushing. And the fifth pitch, a 96.2 MPH fastball, was ripe for the crushing. He fouled the first two off and dribbled back to the mound on the third.

Then Waters had an okay at bat.

He took the first pitch correctly. He fouled off the second, third and fourth. He could have taken the third, but Houser has a good curve. I get it. He took the fifth and sixth. They were easy takes, but it was still right. And then Houser came with a sinker above the zone that was called strike three. If Waters could tap the helmet, he’d have been on first and who knows what would have happened? But he couldn’t, so he wasn’t, and that was that.

Michael Wacha was…fine? He gave up a couple of home runs early when it felt like his command wasn’t great, but he really settled in. The offense was the main culprit and the fourth inning in particular.

Sunday - Royals 7, White Sox 5: J4c C4gli4anone’s Big Day

Boy, this was one seemed dire early. Michael Lorenzen, fresh off two straight really bad starts, walked the leadoff hitter and then gave up a home run to the number four hitter. It was 2-0 before he broke a sweat. Okay, that’s not true because he sweats a lot, but you know what I mean. After that, in the final 5.1 innings he pitched, Lorenzen gave up one walk. That’s it. It was a pretty incredible outing for a guy who might have been pitching for his rotation life.

His pitch mix was interesting to me. Here is his pitch distribution before the game for the season:

And here is what he did yesterday:

Was this a point to do what’s working or was this a change in philosophy? He backed off his fastball massively and went to his changeup, which is his best pitch way more. He also essentially stopped throwing his sinker, which he’d thrown quite a bit this year. He went to the slider way more. I’d love to know the why behind the change. But the changeup was outstanding with a 46 percent whiff rate. The slider was good. the fastball even played better. The White Sox didn’t put a single one in play. Whatever it was, it worked.

The spark the offense needed came from the captain, who I railed on pretty hard on Saturday. You might remember that date so long ago when he struck out four times and ended four different innings. In his first plate appearance he walked. In his second, he did a little more than that.

Yeah, that’ll work. Even on a couple of his home runs this year, they haven’t looked like vintage Salvy. This one did. Is he about to get hot? Was this an aberration? I wish I could tell you the answer to that, but the Royals needed this one in a big way and he delivered.

Even though they ended up scoring seven, it was kind of frustrating still until the seventh. Even in the fourth after the Perez home run, they had two on with two outs and Kyle Isbel struck out to end the inning. In the fifth, they had India and Witt on first and second with nobody out for Garcia in a 2-2 game. Sound familiar? He didn’t bunt this time and hit into a double play. Now, the reason he didn’t bunt wasn’t because any philosophy changed, but the fifth inning isn’t the same as the eighth. Still, a disappointing result.

But in the seventh, they broke through. Mark Canha pinch hit and singled. Isbel moved him up to second and he was pinch run for by Waters. India doubled him home and then Garcia, with two outs, got India home. Those are two huge hits for a team that hadn’t had a single hit with a runner in scoring position all series. In the eighth, they had a runner on first with one out and hit into another double play, their fourth of the game.

The top of the ninth was the good stuff. Waters walked and stole second. Isbel grounded out to second, but it moved Waters up to third. Then India had another big hit to score Waters before Witt came up and put a vintage Witt swing on a ball.

That was smoked too. The Royals got home runs from Witt, Garcia, Pasquantino and Perez in this series. If those four can start doing that regularly, I don’t think scoring will be a big problem even if the hitting with RISP doesn’t get better. I also think that if Caglianone gets going in a big way, it’ll be more than fine too and he had a four-hit game yesterday, which was amazing to see. This double was smoked.

That is 113.6 MPH off the bat. As a team, the Royals have hit 32 balls at 110 MPH or harder. Caglianone now has four of them, which is third-most on the team. He’s seen 72 pitches. Pasquantino also has four and he’s seen 1,004 pitches. Perez has nine and he’s seen 925 pitches. Witt has 12 and he’s seen 1,051 pitches. Prior to this game, Caglianone had gone 0 for 9 on hard-hit balls and 0 for 6 on balls hits 104 MPH or harder. League average on hard-hit balls coming into play yesterday was .474 with a. .911 SLG. League average on balls hit 104+ MPH was .637 with a 1.377 SLG. This sort of game was bound to happen.

Okay, now on to the ugly ninth inning. The Royals brought in Trevor Richards to protect a five-run lead. I’m going to say this right now. It was not the wrong call. I’m going to get to manager stuff so so so so so soon. But if you think bringing in Carlos Estevez was the obvious right answer because of how important this game was to win, you’re wrong. I’m not saying they couldn’t have brought him in, but any pitcher in the big leagues should be able to get three outs before they give up five runs. Take the L because you’re wrong that it was a stupid decision or anything like that.

The result was ugly. Richards walked the first batter. Then he almost retired the next two with very close calls on a couple of balls that were almost caught. But they weren’t, so he didn’t. I would have pulled him here, but up 7-2, the batter was not the tying run, so he was left in. I get it. I didn’t like it, but I get it. Well, he walked that batter and his day was over. They needed to get to Estevez anyway. So, sure, with the magical power of hindsight, they should have gone to Estevez to start the inning, but, again, if you think that was the only choice, you are wrong.

Estevez put a changeup in a bad spot to Edgar Quero and he lined it to right field for a single to score one more. The bases were still loaded, but the tying run was on first now. Then on a 1-2 pitch, Austin Slater didn’t hit it that hard, but put it in what seemed like a great spot, but Witt had other ideas.

This is a silly good play and the second time he’s done this on the trip. It makes it a little more incredible because he was the DH to start the game, so he wasn’t even prepped to play shortstop that day. Pretty amazing for the guy who I think is the best all-around player in baseball.

Luis Robert Jr. hit a very soft ground ball that was too soft for a double play, but did record the second out even though he represented the tying run, still on first. Then Estevez walked Rojas to put the tying run in scoring position and the winning run on first. Estevez got it back together for Tim Elko. He made a mistake on the first pitch, but Elko missed it. This is where velocity is so important. If he was throwing 93-94 like he was early in the year, maybe this game is a White Sox win, but at 96.7 MPH, Elko fouled it off. Then he took a slider up, fouled off a slider in on the inner edge and swung through 96.9 MPH above the zone for a stressful Royals win.

Now please read what’s next.

Managerial Criticism is Going WAY Too Far

This really started on Thursday after the first game of the doubleheader with the Cardinals when the Royals made the decision to pull Noah Cameron after six innings and 82 pitches. I wrote this on Thursday (yes, I get into managerial decisions quite a bit if you’re a paid subscriber on the day-to-day newsletters):

All of this is to say that there was a lot of consternation over pulling Cameron after six innings when he’d thrown just 82 pitches, but I get it. It’s easy to say it was the wrong move because the bullpen gave up the lead, but you all know I’m a big process over results guy because the hindsight results guy is just kind of annoying. And the reality is that the Cardinals were about to send up the middle of their order, which is righty Willson Contreras, righty Ivan Herrera and righty Nolan Arenado. Cameron can handle righties, and he probably still had some gas in the tank, but I think it’s fair to note a couple of things.

He wasn’t getting by with the weak contact we’ve seen in other starts. I showed you the hard-hit rate. I also mentioned how recently he faced the Cardinals. So in this game, he would have been facing those three hitters for the third time in the game. But he also faced them twice in Kansas City (and was pulled for these same three hitters in that game as well), which means it would have been their fifth look at him in a short time. I think some of that is probably not all that important, but if the gameplan was to take him out for those three last start, there’s no reason it wouldn’t be in this start.

Then Friday, the decision to bunt in the eighth inning with Garcia was one that had everyone up in arms. I try to stay away from the manager discourse on social media, mostly because I think there’s a considerable amount of nuance that goes into those discussions and a limited number of characters simply doesn’t allow for the conversation to be properly had. I try to save the deeper thoughts for this space, but that upset some people because I didn’t call for Matt Quatraro to be fired or maybe executed in front of an audience. I’m honestly not sure what people wanted.

Then yesterday, whoa boy, did it get loud and for an even sillier reason. I wrote about it above. You know what happened in the ninth. The Royals brought on Richards to protect a five-run lead and he couldn’t get an out. He faced four batters, and I’ll agree that I would have had Richards out after the minimum three batters, but I also understand the rationale that he would be in until the tying run came to the plate. Somehow, the fact that Richards was in the game and not Estevez became another referendum on the manager.

I won’t get into what was said because I’d really prefer not to make fun of people who have difficulty with the tough task of using their brain, but every team puts in a mopup reliever in that spot. Many mentioned today’s off day as a reason to go with Estevez. I’d argue it’s a bigger reason to stay away. Yesterday was the first time all year he came into a game when the margin was more than three runs and he did it up by four but with the tying run at the plate. Every pitch he’s thrown has been stressful. And I’ll agree with a lot of the responses I got, which was that if he had pitched and then wasn’t available (I don’t know why that would be the case, but play along) on Tuesday, people would have complained that they used him with a five-run lead.

I am not here to pretend that managers and general managers and owners don’t deserve criticism or critique or whatever you want to call it. They do. And even the best will make a mistake. I didn’t like the bunt on Friday night. What I appreciate, and I’ve said this roughly 12,000 times, is when I can at least understand the rationale. Gone are the days of a manager sticking their hand in their pants, sniffing it and then making a decision based on the smell. Every move has a reason behind it. It’s process over results 100 times out of 100, and I like that.

The bunt on Friday was because the Royals had runners on first and second with nobody out. Garcia has bunted quite a bit in his career. He’s gotten two sacrifice bunts down this year and 17 in his career. In a 2-2 game late, the Royals felt that runners on second and third and one out with Pasquantino at the plate was the situation they wanted. I’ll preface what I’m about to say with the fact that we can’t know what would have happened next, but if Pasquantino hits that 104.9 MPH rocket with a runner on third, the infield is in and it scores two runs. Garcia didn’t execute.

And that’s what it comes down to. The players aren’t executing enough. If Garcia gets that bunt down and the Royals win, I’ll bet at least half of the people upset about it wouldn’t even give it a second thought. I saw a lot of comments about how unlikely it is he’d have hit into a double play given his season. He hit into one on Saturday and one yesterday, though. He may or may not have on Friday, but the bunt was designed to ensure that two players, both with speed, were in scoring position for one of the hottest hitters in baseball. I get it. Again, the player didn’t execute.

Just like the relievers didn’t execute on Thursday and like nobody on the field executed on Friday night and like the players didn’t execute in big situations on Saturday. The manager’s job is to put the players in the best spots to succeed and I think something like 98 times out of 100, Quatraro does that. Once he’s done that, it’s on the players. I won’t always agree with it, but I’ll never get upset over a decision if there’s logic behind it and I honestly can’t remember a single decision he’s made that didn’t have logic behind it, no matter what FirstnameBunchofnumbers or one of the 126,000 burner accounts will tell you.

The other side of all of this is the idea that one man is making these decisions. Everyone loves what Brian Sweeney and Zach Bove do for this pitching staff. Do you really think they’re not in on the pitching decisions? I mean, come on, use your brain. Something Quatraro does extremely well that Ned Yost did extremely well eventually was to utilize his staff.

He’s not marching up and down that dugout making decisions for no reason without either buy-in from his staff or from full-on recommendation from that staff. Paul Hoover and Vance Wilson and others and many from the front office have situations decided long before the game even starts. You want them to go by feel? That’s fine. Find a game from 1987 on YouTube. I’ll take the group that uses every bit of information they have and lives or dies by that because it’ll get you where you want to go far more often than not.

And, for all that is holy, complain about it to someone else on social media.

Player of the Week

In a week where the Royals hit .309/.351/.455 as a team with 10 home runs and scored 5.3 runs per game, there ought to be a few candidates here. Witt hasn’t really been on this list for awhile as he’s been just sort of meandering along, but he hit .360/.429/.600 this week with a couple of home runs. That’s really good. But not good enough. India hit .346/.357/.500. It’s good to see him heating up, but it’s not enough. Nope, the best on the team this week was Pasquantino, who hit .500/.536/.692 with a couple of home runs of his own. The slow starts is entirely in his rear view mirror now.

The Week Ahead

The Royals are off today, as they were last Monday and will be for the next two more after this one, but when they get home, they’ll be greeted by the first place New York Yankees, who have gotten hit hard the last couple of games by the Boston Red Sox. They gave up 11 runs last night, 10 runs on Saturday and six on Friday actually. They won the first, but lost the final two, so they’re not in great shape on the pitching side, especially with Luke Weaver sidelined for a bit. The pitching matchups for this series are:

• Tuesday: LHP Noah Cameron vs. LHP Max Fried

• Wednesday: LHP Kris Bubic vs. RHP Clarke Schmidt

• Thursday: RHP Seth Lugo vs. RHP Will Warren

I’ll have a full preview up on the YouTube channel tomorrow at some point and if I write anything tomorrow, I’ll put it in here. One thing I’ll say is that the Yankees are extremely tough on left-handed pitching, so it’ll be a very real test for Cameron and Bubic.

After the Yankees leave, the nomadic Athletics come to town. They’ve been in freefall after starting the season looking like they might be fringe contenders. They can hit, but their pitching has been a problem for them. Some of that is their minor league ballpark, but some of that is they’ve just struggled. This is going to be a fun series with Alex Gordon getting inducted into the Royals Hall of Fame on Friday, so you won’t want to miss out on that.