What A Comeback!

A dud of a game quickly became a 2021 classic.

The comeback started long before the comeback actually started. Okay, that’s both inaccurate and confusing, but the comeback was made possible much earlier than the eighth inning when Andrew Benintendi cracked a home run on his birthday in that eighth inning. It started when Kris Bubic left the game and Carlos Hernandez entered. I just wanted to get that out of the way before we start talking about the fun that was the meat of it all.

We can’t start one of these without looking at the fun win probability chart:

Oh that’s a good one.

With the score 6-1 heading into the bottom of the eight, David Bell turned to one of his struggling relievers, Cionel Perez, he of some absolutely terrible control. Even teams in contention are trying to figure out what they have, and it’s obvious to see that the stuff is there for Perez, so Bell naturally wanted to get him some work in a one-sided game. He even struck out the first batter, Hanser Alberto, though the ball got away from Tyler Stephenson so Alberto reached first. After a popup from Nicky Lopez and a strikeout of Whit Merrifield, Benintendi stepped to the plate and gave himself a birthday present.

The score was 6-3, and while it still seemed like an inevitable loss, there was at least something encouraging. A walk and two strikeouts from Josh Staumont led to Richard Lovelady getting the ball to hopefully get an out to wipe away the stink from his last outing, and he got it. So to the bottom of the ninth we go.

Nobody on, nobody out. 6-3 Reds.

Ryan O’Hearn started things, and if you look at his final line for the game, 1 for 3 with a single and a walk, but he really did have a nice game. His single was smoked at 105.9 MPH the other way. His two flyouts the other way against Luis Castillo, who was outstanding, were struck well. It was a good approach and so-so results. I’ll take that. But in this plate appearance against Brad Brach, he was locked in and wasn’t going to chase something he wasn’t supposed to.

Runner on first, nobody out. 6-3 Reds.

Hunter Dozier had been hitting a bit better lately, but still just doesn’t look good at the plate. I’ve mentioned it before, but he has to be fighting things mentally more than anything. He had a good plan against Brach. I believe the television broadcast is far too into the opposite field approach, but against a guy like Brach, they’re absolutely right. And Dozier was trying to go the other way. He stayed alive just long enough to get hit in a spot that I wouldn’t be surprised if it lands him on the IL, but he got on base.

Runners on first and second, nobody out. 6-3 Reds.

Michael A. Taylor had homered earlier, but hit into an inning-ending double play in the second on a ball he absolutely smoked at 107.1 MPH. His other out was also a hard hit ball, so he was clearly seeing the ball well. On a changeup just in off the plate, Taylor turned on the ball and hit it hard, but right to Eugenio Suarez. Maybe Mike Moustakas being in the park brought some residual #RoyalsDevilMagic, but the ball went right through his legs and O’Hearn came around to score.

Runners on second and third, nobody out. 6-4 Reds.

Mike Matheny went for the win. He sent up Jorge Soler to the plate in place of Hanser Alberto. Okay, so maybe that’s not going for the win in 2021, but maybe he was hopeful that ringing double in the sixth could be repeated to get both runs in. Instead, what followed was one of the least prepared and worst at bats you’ll see. Soler swung at a pitch outside the zone, took one that was even too far outside to swing at, took a strike and then swung and missed at another slider.

Runners on second and third, one out. 6-4 Reds.

Up came Nicky Lopez, who had been the subject of lots of praise for his quality play. He had a lackluster at bat his last time up against Perez but has been so good recently. The first pitch from Heath Hembree was a touch low but was called a strike. The next pitch was a touch lower and was called a ball. Then a pitch on the inner edge was pretty much in the perfect spot for Lopez to do what he’s done so well over the last few weeks. And he even got to third with some heads-up base running.

Runner on third, one out. 6-6 tie.

The Reds brought in a fifth infielder with Whit Merrifield to the plate. I honestly don’t know why they’d pitch to him, but they did at least throw four pitches to him. Each one got further and further away from the plate. I still don’t know why they didn’t just put him on.

Runners on first and third, one out. 6-6 tie.

Amir Garrett came out of the bullpen to face the birthday boy, Benintendi. Garrett’s had a tough season, but he’s much tougher on lefties than righties and in spite of the home run against Perez, Benentendi is much tougher on righties than lefties. After Merrifield took second on defensive indifference to end the double play possibility, Benintendi couldn’t even make contact, striking out on a pretty nasty slider on the seventh pitch.

Runners on second and third, two outs. 6-6 tie.

And here’s Salvador Perez. He got three sliders. The first was in the zone and he missed it. The second was just below the zone and he took it. The third was even lower, but that’s never really been an issue for Salvy.

Game over. Royals win 7-6.

That was crazy. Since the Royals led 13-0 after two innings against the Twins on June 4, they had played 29 games and won six of them. They’d scored four runs in a game in just 12 of those games. They’d scored four in an inning just twice since that game. To say this was an unlikely outcome would be an understatement, but it happened and the Royals found themselves on the winning side of the ledger for just the seventh time in 30 games.

And they don’t get there without Hernandez, who was electric. After Kris Bubic struggled yet again, Hernandez came on in the fifth inning with two men on and just one out with the score already 5-0 Reds. He got Suarez out on a fly ball to O’Hearn and then Aquino on another one to O’Hearn. And that’s when he got nasty.

In the sixth, he struck out Tyler Naquin on a 99.8 MPH sinker at the top of the zone. What is someone supposed to do with this?

Then after a double, he painted the black at 97.4 to get Shogo Akiyama looking. And even when he gave up a run in the seventh, he looked awfully good doing it, with strikeouts of Joey Votto and Aquino. And just when I thought he was done pitching for the day, he struck out Naquin again, this time with a nasty changeup.

And then got Farmer with a truly disgusting slider.

It was probably the best performance of his career. He didn’t walk anyone and struck out six in his 3.2 innings of work. His sinker averaged 98.8 MPH. His slider got five swings and misses on nine total swings. It was really, really fun to watch him work. And without what he did, the comeback that we saw from the offense in the ninth never would have been possible. It’s not as much fun as watching him pitch, but these are some fun numbers:

I mentioned this on Twitter, but he should absolutely get the start against the Indians on Sunday in the last game before the break. Since coming back from AAA, he’s pitched in eight games and gone 14 innings with 11 hits allowed. He’s struck out 19 and walked seven, which is a little too much, but when you strike out that many, you can live with it. I don’t know how much of it is sustainable because he does have that long arm swing that can mess with command, but when he’s good, he’s awfully fun to watch.

It’s just one game and it doesn’t change much of anything, but it sure is nice to see that fight that we saw early in the year and see them come out on top. As they say, it’s nice to win one every once in awhile.