White Knuckling

The Royals latest win was never in doubt, but also kind of always in doubt.

There is no reason in the world why I’d be watching a mid-afternoon game on a Wednesday of a 13-31 team and find myself stressed out, but that’s exactly what happened yesterday. On paper, it was a huge mismatch on the mound. It does sure seem that the Royals go with their opener games against opposing teams aces, doesn’t it? But either way, it was Carlos Hernandez & Co. against Yu Darvish. I actually had a nice parlay put together on DraftKings that I just forgot to submit, and I’m thankful for my forgetfulness because just about everything was betting against the Royals and, if we’re being honest, betting against them to lose kind of big.

Baseball, of course, can’t be predicted. Any team can win on any given day even though it might seem like that hasn’t been the case for the Royals this season. And what we were treated to yesterday was not exactly a good game, but it was very competitive and one that had me captivated pretty much from start to finish. That’s an accomplishment for a bad team. I don’t know how great of an accomplishment, but it’s an accomplishment nonetheless. There are three things I want to touch on from this one because I think they were all three quite noteworthy for this club. I don’t know what the right order is to talk about them, so I’m just going to go chronologically.

Carlos Hernandez Looked Filthy

The Royals have shuffled Hernandez between the rotation and the bullpen over the last few seasons, but went into this season with him as a member of the bullpen. He revamped his fastball a bit and has generally looked like the pitcher we thought he could be out of the bullpen. Of course, getting a “start” gives people some ideas about the future with him, especially with the dire situation in the rotation. I’m going to tell you that I don’t think there’s a lot of discussion about him returning to starting. It’s not about the ability. It’s about the time off between starts. Some guys just need the uncertainty of relief from a mental standpoint. That can change in the future, but I wouldn’t bet on it just yet.

But boy can you start to dream about it in a two-inning stint. He threw 33 pitches and 23 strikes. He had seven swings and misses, including four on a four-seam fastball that averaged just under 99 MPH. He threw six splitters, got three swings and none made contact. The Padres don’t swing much and they couldn’t lay off the splitter. It was just nasty.

For the year, Hernandez now has a 4.09 ERA with a 3.62 FIP, but the numbers I’m intrigued by are the 30.1 percent strikeout rate and the 8.6 percent walk rate. When people look back on the Rays and the beginning of them using the opener, Ryne Stanek’s name comes up a lot. He was a guy who really benefited from the uncertainty of when he might pitch but also was helped quite a bit by actually starting games. I wonder a little bit if Hernandez might not be that guy. He’s fully transitioned into being a reliever, but he’s still got the starter in him, so maybe that extra prep time helps him.

He was a pitcher who had the stuff to strike hitters out, but his career strikeout rate coming into this season was just 17.7 percent. It’s hard to watch him now and understand how that was even possible. The work he and the coaching staff has put in has been noticeable. I don’t know if he’ll ever become the late-inning arm they have eyes on him becoming. He’s struggled in leverage situations this season, though that’s a pretty small sample. But I do know that they’ve got something and need to find a way to utilize him. You don’t think of someone like Daniel Lynch as a pitcher who could do well with an opener, but a Hernandez/Lynch combo could be pretty interesting every fifth day with Hernandez also working in relief other days.

The Offense’s Approach

You know that I’m loving what the offense is doing, even though they scored just nine runs in the three-game series in San Diego. And what they did against Darvish was something to admire. I thought Darvish looked truly nasty in the first inning. He mowed through Bobby Witt Jr., Vinnie Pasquantino and Salvador Perez on 11 pitches. In the second, he did give up a single to Maikel Garcia, but then got a quick double play. And through two, he’d thrown 20 pitches and looked fantastic. Then he went through the third with no issues. He’d faced the minimum.

The offense needed that one look because they changed the way they approached the game against him. He’s still Darvish, so it wasn’t like he was suddenly easy to hit, but Witt had a great plate appearance, seeing six pitches before reaching on an infield single. I think Pasquantino had the right idea, but just misjudged the curve a little bit and ended up hitting a grounder that Witt beat the throw to second on, so his speed created that opportunity. Perez didn’t have a great plate appearance, but MJ Melendez did.

Darvish was clearly working him away after he saw Melendez put a pretty good swing on a slider on the inner-third. And with two strikes, Darvish tried a splitter away, but Melendez just used his plate coverage skills to hit a ball hard that was off the plate.

It was kind of Salvy-esque, though I think Salvy would have hit it out of the park because he’s that ridiculous. But even so, it was an RBI double to give the Royals a lead.

In the fifth, nothing happened, but I just really liked the way the hitters were seeing pitches against him. Nick Pratto worked a walk when Darvish threw him six straight sliders. He spit on some excellent ones. Michael Massey got caught in Darvish’s blender on a called third strike right down the middle because he was looking for anything but a fastball, but he worked a seven-pitch at bat. Then Nate Eaton worked him for six pitches. In the fourth and fifth, they saw a total of 43 pitches after seeing 32 in the first three. And that set up what good offenses do.

Even though they’d only scored one through the first five, their work the second time through the order allowed them to break through the third time through. Heading into yesterday, Darvish with his deep arsenal of pitches had been great the third time through the order, allowing just a .214/.239/.262 line. He started Witt in the sixth with six sweepers in a row. Amazingly, Witt swung at the two in the zone and couldn’t do anything with them, but took all four of the zone. And that set up Pasquantino.

He finally got a pitch he could drive and he ended his homerless and lack of extra base hit streak on one swing that gave the Royals a 3-1 lead. With one out, Melendez continued to work left field against Darvish as Darvish continued to work him away. He got a double off the wall that was way closer to a home run than I realized. And then Garcia, who had been slumping, took a pitch up the middle and ended up with a double.

I’d like to see Garcia drive this pitch actually, but between this and his second inning single, he clearly had an approach to stay in the middle of the field against Darvish to guard against all his pitches. And that was it for Darvish. He started with three innings of one-hit baseball and threw just 32 pitches to being removed from the game having thrown 5.1 innings and giving up four runs on 90 pitches. That was a great in-game adjustment and outstanding approach from a Royals offense that has shown a lot more of that over the last few weeks.

Houdini Act

None of it would have mattered, of course, if the Royals didn’t get out of jam after jam after jam. Hernandez was great, but as soon as he left, it was just trouble for the next five innings. Mike Mayers, just called up from Omaha to replace Amir Garrett on the roster (thoughts to Garrett as he’s on the family medical emergency list), was going to be the “bulk” guy in this one. He wasn’t what you’d call “good” in Omaha, so I’m a little confused by him getting the call, but he did and here he was on the mound.

He walked two in a row with one out before getting a double play grounder from Fernando Tatis Jr. to end the inning. That was tame compared to what was coming.

In the fourth, he struck out Juan Soto looking, but then immediately put himself into trouble again. He gave up a single to Matt Carpenter, walked Ha-Seong Kim, threw a wild pitch and then walked Rougned Odor. The bases were loaded and Brian Sweeney made a visit to the mound. Then he put Trent Grishman through hell. After all the walks, Grisham was always likely to take the first pitch. Grisham only swings at 25.9 percent of first pitches anyway. So Mayers threw one down the middle and got a free strike one. Then he threw a cutter in on his hands that Grisham fouled off and then got him with a good fastball right down the middle. That was two outs.It took a little longer to get Austin Nola, but he ended up getting him as well on a fastball to end the inning.

He didn’t escape the trouble in the fifth when he allowed a solo homer to Jake Cronenworth, so that one goes down as a win for the Padres, but the sixth against Josh Taylor, who finished the fifth was an important inning. Remember that the Royals had just scored three. Taylor immediately walked Carpenter and then gave up a single to Kim. That’s when the mental errors started. Odor hit a grounder to the right side that Pratto dove for and deflected to Massey. There would have been a play at first, but Taylor stopped going over there to cover. Then Taylor balked with the bases loaded before he got Grisham to strike out.

That was the end of the day for Taylor, who was replaced by Jose Cuas. He got the pinch hitter Brett Sullivan swinging and got a weak grounder from Xander Bogaerts that Witt and Massey just didn’t communicate on and it was a hit that scored the Padres third run. After a walk to Cronenworth (which I actually didn’t hate in a vacuum but didn’t love getting Tatis up with the bases loaded), Tatis popped out and that was that. It was bad, but it could have been way worse.

The seventh, though, was the piece de resistance. Aroldis Chapman came on. He pitched on Tuesday too and you all know how he’s done on the second half off back-to-backs this year. He walked Soto to start the inning. He did thoroughly dominate Nelson Cruz, which was nice. But he walked Kim and Odor to load the bases (you seeing a theme here?). He then struck out Grisham (okay, this is a very real theme) and that’s when the craziness happened. Sullivan is a lefty who came on to pinch hit for Nola against Cuas, but now he was forced to stand in against Chapman. He can’t hit. Throw the guy strikes! After one down and away, Chapman missed horribly, but it worked in the Royals favor.

That might be some bona fide #RoyalsDevilMagic right there. I mean what a bounce. If you’re scoring at home, the Padres loaded the bases in the fourth, sixth and seventh and scored two runs in those situations. One was on a balk and one was on a botched grounder that should have been the third out. The Padres left 12 on base in a game they lost by one. That’s some work done.

It was nice to see Taylor Clarke and Scott Barlow have easy innings in the eighth and ninth. They had to slice through the meat of the order, though Clarke got to start with Sullivan because of the play above. After absolute chaos, those two retired six of the seven hitters they faced and the Royals picked up their second series win in their last three series and their second road series win of the year. They’re now 8-5 against sub-.500 teams and get a day of today before heading to Chicago to play another bad team this weekend.