Weekend in Review: Minors Happenings, A Series Loss, Player of the Week and the Week Ahead

The Royals started the weekend with a bang, but ended with a bit of a whimper.

After the weekend started with a big and convincing win over one of the teams to beat in the American League, it felt like this could be a really fun Weekend in Review. In the end, it wasn’t what I had hoped it would be, but I do think the Royals showed they could play with one of the elite teams in baseball. Are they as good as the Orioles? I don’t think so and their 2-4 record against them shows that. But they’re a lot closer than I think anyone would have expected when talking about this club a month ago. It took an uncharacteristic pitching performance on Sunday for the run differential to go negative against a team that won 100 games last year and got better this winter.

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If that sounds like a moral victory, I guess maybe it is. You don’t get points for moral victories, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t important. The Royals need to refine some things, yes. They have holes on their roster. But they’re also good enough to play with anyone. To this point, they’ve shown that they’re good enough to win, but they haven’t shown the ability to actually win against these teams. They’re now 3-6 against teams currently above .500 and 9-3 against teams below .500. Does that mean anything? At this point, no, but it wouldn’t hurt them to beat a good team. And maybe when it’s all said and done, their sweep against the Astros will look better, but it certainly would feel nice to win a series against a good team. But don’t worry, their early schedule continues to give them those opportunities.

A Minor League Check-In

I have spent a lot of time talking with a handful of scouts who have seen some Royals minor league action this year. I’m kind of waiting to get a little more information to write something up with what they’ve been seeing and saying, but I’m really encouraged by the reports I’ve gotten so far and the numbers are backing it up. Take a look at what each affiliate has done on the whole:

• Omaha: 12-9, +25 run differential (third-best in International League)

• Northwest Arkansas: 7-8, -3 run differential

• Quad Cities: 11-4, +21 run differential (best in Midwest League, fourth-best in all of high-A)

• Columbia: 9-5, +34 run differential (best in Carolina League, third-best in all of low-A)

When your worst affiliate is a game under .500, there is success happening. At Omaha, Anne Rogers wrote about the untapped depth, and it really is great there. Drew Waters is hitting very well, and even though he had to be pulled for some sort of disciplinary issue it seems, he’s been solid on the field. His strikeout rate was a problem a few days ago, but it’s down to 22.3 percent and his 11.0 percent walk rate works. Tyler Gentry is off to a very slow start, but Nate Eaton has been really good and there’s something that remains interesting about CJ Alexander. I don’t think he can be a long-term answer ever because he is pretty one-note, but he’s nice to have in AAA in an emergency. Devin Mann and Cam Devanney have also looked good.

On the mound, Daniel Lynch IV has been incredibly disappointing and might be approaching throw-in status in a trade or worse. John McMillon has been horrible and can’t throw strikes. Will Klein has struggled with control, but he’s also not allowed an earned run in 10 innings. Jonathan Bowlan may have put himself back on the radar as a starting option with his start to the season too. I’ll give a quick preview of what I’ve heard from scouts and they think he’s back to like 90 percent of what he was before Tommy John when people told me he was the best pitching prospect they had.

I’m not going to go as deep in the other levels, but I’ll give some highlights.

• Gavin Cross was looking really good before he got hurt diving back to a base. He hasn’t been good in his first couple of games back, but I’ve heard from multiple people that he’s back on track.

• Cayden Wallace has had a slow start, but the swing still looks good. It just seems like timing is a bit off to start the year.

• Mason Barnett has been fantastic and might be in AAA sooner than later.

• Noah Cameron too.

• Chandler Champlain had a terrible first start, but he’s been back on track in his last two outings. One scout told me that the Royals might be best served shifting him to the bullpen though.

• Oh and Beck Way might need to be in the big league bullpen soon. He’s only walked one in 8.1 innings.

• Quad Cities is the most talented team in the system. Carter Jensen and Carson Roccaforte could easily be in AA soon.

• Spencer Nivens has shown the potential, but hasn’t looked very good and Trevor Werner looks like a different guy than last year. Still early yet, but not encouraging for him based on what I’m told.

• The pitching staff has been super encouraging. Frank Mozzicato has started about as well as you’d hope with 12 strikeouts, two walks and just two hits allowed in nine innings. Ben Kudrna has been even better and if not for Blake Wolters would be the best pitching prospect they have (though I think I’d personally take Barnett over him). And Hunter Owen is interesting. I have a scout buddy who is very excited to see him this week.

• From a scout, Derlin Figueroa is the real deal. The numbers aren’t great, but the guy can hit. Austin Charles looks good but still strikes out too much.

• Blake Mitchell is hitting .292/.469/.500, but the sample is so small that it’s hard not to look at trends. His first week was pretty rough with 13 strikeouts in 30 plate appearances. In the seven games since, he’s hit .458/.618/.833 with 10 walks and seven strikeouts in 34 plate appearances. He looks the part.

• And so does Wolters, who doesn’t have the numbers, but he looks like a guy who can hold velocity and movement late in games once he gets it all figured out.

The Games

Friday - Royals 9, Orioles 4

Nothing like home cooking for an offense, am I right? The Royals came home after a six-game road trip where they scored 20 runs total with 11 of them coming in one game. They came home to face Dean Kremer and looked like the slump was continuing until they put up five in the six and three in the seventh to run away and hide even with Will Smith doing his best to make us wish we had his namesake’s elector bio-mechanical neural transmitting zero synapse repositioner from Men in Black each time he pitches.

Early, the story for the Royals was Alec Marsh. He obviously won the fifth starter job in spring training with a really good spring. His first start against the Orioles was outstanding and then he was sort of meh for his next two. Specifically in his last start, he gave up three in the first inning against the Mets, but found something after that and gave up just one over the next four. That carried over into this start. I found it interesting that he was really dominating the Orioles with his four-seam fastball, at least the first time through the order.

He threw 35 pitches the first time through the order (eight outs with a little help I’ll get to) and 16 of them were four-seam fastballs. Of the 16, he got swings on nine of them and whiffs on seven. Marsh’s four-seamer is a bit of a mystery to me in general. The shape of it should theoretically be really good. Even with Friday’s success, it’s gotten hit with a .482 SLG allowed and .386 wOBA. The 25.3 percent whiff rate is fine enough, but it just sort of feels like it should maybe be better. A lot of is location, I think, so it was really nice to see the fastball play.

He got away from it the second time through the order, which was probably part of the plan. A pitcher with his repertoire has the ability to do that. He threw just 13 more four-seamers in his final 51 pitches and didn’t get any more whiffs on it. He was much more varied after the lineup had seen him once and he was obviously very successful, ending up going 5.2 innings with just three hits and two walks allowed to go with a season-high of six strikeouts.

His first inning was almost a disaster, though. Salvador Perez saved his bacon. He hit Gunnar Henderson on a 1-2 pitch and then gave up a single to Adley Rutschman. Ryan O’Hearn grounded out to advance both runners and on a 1-0 pitch to Anthony Santander, Salvy showed off his arm.

That, to me, is Perez knowing his pitcher needed that badly. It doesn’t always work, but Perez did everything he could to steal an out for Marsh, who has struggled in first innings in his career. I’m not going to get too deep into his defense here because these Weekend in Reviews get long, but his defense has been something we need to be discussing more. It’s been incredible this season.

Kremer was outstanding opposite Marsh to start the game. It felt like his cutter was doing things that Royals hitters weren’t expecting. I think to the bottom of the first and Vinnie Pasquantino had a 3-1 count. He had just taken a cutter for a ball that was really a strike but it was a bad call and I’m guessing he didn’t think Kremer would double up on it. It was kind of a fat pitch, but because the cutter maybe cut more than expected, he ended up popping up what looked like a very hittable 3-1 pitch.

Fast forward now to the bottom of the fourth inning and Kremer still hadn’t allowed a runner when Pasquantino came up again. I think Kremer made a big mistake in not going with the cutter again. Like Marsh with the four-seamer, he threw a bunch of cutters the first time through the order (18 out of 42). But then threw just 13 over his next 49 pitches. Again, maybe the cutter was the better option because, as the kids say, this splitter to Pasquantino ain’t it.

What a freaking tear Pasquantino is on. And like so many times at home this season, it was just a matter of time. The offense awakened in the sixth. Bobby Witt Jr. was pretty quiet, but drew a walk with one out. Pasquantino did the same. Perez flew out to left and it was up to MJ Melendez, who didn’t have a hit in his last 23 at bats. The Orioles brought in a lefty to face him. It wasn’t pretty, but he just rolled a ball through the right side for a hit. As Ryan Lefebvre mentioned on the broadcast before his next at bat, sometimes it just takes that one to make a guy a dangerous hitter. Anyway, that hit scored a run.

A Nelson Velazquez walk was followed by a welcome back moment for Michael Massey who also rolled one through the right side for two more RBIs. And Hunter Renfroe put the exclamation point on the inning with a ringing double to left-center to bring home two more.

Then Smith happened. On the bright side, he may have found some velocity. On the dark side, he found it while giving up three singles before Rutschman deposited a ball just over the left field wall for a grand slam. I don’t know what the answer is with Smith because they can’t just not pitch him if he’s on the roster. I guess that answers my question. He needs to not be on the roster right now. Expect that IL stint any day now.

But luckily for Smith, Melendez was back to being a dangerous hitter. Garcia finally broke his long hitless streak but then ran the bases like a crazy man (maybe he forgot how to do it) and ended up getting cut down at the plate. But with Pasquantino on second and Perez on first after a single, Melendez was up with some confidence.

That is a BLAST. And the rest of the game was handled by Nick Anderson and Matt Sauer to get the Royals a win to open the series. One last point about this game. Boy does it feel good for games to matter, no matter how early in the year. The emotion in the broadcast was palpable and we haven’t gotten to feel that for a long time.

Saturday - Orioles 9, Royals 7

Somewhere in the fourth or fifth, I figured I could get away with not writing much about this one. I’m not going to dwell on Cole Ragans, who got hit for really the first time with the Royals. It happens. He’ll need to make sure it doesn’t happen twice in a row but I just can’t get too worried about him. He wasn’t hit especially hard. They were just all over his changeup. That could be an issue with tipping or more likely a little bit of a good fortune. They were 5 for 6 against it with an average exit velocity of 79.7 MPH. You get that sort of batted ball data and you’ll generally be fine.

What’s interesting is the offense getting it done against Corbin Burnes and the Baltimore bullpen. Yes, it took some time and they didn’t complete the comeback, but this was a game that I think was a great representation of the Royals and their ability to not be out of any game. I thought the offense had a pretty solid plan against Burnes for the second-straight time they faced him.

Burnes has now pitched five games for the Orioles with two against the Royals. He has a strikeout rate of 14.6 percent in those two games. Against everyone else, it’s 25.3 percent. They have done a great job of putting bat on ball. It resulted in more hits against him the last time, but this time, it finally got to him in the sixth inning when he gave up a double to Garcia and walked Pasquantino ahead of Perez.

Do you know how many home runs have been hit by righty batters against righty pitchers on pitches in that spot at that velocity or more? In 2024, one, and it was Saturday night. Add in 2023 and it’s just six. There were quite a few in 2022, so it gets less impressive, but even so, it’s just 18 total if you include 2022. The point is that Perez is very strong.

The Royals would keep tacking on against the Orioles bullpen. There were some free baserunners and wild pitches in the seventh, but Yennier Cano got Nelson Velazquez to strike out with the bases loaded on a sinker that was dirty. And that was that. The Orioles also got a couple extra runs that they likely didn’t think they’d need but did and the comeback just couldn’t finish. As I said, though, the fact that it even happened would never have happened in 2023, so it was nice to see the fight.

Sunday - Orioles 5, Royals 0

This is the game that there isn’t much to say about. I was worried that Seth Lugo would have a game something like this, and here it is. After four starts that saw him post a 1.05 ERA, his inability to get the strikeout came back to bite him. He gave up his first two home runs of the year and the Royals couldn’t handle Cole Irvin, which does feel like something that would have happened in 2023.

On one hand, it sort of just felt like one of those games that you don’t worry much about. They didn’t chase much with just an 18 percent O-Swing%, but they just didn’t make good contact. Irvin filled up the zone and the Royals hit the ball, but he just seemed to be mixing his pitches well enough that they couldn’t do anything with them. So I sort of want to say that it was a lot of Irvin just pitching well. But there’s also the idea that the only hitters doing much of anything lately are Pasquantino, Perez and only recently Melendez, so that makes it tough to get anything going.

Ultimately, I guess we’ll see how that plays out because they were just shut out for the first time this season. They scored 16 runs in three games and were just -2 in run differential for the weekend. I don’t know. I think it feels like a blip, but time will tell.

Player of the Week

With the offense cold for much of the week, there aren’t a ton of great options here, but there are two. One is last week’s winner and the other is Perez. I’m tempted to go with Salvy and his 23.8 percent walk rate for the week (yes, he’s walked a lot). But ultimately, it’s not about the story here for this prestigious award and Pasquantino was a monster. He hit .368/.520/.842 with six walks and just one strikeout. He also homered twice. If Garcia and Witt could get on in front of him, he’d be rolling in the RBIs right now, but both are slumping. I can’t get over Pasquantino’s turnaround.

For the season, he is now how hitting .268/.376/.507. That’s a 152 wRC+. He has a swinging strike rate of a ridiculous 3.9 percent. It is less than two weeks ago that people were unironically suggesting sending him to AAA for Pratto and now he’s top-30 in the league in wRC+. And, not for nothing, but he’s playing outstanding first base defense, ranking as best in the American League in both DRS and OAA. The flip was pretty staggering for him this season.

The Week Ahead

The Royals will see the Blue Jays for the first time this season with four at home against them. It sort of feels like the Blue Jays should be better than they are, and they’re definitely good, but I don’t know. Something is just off about them. Maybe it’s that George Springer is showing his age a bit. Maybe it’s that Vladimir Guerrero Jr. just isn’t the hitter we all thought he’d be (though he can break out in any at bat). They’re just sort of, I don’t know, fine. Their pitching is good, though, even with Kevin Gausman struggling to start the year. They just feel like a team that could theoretically turn it on and win 10 in a row at any point. Or they could lose three of four easily. Here are the probables:

• Monday: Yusei Kikuchi vs. Brady Singer

• Tuesday: Kevin Gausman vs. Michael Wacha

• Wednesday: Yariel Rodriguez vs. Alec Marsh

• Thursday: Jose Berrios vs. Cole Ragans

You feel good about the Royals chances to be in any game with the way their starting pitching has gone this year, for the most part. But this will be a test for the offense against some good pitching that the Blue Jays can throw out there. I do say good pitching, but the Blue Jays have a team ERA of 4.32, which is only better than six teams. No team has allowed more home runs than the Blue Jays. A lot of that is on the backs of a bullpen with a 5.24 ERA. They did just get Jordan Romano back which helps, but they’ve certainly had their issues.

After that, they hit the road to go to Detroit for the first time this season. I’ll remind everyone as we get closer, but the Friday game is a 12:10 CDT start because of the NFL Draft there. The Tigers were thought to be ready to take the next step, and they’ve been pretty solid to start the season, so this should be an interesting matchup to get a bit of a gauge on where the AL Central is to start the season.