Youth Was Served with Brad Keller Finally Getting Support

Most of the biggest plays of the game were by guys 27 or younger and that's pretty fun.

You can admit it now. It’s safe. You thought last night was going to be another one of “those” games. You know the one. The one where the Royals got an effort from their starter that was somewhere between solid and great but the offense didn’t come through and eventually, the opponent broke through and scored two or three late to get the win. We’ve seen that game too many times this season and it’s only 22 games in. But a big seventh inning let us all breathe a little easier as the Royals finally broke one open for only the second time all season.

It’s kind of funny because on most nights, the biggest story of the game would be the starting pitcher throwing 6.1 shutout innings like Brad Keller did in yet another fantastic start. And that is a big story, but between the fact that he just keeps doing that this year and the fact that the offense broke out in a way that was very aesthetically pleasing, Keller’s fantastic outing gets put on the backburner. And I’m not going to start with breaking Keller down, so to hold you over until I get there, I’m going to give you his season numbers.

31 IP
18 H
19 K
8 BB
1.74 ERA

We’ll get back to him.

Bobby’s First Homer and a Big Game

I tweeted this during the game, but you could almost feel it coming for Bobby Witt Jr. He had five hits in his first 10 games and wasn’t doing much to even hit the ball hard. And that’s when I saw a slight change in approach. Witt is a hitter who will do damage, but he kind of backed off and sold out for contact. After striking out in more than 30 percent of his plate appearances in those first 10 games, he struck out in just 17.5 percent of plate appearances over his next 10. And he was getting hits, actually in all of those games.

But over the last few, he’s hit the ball hard. The exit velocities were starting to rise for him. We talked about that the other day. He hit seven balls 100 MPH or harder in his last five games. In those five games, his average exit velocity was 94.6 MPH and his hard-hit rate was 57.1 percent. He had two barrels in those five games after not having any in the first 20. So you knew it was just a matter of time. And after Dakota Hudson pumped yet another first pitch strike, Witt took control.

How special is that home run? On changeups in that zone this season from righties, two home runs have been hit out of 538 pitches before last night. Hitters were 60 for 469 on changeups in that spot. The average exit velocity was 78.9 MPH. The average launch angle was -2.2°. Witt hit his home run 417 feet at a 24° launch angle and it went out at 102.4 MPH. It’s just the 11th changeup in that spot all year to be hit at 100 MPH or harder. That’s impressive.

Oh, and yes, it looked like Harrison Bader threw it into the fountains after it bounced back on the field. You know, if you’re looking for a new villain.

But he wasn’t done! It was a double play, but his hardest hit ball of the night came on a sinker that if he lifted might still be going. He hit it 110.2 MPH, which is just about the only way anyone is turning a double play on Witt. It’s unfortunate, but a run did come home on it to make the game 2-0. And then the hard hit balls finally earned him a different way to get pitched. He worked his first 3-0 count of his career and then a walk in his third plate appearance. And in the seventh, he smoked another.

To get his hands in and hit that ball 102.7 MPH is very impressive. It drove in another run and Witt has his line up to .238/.274/.363. There’s work to do, but it looks like we’re starting to see the guy who was advertised.

Edward Olivares, Leadoff Hitter

When the lineup came out, I wasn’t expecting to see Olivares at the top again. He hit there on Monday afternoon in St. Louis and I just thought we’d see Kyle Isbel there with a righty on the bump. But I sure am glad that Olivares was in there because he had a career day. He notched the Royals first four-hit game of the season and basically just spent the whole day hitting the ball around the park.

He was aggressive against Dakota Hudson, but I think that was with good reason. Early on, Hudson was just pumping strikes. Through two times through the order, he’d thrown a first-pitch strike 15 out of 18 times. That’s the sort of thing that can really impact a game plan because you can plan to be patient all you want, but when it’s 0-1 almost every at bat, you find yourself in trouble. And Olivares, knowing that Hudson was a strike thrower, seemed to have a plan.

He made an out in the first, but then wasn’t retired again. He had a first-pitch single in the third. Then a second-pitch single in the fifth. Then the Cardinals brought in a lefty to face him and he doubled in Nicky Lopez in the seventh. And then in the eighth, he got himself another double on a pitch he smoked.

He’s now hitting .379/.438/.517 with just a 12.5 percent strikeout rate. The guy needs to play and he needs to play every day.

MJ’s Debut

Another part of the revamped lineup was the opportunity to see MJ Melendez get his big league debut. It wasn’t too surprising that he sat on Monday against a lefty, but he got in there as the designated hitter for his first taste of the big leagues and in spite of the poor start in AAA, he looked like he belonged just one game in.

After Witt’s home run in the second, Melendez probably didn’t get the ovation he maybe would have if the previous at bat was different, but he looked like a big league hitter. He took a first-pitch slider for a strike and then watched a changeup away that an anxious hitter may have swung at. And when Hudson came in on him, he turned on the pitch. He didn’t hit it terribly hard and it was a ground ball, but you could see the plan at the plate.

His next time up, he was hunting a fastball and got it on the first pitch, which I think was a plan for him seeing Hudson throw all those early strikes. And he really showed off his opposite field power.

Obviously it’s an out, but that’s some very real power he has and wasn’t too far from his first big league homer in his first big league game. And then he did it again in the sixth. Looking for a sinker, Melendez didn’t overswing and he hit a ball 95+ MPH through the left side for his first big league hit.

And to top off his successful debut, he had a nice plate appearance in the big seventh inning for the Royals and worked his first big league walk. Hard to complain about the work he put in.

There was more to the offense, of course. Andrew Benintendi had two more hits, including a clutch RBI in that seventh. Michael A. Taylor had a nice game with two hits and an RBI. Everybody had a hit except for Salvador Perez, but we already spent a lot of time on him yesterday, so let’s lay off for now.

So yes, the Royals spent the first six innings of the game looking like every other game. They loaded the bases with nobody out in the third and got nothing. They had two on and nobody out in the fourth and got one. They had two on and two out in the fifth and got none. And they had the same in the sixth and got none.

But they had the huge seventh inning where they batted around and went 3 for 4 with a sacrifice fly with runners in scoring position. The broadcast likes to throw out terms like “frenzied hitting” and I get it, but that isn’t sustainable. What is sustainable is good at bats and the Royals had a lot of those as the game went on.

I liked how they adjusted to what Hudson was doing and I liked how they did damage to pitches in the zone. Of the 20 hardest hit balls in the game, 14 were by the Royals. Of the 25 hard-hit balls (95 MPH+), the Royals had 18 of them. It’s their sixth game of the season with a hard-hit rate of at least 50 percent and if you want something to be encouraged by, it’s the third in the last five.

Sometimes a team needs an inning like the seventh to get going. Baseball has so many mental components that we too easily dismiss, but it gets in your head as a team when the hits just aren’t falling at the right times. They had plenty fall at the right time. We’ll find out quickly whether this was an aberration or a stepping stone, but I’ll say that if Witt and Melendez keep putting together plate appearances like they did tonight and Olivares and Benintendi keep hitting at the top, it might at least be a start of something good.

I think it’s worth mentioning that the Royals got strong performances in this game from Olivares, Benintendi, Witt, Melendez and Lopez with the bats and Keller and Collin Snider on the mound. Benintendi is the oldest of those seven and he doesn’t turn 28 until July. A lot is made about the Royals relying on veterans, but youth was in charge last night.

Okay, now let’s talk about…

Rad Keller

I’m not going to go on too long about Keller because the reality is that I didn’t think he looked that good. And that might be the most encouraging thing you can say when a guy gives you 6.1 shutout innings without even looking that good. Do you remember in Chicago when I showed you the big hole in the middle of the zone and how great that was to see him not throwing anything in the middle?

That didn’t happen last night. He seemed to just not be able to find that command that he’s had all season long. I just don’t think he had it with his fastball. He threw 51 percent sliders, which is the second-highest percentage he’s ever thrown. His velocity was down a touch on the four-seamer and the spin was down too. I just think he wasn’t quite feeling it the way he wanted to. On the other hand, the Cardinals have struggled quite a bit with sliders from righties this year, so maybe it was a plan all along.

Whatever that plan was simply wasn’t working, at least in terms of what he wanted to do. He wanted swings and misses, but just couldn’t get them. He had just five all game with four on the slider. But he was just not letting them get the barrel on the ball. He had them somehow seeming like they just couldn’t quite make the contact they wanted to. And he also relied quite a bit on the usual strong defense behind him.

The fact that it was kind of a ho hum night for him when he didn’t allow a run does truly show how great of a season he’s having to this point. It’s been fun to watch him get back to the pitcher he was in 2020 and I think we’re not too far from the conversation of if the Royals should be thinking about giving him a long-term extension.

Oh, Can’t Forget Snider

One last mention here for the fireman of the Royals bullpen. Snider has been the guy for Matheny since the second game of the year. He brought him in to that game in the 10th inning with the game still scoreless and ever since then, he’s just been a master. Last night was his 12th game of the year. He’s come in with at least one runner on base in seven of those outings. There have been 11 runners in all, including the runner on second in that 10th inning. Not a single one has scored.

Here are the scores in those games when he entered:

0-0
2-2
1-1
4-3 Royals
2-0 Royals
3-2 Mariners
2-0 Royals

Those are some tight games. And he’s stranded every single runner. A 54.2 percent ground ball rate will help, especially with the infield he has behind him.

I don’t know how long this will continue for him, but I do know that if the game today is close in the middle innings and there’s a runner on, Snider will likely be running in from the right field bullpen.