A bad start

Now past the most difficult part of their schedule, and with a stretch coming up against sub-.500 teams, the Royals stumble out of the blocks in Oakland.

If you were expecting, now that the Royals were finished with the Yankees and Dodgers, that they would find another gear against the Oakland A’s…well, I suppose baseball doesn’t exactly work that way. Sadly.

The Royals, having cleared their most difficult stretch of baseball of the season with a respectable 5-7 record, fell to the Oakland A’s by a score of 7-5 on Tuesday. They challenged late, because that’s what these Royals do, but they weren’t able to overcome a lackluster start from Alec Marsh that put them in an early deficit. Oakland snapped a nine-game losing streak.

One day, you stymie one of the top offenses in the game. The next, one of the worst lineups tags you for seven runs in four innings. That, as they say, is baseball.

Marsh just didn’t have anything working on Tuesday night in Oakland. Both his velocity and spin rates were down across the board and the results were…grim. He really struggled to establish his four-seamer. He couldn’t command his slider. And his curve just took up residence in the middle of the dish. He got whiffs on all six types of pitches he offered and had a 37 percent swing and miss rate, but overall he lacked the ability to consistently put the A’s away.

The whole start was just a grind, and it was that way from the jump. Marsh walked the first batter he faced and then left a sinker in the middle of the plate to J.J. Bleday who laced a run-scoring double. Two batters in, and the Royals were down 1-0. Oakland would plate another in the inning on a sac fly.

Trouble came around in the third. Marsh was able to get a couple of ground balls to the left side, but they were perfectly placed. I mean perfectly. Right in between Maikel Garcia and Bobby Witt Jr. Those grounders were sandwiched around yet another Bleday double and resulted in another couple of runs.

By the fourth, Marsh was living on borrowed time. It turned out it lasted only three batters. A walk, a double and a three-run home run on an 0-2 slider to Zack Gelof brought his night to a close.

These are the locations of the breaking pitches Marsh offered on Tuesday. He avoided the middle of the dish but was throwing these often in favorable counts to the hitters. While you do see some swing-and-miss there, he was spinning too many pitches in the meatier part of the zone.

As I said, this start was just a grind. I can’t think of any other adjective. One of those where you were literally begging Matt Quatraro to go to his bullpen because it was just so obvious that Marsh wasn’t long for the game. In 2024, a manager needs to ride his starter as long as he can, at least through the early innings of the game. Doesn’t make it any better knowing that.

Because these are the Royals, there were a couple of nifty defensive plays I’d like to highlight. First was made by Kyle Isbel in center in the second inning.

I grabbed this angle because you can really see the entire play unfold for Isbel. The jump he got when the ball was put in play was exceptional. He broke immediately and in the perfect direction. Had he angled just a little differently, either toward the infield or the outfield wall, I’m not sure he has the time to recover to make the catch. There’s also the acceleration, which is the byproduct of the jump. He’s cooking. Then, there’s the catch itself. What a play.

According to Baseball Savant, Isbel’s reaction time on the jump is generally 1.9 seconds better than the average outfielder. That may not sound like much—we’re talking seconds here—but it’s tied for fifth best in baseball and just a tenth of a second off the second place outfielder. Where Isbel has been dinged this season—at least according to Savant—is on his routes. This one looks just fine to me.

I’m not sure why Salvador Perez continues to amaze. You’d think we’d just be used to some of the crazy things he does on the field. Tuesday, he was at first base. You know the Coliseum has acres upon acres of foul territory. And there Salvy was, making a sprint for a foul pop.

A little more detail on the catch from Jake Eisenberg:

The degree of difficulty on that play was massive. He’s going 86 feet off his position and veering away from home plate. Nope. That’s far from a routine play, even for a seasoned first baseman. And the fact that he’s out there putting up a sprint speed? What’s not to love?

We’ve said it again and again and again… and it will forever remain true: This guy is just a joy to watch play the game.

As noted earlier, because these are the 2024 Royals they usually give themselves a chance. That came in the eighth inning when Vinnie Pasquantino led off with a single, a little flare that dropped into center. That was followed by Perez lining a single to left. Then MJ Melendez, falling behind 1-2, worked a walk.

I’ll give credit to Melendez for hanging in there, but A’s reliever Lucas Erceg didn’t exactly challenge him after getting ahead, going three consecutive changeups, all well off the dish.

That loaded the bases and set the Royals up for a big comeback inning. Freddy Fermin grounded to first where Oakland could only get one out. A run scored and everyone moved up 90 feet. Then Nick Loftin hit a soft roller to shortstop to bring in another run. Great that they could cash in two runs to cut the deficit in half at that point, and I know some around the organization are thrilled at the idea of “productive outs,” but at the end of the day, they’re still outs. You only get 27 of them. On this night three of the five runs the Royals plated came on plays that resulted in outs. Difficult to sustain a rally that way.

Ahead of Tuesday’s game, the Royals announced they recalled Carlos Hernández from Triple-A. Hernández has been very good since heading back to Omaha earlier this month. In six appearances for the Storm Chasers, he’s thrown six innings, allowing just a single run and striking out six. Overall he faced 23 batters and walked just two, which is, dare I say, promising. We’ve said it so often that it’s become a theme of the 2024 season for the Royals: They need hard throwers in the bullpen who can miss bats. Hernández, with an upper 90s heater and a career swinging strike rate of 12 percent, qualifies.

It’s not surprising the Royals would make a roster move to get another reliever on the squad. Since they brought up Austin Nola as the emergency catcher with Salvador Perez battling swelling in his knee, they’ve been short a bullpen arm. Yeah, it’s just been two games, but I think major league managers get twitchy when they don’t have 13 pitchers on their roster these days. Perez, of course, was in the lineup on Sunday in Los Angeles as the DH. He was at first base on Tuesday.

Besides, the Royals are embarking on a stretch where they play 13 games before their next off day, so Matt Quatraro and Brian Sweeney can use the surplus of arms at their disposal.

For the corresponding move to get Hernández on the roster, they optioned Drew Waters back to Omaha. Waters, originally called up as the replacement for Hunter Renfroe, got into three games for the Royals and had eight at bats. He collected one single.

There will be more roster churn in the coming days. Michael Wacha pitched on Monday in the Arizona Complex League and went four shutout innings, striking out six. He will be back on the big league roster later this week. Michael Massey began another rehab stint with Omaha on Tuesday. He went 1-5 with a pair of strikeouts in the Storm Chasers 9-4 victory. What I really think is behind the Waters demotion is Hunter Renfroe is likely to be activated soon. What was initially believed to be a broken foot for Renfroe was just a bone bruise so it’s a matter of being able to play through whatever pain—if any—is lingering in that foot. He’s with the club on this road trip and went through his full pregame routine on Tuesday according to Anne Rogers. I believe he’s eligible to come off the IL on Friday.

Central Issues

Mariners 8, Guardians 5

Seattle chased starter Triston McKenzie in the fourth inning as five of six hitters reached with the big blow coming off the bat of J.P. Crawford who clubbed a two-run homer. They tacked on single runs in each of the next four innings.

Tigers 1, Braves 2

In the bottom of the first, the Braves started the game going single, triple, single. That was all the offense they would need. Riley Greene tripled to lead off the sixth and was brought home via a Gio Urshela single for the lone Tiger run.

Rays 6, Twins 7

The Rays roughed up Twins starter Pablo López, tagging him for five runs in four innings, but they couldn’t hold on to their early lead. Minnesota fell behind 4-0, tied it in the fourth, fell behind 6-4 in the fifth and tied it in the bottom of the frame. Meanwhile, nobody is hotter than Carlos Correa. The Twins shortstop went 3-4 with a walk and two runs scored as Minnesota overcame separate deficits of four and two runs. The game was tied into the ninth. Carlos Santana walked it off with a two-out single. There are implications in the standings.

Astros 0, White Sox 2

Andrew Vaughn hit a bases-loaded fielder’s choice in the third inning to plate the first run for the Hapless White Sox. Then Vaughn hit a bases-loaded fielder’s choice in the fifth to score their second. My god, they’re boring even when they win.

This is the first time the Royals have been knocked out of second place in the division since May 13.

Before I wrap for today, a few words about one of the greatest, if not the greatest, ballplayer who ever lived.

I have two outfield action photos hanging on the wall of my office. One is the Alex Gordon catch from Game Four of the 2014 ALCS against the Baltimore Orioles. The other is the iconic Mays over the shoulder catch at the Polo Grounds in the 1954 World Series. A massive part of my enjoyment of the game comes from its history. I collect old baseball cards. I have ancient Strat-O-Matic seasons on-hand that I’ll play from time to time. Guys like Mays and Mickey Mantle and Duke Snider and Roberto Clemente and Hank Aaron and Frank Robinson all came before my awareness of the game, but their accomplishments are touchstones to the past. That Gordon catch in ‘14? Nobody compared it to Mays’ grab in ‘54, but there’s a link there. That’s something that I love about baseball. Somebody in today’s game does something extraordinary and it can immediately evoke a great play or player from the past. The memories of these legends will never fade, even among those of us who never saw them play.

And Mays was the best of them all. You’ve probably checked out Mays’ Baseball Reference page. The numbers back the legend. A blend of power and speed the game has rarely seen. He led the league in steals for four consecutive seasons. A couple of years later, he led the league in home runs in three out of four seasons. He could hit. He could hit for power. He could run. He could field. He could throw. No, I never saw him play, but the legend endures. Say hey!

On Thursday, the Giants are scheduled to play the St. Louis Cardinals at Rickwood Field in Birmingham, Alabama. Opening in 1910, Rickwood is the oldest professional park in America. It was to be a celebration of the Negro Leagues in general, but Mays was always going to be a focus. He was born in nearby Westfield and broke into the professional ranks on that very field, playing for the Birmingham Black Barons. That season, 1948, Mays’ Black Barons defeated the Kansas City Monarchs in the Negro American League Series for the championship. Mays hit .280 with a double, six walks and five RBIs. He was 17 years old.

It’s a shame that Mays won’t see the game, but it’s fitting that, just days after his passing, a major league baseball game will take place on the field where he played his first professional games.

May the Say Hey Kid rest in peace.