A pair of jacks from Jac leads the Royals to a sweep

Jac Caglianone exits the yard twice to lead the Royals to a sweep of the Texas Rangers.

Maybe all it took was a trip to Texas to get the offense rolling. After a six-game homestand where the Royals scored a total of 11 runs and hit just two home runs, the bats came alive in Arlington. The Royals plated 16 runs on the back of seven homers to sweep the Rangers. They are back to just a game under .500.

Salvador Perez and Bobby Witt Jr. powered the Royals to the win in game one. In the second game, it was all about Maikel Garcia. And in the series finale, Vinnie Pasquantino and, yes, that man, Jac Caglianone, did the damage.

Home runs are fun.

Which Jac Caglianone home run is your favorite Jac Calglianone home run? This is an important question.

Perhaps it is the first bomb Caglianone hit. It came on a 2-2…ahem…elevated four-seamer.

If you’re like me, your first reaction was, “Why is he swinging at a pitch that high?” and thinking it was going to be a routine fly ball.

Your second reaction was probably along the lines of, “Wait, he hit that baseball with some emphasis.”

And then your third reaction was akin to, “Oh my god, that ball has some carry!”

This was the chart from Baseball Savant on how Rangers pitcher Jacob Latz attacked Caglianone.

For real…He hit pitch number five over the fence. Pitch number five! Look where that is! For those of you more inclined to be awed by the data, according to Statcast, the pitch was 4.22 feet off the ground when Caglianone made contact. It’s the second-highest pitch hit for a home run this season.

It takes an insane amount of power to loft a baseball 387 feet when the pitch is located there. This is because there is no way to barrel that pitch. No way. And Caglianone got under it a bit. Yet, barreled it was. It hung in the air for a little over six seconds and reached an apex of 125 feet. Honestly, I’m left wondering if the system is still jammed from earlier in the series because that ball took forever to come down. I thought for a moment it was going to scrape the warehouse ceiling.

Again, this is just insane power. Sometimes, something happens in baseball that makes you laugh.

Not only is he able to make good contact on that pitch…he was so far out in front of it. This is just ridiculous. Swing mode, I guess.

Again, I try not to get carried away in this space. But I’ve already compared the anticipation that followed Caglianone’s call-up and debut to the A-list of Royals prospects, so why not continue…

As far as memorable first home runs go, for me, this one will be on par with Bo Jackson’s first.

I know, I know…Calm down! Jackson’s home run went an estimated 475 feet and was widely acknowledged as the longest ever hit at Royals Stadium. That home run wasn’t just a home run. It was an announcement. A statement of intent.

Caglianone’s first home run wasn’t propelled by rocket fuel, but for me, it was just as impressive. You just don’t see players connect on a pitch that far up and out of the zone. And for Caglianone to get enough on that to loft it over the fence? Jackson’s will forever be number one, but we’ve certainly found our second-place all-timer.

Maybe your favorite Caglianone home run was his second bomb of the afternoon. It was a bit more conventional. If baseballs that fly 439 feet are ever conventional.

That one was a no-doubter. The second he made contact, everyone knew that baseball wasn’t coming back. While his first home run would’ve left only 17 out of 30 ballparks, this one was a legitimate bomb, a dinger in all 30 yards.

Again, look how far out in front of the plate the meeting of bat on ball occurs. And look at how far in front his hip rotation is. This is such a pretty, fluid and, most importantly, powerful swing.

This is the kind of Caglianone home run I expect to see more of. But if he wants to bash a few pitches at his eyes, who will complain?

This was Caglianone’s day, as seen through the eyes of Baseball Savant:

So much to like here, and it’s really what we’ve seen from him in the brief amount of time he’s been with the big league club. The exit velocities have been good but on Thursday, he finally got that loft.

I also enjoyed the fact that in between rockets, he topped one at 45.7 mph off the bat. That will keep him humble. Hitting a baseball isn’t easy.

After the first game of the series, I wrote that the way they won it felt like 2024 all over again. I think that could be said about this entire series. Michael Wacha dominated as the starter. The only baserunner he allowed in the first four innings came on a Caglianone error in right. He walked the first two in the fifth, but danced around that. The first hit he allowed came with one out in the sixth. That’s the frame where the Rangers scored their run when Marcus Semien hit a two-out double to plate Wyatt Langford, who had hit that single.

It was simply a dominant pitching performance from Wacha. While I wouldn’t put Kris Bubic’s start on Wednesday in the dominant category, he battled through his outing and then there was Seth Lugo’s start in the series opener, where he struck out nine en route to allowing a single run.

Meanwhile, the bullpen…nails. They combined for 9.2 innings of shutout, late-inning baseball. The relief corps struck out 10 and did not walk a batter while allowing only six hits. There’s shutting the door and then there’s slamming it in their face and this was most certainly the latter. Just a dominant performance all around.

Nobody thought a sweep by the Royals was even a possibility in this series. Not after the debacle of a homestand the week prior. I guess that goes to the ethos we’ve seen from this team that they never quit. Even though, with the subpar offense, it may not look like they’re battling at times, they are. Their pitching will generally do enough to keep them in games. It’s up to the offense to power this team to a win. Power. They literally powered their way through Arlington.

It was nice for the Royals to remind us that baseball can be fun.