Agony in the eighth

Pain.

As far as disaster innings go, I’m not sure you can find one worse than what unfolded in the eighth inning of the Royals’ 6-3 loss to the Astros. Hell, I don’t think you can find a worse moment than this one:

One play. Two injuries. And a lead lost that would not be recovered.

Yep. Absolutely brutal.

The above play came in the bottom of the eighth inning with two runners on base and the Royals leading by a score of 3-2. To open the frame, reliever Lucas Erceg walked Jose Altuve, recorded a deep flyout and then allowed a single to Victor Caratini to place runners on first and second.

The next batter, Yainer Diaz, hit a comebacker that Erceg deflected with his bare hand. He scrambled to recover to make a play at first and threw the ball to where Vinnie Pasquantino had to reach into the path of the oncoming Diaz to try to make the catch. Instead of the baseball, Pasquantino’s glove hand was met by Diaz. The immediate result was obvious. Pasquantino was in serious pain.

Erceg, meanwhile, felt pain when the trainer touched his fingers. Neither player would be able to continue. A devastating loss in the moment.

Shades of Mike Moustakas and Alex Gordon colliding in foul territory in Chicago back in 2016. Two injuries to key guys on one play. That’s something you never want to revisit. Ugh.

As I write this on Friday morning, there is still no word as to the status of either Pasquantino or Erceg. The latest from Jeremy Rakes at the MLB Mothership:

Manager Matt Quatraro said immediately after the game that both players were still getting examined.

“They’re getting X-rays on their hands, so we don’t have much to say yet,” Quatraro said.

UPDATE: Anne Rogers is reporting that Pasquantino has a broken right thumb. The absolute worst-case scenario here. He’s expected out for six to eight weeks. He’s definitely out for the stretch run and will probably miss all of the postseason. Just a terrible blow for Pasquantino and for the team. You have to feel for Vinnie. He’s truly a leader and a key guy for this team. Devastating.

Clearly, this single play can be a season-defining moment. In the worst way. The Royals have been fortunate this year to have mostly avoided any kind of injuries to key players. Michael Massey has struggled with back issues and been on the IL twice this year. Hunter Renfroe is on the IL for the second time this year, after missing the minimum of games in his previous stint. MJ Melendez was sidelined around the All-Star Break with an ankle sprain. And Alec Marsh was injured early in the season on a comebacker that hit his elbow. Now the Baseball Gods are seemingly looking to balance the injury account in one fell swoop. No thanks, Baseball Gods.

The injuries—and the loss—overshadowed moments of individual brilliance. Brady Singer turned in a fantastic start, throwing six strong innings where he allowed two runs. At one point, he retired 12 in a row. It was, it can be argued, the Singer we’ve seen in his first several seasons. He relied mostly on the sinker and the slider, throwing those two pitches around 88 percent of the time. Singer would throw a four-seam or a sweeper only occasionally.

The two-pitch mix was working for him for the most part. There was some good depth to his slider. He recorded eight swings and misses on the pitch. There was some nice run on his sinker. And I believe, as usual, some of his sweepers were inaccurately recorded as sliders. But not many. Maybe four or five more.

He ran into trouble in the fifth when he allowed back-to-back doubles that resulted in two runs scoring. The first double came on a slider down and into Jon Singleton. The second double was on a sinker in just about the same location to Jason Heyward. Neither was particularly hard hit. That’s kind of how things have gone for the Royals in the last couple of losses. It hasn’t been loud contact, but rather well-placed contact.

For a moment, the game was eerily similar to Wednesday’s contest at Cleveland. After the Royals took the lead in their half of the seventh, Singer returned to the mound as Quatraro continued to try to get length from his rotation. At this point, Singer had thrown 95 pitches, so the leash figured to be extremely short.

It was, as the right-hander walked the first batter he faced. Clearly, not what he would want to do under any circumstance. Especially after his team had just handed him the lead.

On this night though, Quatraro had his bullpen ready. Kris Bubic came in and set down all three batters he faced, two via strikeout. What a weapon this guy can be out of the bullpen. I hope that he can be leaned on just a little bit more down the stretch.

The Bubic yielded to Erceg in the eighth. Why the eighth? Because that’s when the lineup flipped over and the most dangerous hitters were coming up. Quatraro puts his best out their against their best. That’s how it should be. I endorse that kind of bullpen management.

Once Erceg left the game, there were runners on second and third and one out. Quatraro elected to intentionally walk Ben Gamel to load the bases.

I’m not thrilled with that move, although I understand the logic behind it. The walk set up a force at home on a soft ground ball or a double play if the ball was sharply hit on the infield. The run at third was huge because in that situation, if the run scores, the Royals will be seeing closer Josh Hader.

The danger in the intentional walk is that a bad sequence can yield another walk which would give the Astros the lead. There’s just no margin for error.

After Schreiber recorded the second out of the inning on a soft ground ball that resulted in a force out at the plate, he should’ve been coming after Zach Dezenzo, a rookie playing in just his 15th game in the majors. Instead, he tried to keep the ball away. He missed on four sweepers. Badly.

And the Astros had the lead.

You just can’t miss by that much on four pitches with the bases loaded. You can’t! You also can’t lose the guy after getting ahead 1-2. Just a terrible sequence.

A single by the next batter, Mauricio Dubón gave the Astros some insurance, but really, at that point, it was just piling on.

Singer did his best to keep his team in the game as the offense struggled to put anything together against Astros starter Hunter Brown. Brown, you will recall, made his third start of the season in Kansas City way back in April. In that one, he couldn’t record three outs as the Royals chased him in the first, tagging him for nine runs.

This time, Brown was strong, limiting the Royals to just two hits and two walks. He exited the game in the seventh after an error by Jeremy Peña (don’t you get a warm fuzzy feeling every time a shortstop boots a ground ball in Houston?) and a walk put two runners on. Maikel Garcia, who went 2-2 with a walk, hit a soft infield single to load the bases. That brought up Kyle Isbel.

After seeing a slider down, Bryan Abreu came in with a 96 MPH four-seamer.

It never really felt like it was going to be a grand slam, but damn if it wasn’t close to the foul pole. Just a few feet to the wrong side.

So with Isbel’s bat properly sped up on the heat, Abreu decided to spin three consecutive sliders. The first one was up for a called strike. The second one was down, but in the zone and Isbel fouled it off. The third one was on the outer edge.

I just kind of enjoy the duality of the two pitches. Isbel pulled one just foul. He then went opposite field just fair. Three runs instead of four. Still, a fantastic plate appearance and an outstanding result, one that gave the Royals a one-run lead at that moment.

Cleveland didn’t play last night, so the loss means the Royals drop to a game and a half out of first place. Since occupying the top spot in the Central ever so briefly after Tuesday’s win against the Guardians, the Royals have had a couple of hard losses. Now, they face the prospect of losing two of their key players as well.

If there’s one thing I think we’ve learned about the 2024 edition of the Royals, it’s that adversity doesn’t really phase this group. They’ve taken some knocks here or there and each time have gotten to their feet relatively quickly. While the last 48 hours has been particularly harsh, I don’t doubt the resilience of this club. There’s no time for them to feel down anyway. They have now played eight times in his season-defining stretch of 20 games. They are 4-4 which is an absolutely acceptable record.

They have that cushion in the Wild Card. They are still in the mix for the Central. There’s still everything to play for. We’ll see how they respond tonight.