Bronx bombed

Salvador Perez tried his best to get the win, but the bullpen can't hold on to the lead.

Nothing like a trip to the Bronx to take the shine off a four-game winning streak.

The ascendant Royals turned up in the corporate luxury box haven known as New Yankee Stadium and crumbled in the late innings on Monday, falling to a 10-4 defeat.

It’s a short one today as I’m still recovering from Monday’s dispatch. Think of me as a starting pitcher. I need some ice and ibuprofen after a long post. And sometimes a recovery day.

If you’ll recall my writeup from the previous Brady Singer start, I was full of praise for the right-hander, who, against the Cleveland Guardians, featured a healthy mix of four pitches and located all of them. On Monday against the Yankees…ehhh. Not so much.

Singer threw just five four-seamers, with three of them well elevated. He offered just five sweepers. Both pitches showed a bit of promise, though. The two four-seamers he threw in the zone were swung at and missed. Good challenge pitches. Again, though, he refuses to throw the pitch later in a plate appearance. The sweeper was located well enough and he recorded one whiff on that pitch—a foul tip for a third strike.

I probably spend more time analyzing the pitch mix of Singer than anyone else in the rotation, but it’s just so damn frustrating. Gimme more of the four-seamer. Gimme more of the sweeper. Is it too much to ask that those pitches are added to the bread-and-butter sinker/slider combo? The four-seam and sweeper are generally first cousins of his two primary pitches. It’s an alteration of grip that shouldn’t be that much of an out-of-body experience to throw. But the difference in movement of both should be enough to keep opposing hitters just a little off balance.

Singer required 26 pitches to get through the first and 22 to navigate the third. Somehow, in both innings, he was able to escape with no damage. He also needed 25 pitches to finish the fourth. In that inning, he wasn’t as fortunate. He had two outs in the inning but an errant throw from Salvador Perez on an attempted steal of third by newcomer Jasson Domínguez plated the first run. Four pitches later, Alex Verdugo hit a semi-legitimate home run to the short porch in right that scored two.

He was at 83 pitches through four innings. That’s going to expose the bullpen in a stadium where you really want to minimize that from happening.

The Royals were able to make the game competitive through the first five innings thanks to The Captain, Salvador Perez. With four hits and three runs driven in on the night, his bat is coming alive at just the right time.

He got a little help from the Yankee defense in the first, with two errors allowing Tommy Pham to get to third. Perez brought home the opening run with a single to center.

Salvy added another in the third with a blast to left-center. A legitimate home run.

As for his third hit, another run-scoring single, rather than presenting a GIF, it probably makes for a little more fun to just break it down through a series of screen captures.

With Bobby Witt Jr. on first and two outs, Yankee starter Carlos Rodón delivers a first-pitch four-seamer down in the zone. Remember, Perez had collected two hits against Rodón by this point. Perez got under this fastball and skied it at a launch angle of 68 degrees. Perez is frustrated because he should’ve done more with that pitch. The catcher and the umpire are straining their necks picking up the flight of the baseball. Rodón slaps his mitt in satisfaction that he finally was able to get Perez out.

Not so fast.

Juan Soto comes in from right and Gelyber Torres moves out from his position at second. It will be Torres’ ball, except he overruns it and gets rather contorted trying to recover. He completely misses the baseball.

With two outs, Witt is running on contact. The loft of the ball allows him to cruise into third by the time the ball lands. Once it hits the ground, Vance Wilson directs him home.

The Royals tie the game at three.

What’s kind of amazing is that, even though that popup should’ve been the third out of the inning, Witt was running at Witt speed. In other words, he was flying.

We’ve seen so many moments like this this season. And they never get old.

The less said about the bullpen, the better. While I’m not wholly opposed to James McArthur coming into the game to face the top of the Yankee order, he just looked tentative to me. Once he served up the home run to Austin Wells to give New York a three run cushion, the rest didn’t really matter so much. Sure, you’d like to keep the game close. But you also don’t want to burn your best arms in a defeat.

I’ve now said too much about the bullpen.

The good news…and there is good news…is the Royals remain on target for October baseball. Normally, I present these FanGraphs charts with all the teams from the AL Central. I thought if I just focused on the Royals today, it would provide a nice snapshot of how far they’ve come as the season has progressed. A nice visual of how this team has exceeded expectations.

This is exactly how you want a chart like this to look. The opposite would be unpleasant.

The Royals are now 8-10 in this stretch of 20 games that will define their 2024 season. With the final two coming against these Yankees in New York, I’m not optimistic that they can get to .500 in this block of games, but I don’t think that matters. They didn’t fold, which was really what was required. They stumbled, but then got right.

The schedule eases up from this point. They finish the road trip with three in Pittsburgh. They have three against the suddenly resurgent Tigers, which could prove interesting. We’ll see. From there, they wrap against National League teams. The Giants and Nationals are first, then it’s on to Atlanta for the final series of the season. The Braves could be fighting for their postseason lives at that point. The NL Wild Card is a race to keep an eye on down the stretch.

The Royals’ magic number remains at 13.