Crash landing

The Royals just finished their worst week of the season, culminating in a performance where they could barely muster anything from their bats. Time to panic? Errrr...not quite yet.

The Royals played a baseball series in Texas over the weekend. The verb “played” is doing a lot of work here. There was nothing fun or enjoyable about it. In three games against the Rangers, the Royals totaled 11 hits and two runs scored.

This last week was supposed to be a reprieve from what had been a difficult stretch of games against first-place teams. Instead, it was another body blow. The Royals went 1-5 against the A’s and Rangers.

They are now 7-12 in June and have been outscored by 35 runs this month. When play started on June 1, the Royals had a 5.5-game cushion over the Boston Red Sox for a Wild Card spot. They currently trail those Red Sox by half a game for that final postseason position.

The Royals exploded for six hits on Friday and scored two, count them, two runs. They wouldn’t score again and would tally only five hits over the next two games combined. I wish we knew then, what we know now. Perhaps we would’ve taken the time to appreciate all those hits. Damnit. You never know until it’s too late.

Instead of dwelling on those losses and the lack of production, let’s celebrate the hits we saw this weekend. It’s not like there’s a bunch of them. Come on! It could be fun.

For the purposes of this celebration, I’ll list all the hits the Royals had, starting with Friday’s game. I’ll add Win Probability Added so we can see just how impactful those knocks were. Whoooooo! I can’t wait to get started!

Third Inning
Kyle Isbel homers (5) on a fly ball to right center field.
WPA: +12.3

Remember this? You should. It’s not like there were a lot of hits or baserunners over the weekend. A home run kind of stands out.

Nifty bit of hitting from Isbel, who yanked a 2-1 pitch to the bleachers.

Truly, a laser. That ball was quick to get out of the yard.

Then, in a nifty bit of foreshadowing for the Royals’ offensive performance for the rest of the weekend, Isbel exited the game with lower back tightness a couple of innings later. That was his only at bat of the series.

Third Inning
Maikel Garcia singles on a ground ball to left fielder Wyatt Langford.
WPA: +1.3

Garcia followed Isbel’s rope with a single on a 3-1 pitch.

No player has mirrored the Royals brutal month of June quite like Garcia. He came into the month hitting .268/.314/.406. In June games prior to Friday’s series opener in Texas, he was hitting just .143/.211/.171. In just 17 games, Garcia has lost around 30 points off his batting average, 25 points from his OBP and close to a whopping 50 off his slugging.

Fifth Inning
MJ Melendez doubles (11) on a ground ball to left fielder Wyatt Langford.
WPA: +8.3

Melendez went with a fastball to hit a leadoff double to the opposite field to open the fifth after the Rangers had grabbed a run the inning prior to tie the game. I’m down. Truly a nifty piece of hitting and a good way to counter the team giving up the lead.

Fifth Inning
Garrett Hampson singles on a ground ball to left fielder Wyatt Langford, deflected by shortstop Corey Seager. MJ Melendez scores. Hunter Renfroe to third.
WPA: +12.6

After Hunter Renfroe walked, Hampson, hitting for Isbel in the fifth, comes through with a seeing-eye single, perfectly placed between third and shortstop. As you can see from the Gameday description above, Seager put a glove on it. Even if he had fielded in cleanly, there was no way he was going to get an out.

With three of the first four batters reaching in the inning and the lineup flipping over for a third time against starter Nathan Eovaldi, maybe the Royals could put together a little something…Or perhaps not.

Their next hit wouldn’t come until two outs in the eighth. By then, the Rangers had already gotten to the Royals’ bullpen.

Eighth Inning
Vinnie Pasquantino singles on a line drive to center fielder Leody Taveras. Maikel Garcia to 2nd.
WPA: +1

At 107 MPH off the bat, this was the hardest-hit ball of the night for the Royals. Hand that man a participation trophy, except for exit velocity.

Ninth Inning
Nick Loftin doubles (3) on a line drive to left fielder Wyatt Langford.
WPA: +0.3

No, a two-out double in the ninth inning when the team is down four runs doesn’t really move the needle.

Saturday saw the return of Michael Wacha to the rotation and he was absolutely ready to go. After making just one rehab start earlier in the week, the veteran delivered five innings of three-hit ball. The only blemish came in the fourth on a Josh Smith home run on a 3-2 pitch.

Meanwhile, the bats truly entered a state of inertia.

Third Inning
Garrett Hampson singles on a line drive to center fielder Leody Taveras.
WPA: +1.5

“Line drive” is a bit of a stretch as the ball left Hampson’s bat at 78 MPH with a launch angle of 23 degrees, but “flare” isn’t official Gameday nomenclature. I’m just picking at nits here. Don’t mind me. Pay attention to the next batter…

Third Inning
Adam Frazier singles on a line drive to right fielder Adolis García, deflected by first baseman Nathaniel Lowe. Garrett Hampson to third.
WPA: +2.8

Frazier immediately follows with a single of his own. This was truly a line drive. And with Hampson going first to third, a big moment in Saturday’s game. Because it was a chance.

Ultimately, it was a chance that failed to turn into runs. Bobby Witt Jr. was up next. It was his second time seeing the Rangers starter, Jon Gray. He swung through a middle-cut fastball to fall behind 0-1 and then scorched another four-seamer back up the middle.

Three of the Royals’ four batted balls with the highest xBA in Saturday’s game were just referenced here.

Garrett Hampson - 3rd inning single - .760 xBA
Adam Frazier - 3rd inning single - .560 xBA
Nelson Velázquez - 9th inning single - .480 xBA
Bobby Witt Jr. - 3rd inning ground out - .470 xBA

Meaning three consecutive batted balls were, statistically speaking, the Royals best chance at putting a run on the board. It was the only at bat all night with a runner in scoring position.

And once he sidestepped that danger, Gray needed just six pitches in the fourth.

Ninth Inning
Nelson Velázquez singles on a ground ball to left fielder Wyatt Langford
WPA: +0.1

By the time the ninth inning rolled around, the Rangers had put this one to bed, courtesy of an Angel Zerpa meltdown that concluded with a Wyatt Langford grand slam in the eighth inning. If a 1-0 deficit was going to be difficult to overcome, a comeback from 6-0 down was never going to happen.

The Royals faced Max Scherzer on Sunday. Under normal circumstances, that would spell doom. Yet Scherzer was making his first start of the year, after missing almost three months recovering from back surgery. Nah. It still spelled doom.

Scherzer retired the first 13 batters he faced.

Fifth Inning
MJ Melendez hits a ground-rule double (12) on a line drive to right-center
WPA: +3.8

This was the Royals’ first hit (and baserunner) of the game on Sunday. It came in the fifth inning. By this time, the Royals were trailing 3-0 and it felt immensely grim. It was something, though. A glimmer. An ever-so-slight promise that maybe, just maybe, things would turn around.

And then Hunter Renfroe struck out and Nelson Velázquez battled gamely, seeing seven pitches total, before rolling over and grounding out to third to end the inning. Those were the only at bats all afternoon the Royals had with a runner in scoring position.

Sixth Inning
Maikel Garcia singles on a fly ball to center fielder Leody Taveras
WPA: +4

Normally, once Scherzer was out of the game on Sunday, you would have a bit of hope the Royals would get to the Texas bullpen. I said, normally. By this point, everyone pretty much knew what was going to happen. However, that certainty was delayed for a bit as Maikel Garcia, protecting the plate with a 2-2 count, went down and flipped a single to center to start the sixth inning.

It was only the second time all series the Royals’ leadoff man reached. The second time!

Alas. He was gunned down on the back end of a strike-em-out-throw-em-out double play when Dairon Blanco went down swinging.

The Royals would get one more runner on base all afternoon. Hunter Renfroe drew a walk with one out in the eighth. Nelson Velázquez grounded into a double play. Why not?

About as uncompetitive a series you’ll see.

The temptation is there, after the abjectly miserable performance from the bats, to ignore everything else that happened in Texas over the weekend. Yeah…there’s really not much else there. However, the starting pitching was still mostly good. Brady Singer gave the Royals five innings of one-run baseball before John Schreiber and Sam Long coughed up five runs of their own in the sixth inning. Wacha was back on Saturday and he likewise allowed just a run in five innings. That was the Zerpa eighth that put the game well out of reach. Then on Sunday Alec Marsh allowed three runs in 5.2 innings. By this point one run or 20. It didn’t really matter.

This wasn’t like the Yankee series of a little over a week ago where New York looked like the better team. This was just one side not showing up at all, aside from the starters.

You’ll notice that you didn’t see Witt’s or Perez’s name among the players who had at least one hit this weekend. Witt, Perez and Pasquantino went a combined 1-32 this weekend. There’s not enough length in this lineup to overcome a complete shutdown from the two, three and four hitters.

This weekend—and really this stretch of games going back a couple of weeks—hasn’t told us anything we haven’t already learned about the 2024 Royals. The bullpen needs a lot of attention. The lineup needs a bit of work as well. The starting pitching is good enough to keep them in games, but when they’re going only five or six innings, they can’t do it alone. This is a good team, but not a great one. They are capable of the spectacular, yet prone to the frustrating.

There look to be four (probably five) teams that are, at this point, locks for October. The division leaders (Yankees, Guardians, Mariners) are all looking good. The Orioles are there and the Twins are finally starting to show something. That leaves around five teams with a shot at that sixth, and final, postseason spot. (I really, really dislike what Manfred has done to the postseason.) Here’s how those five teams are looking according to the FanGraphs playoff odds.

The Royals have ceded their position and are now in a battle. We will hit the halfway point of the 2024 season after Tuesday’s game. The trade deadline looms. There’s still plenty of the season ahead. Opportunity remains in play.

Central Issues

Blue Jays 5, Guardians 6

The Jays got on the board in the first inning with a Vladimir Guerrero Jr. two-run blast. By the end of the third the Guardians had taken the lead. Steven Kwan had two hits, including a home run. Josh Naylor had three hits, including a home run. The Cleveland offense feels inevitable at this point. Spencer Horwitz hit two home runs in a losing effort for Toronto. To make matters worse, the Guardians swept the three-game series.

White Sox 2, Tigers 11

Jonathan Cannon was lit up in an inning-plus of work to the tune of eight runs, five of which were earned. At least when the Sox are getting curb-stomped, they aren’t running into a game-ending double play when someone forgets how many outs there are as happened on Friday. That was some 2006 Royals vibes right there, which we can all appreciate.

Twins 3, Athletics 0

The Royals softened the A’s up for the Twins. Yeah, that’s it. Minnesota took two of three on the East Bay. Sunday’s finale saw Pablo López cruise through eight innings of two-hit ball. He struck out 14. Byron Buxton homered and drove in another run with a double.