Danny Duffy stays gnar

Duffy hits a milestone, the defense betrays, Matheny shuffles his lineup and what in the world was up with that strike zone?

Not even Salvador Perez could save the Royals on Monday.

Nor could Danny Duffy, who left it all out on the field in another stellar performance through six innings.

In the end, it was just one of those games. There was plenty of emotion, plenty of life, but it quickly became apparent that if the Royals were going to grab a victory, they would have to quick-strike like they did the previous day against the Blue Jays. The Rays were not going to let the bats put up a big inning.

Yep…just one of those games. A 4-1 forgettable loss.

But there was one player who absolutely starred for the club.

Duffy shoves…again

Third start of the season for Duffy and the third time I’ve used the adjective “shoves” to describe his performance.

His performance was the lone positive from the game. His string of success is becoming one of the more compelling storylines of 2021. Three starts into the season and I’m beginning to run out of superlatives to describe how he’s performed.

He came out of the gate on Monday throwing total fire, retiring 14 of the first 15 batters faced. Seven of the outs came on strikeouts, including the side in the fourth. The final punch out of that frame was his 1,000 strikeout of his career. (More on that in a moment.)

Duffy was elevating his four-seamer and tunneling his slider low and out of the zone. It’s a lethal combo for opposing batters. Duffy had a 38 percent CSW% on the night. (CSW% is on the Baseball Savant page and is the rate of called strikes (CS) and whiffs (W) of a particular pitch. That’s an outstanding rate for those two pitches.

Maybe it’s better just to see it in action.

Slider down…

And fastball up…

Nine of the 14 balls Rays batters put in play were classified as “hard hit” by Savant, but overall they had a difficult time barreling the ball. They weren’t fouling pitches off as we see in a typical Duffy start (only nine on the night) which allowed him to be generally economical with his pitches through the first five-plus innings of work.

As we’ve come to expect, Duffy’s fastball velocity faded as the game progressed, and perhaps it was fatigue that let him to walking his only two batters of the game in the sixth. Coming after a single, those free passes loaded the bases with one out. Yet Duffy was able to bear down and get that final tapper back to the mound for a 1-2-3 double play to close out his evening.

Duffy has now thrown 18 innings on the season. His line is impressive:

18 IP, 14 H, 3 R, 1 ER, 6 BB, 19 SO

A 3:1 strikeout to walk ratio? A 1.11 WHIP? An ERA- of 12? You love to see it.

The Royals 1,000 strikeout club

With that strikeout of Manny Margot in the fourth (as seen in the second gif above), Duffy hit the 1,000 strikeout milestone, becoming the sixth pitcher in franchise history to accomplish the feat.

• Kevin Appier — 1,458

• Mark Gubicza — 1,366

• Dennis Leonard — 1,323

• Bret Saberhagen — 1,093

• Paul Splittorff — 1,057

• Danny Duffy — 1,002

I’ve written at length about Salvador Perez moving up franchise leaderboards, but we shouldn’t sleep on what Duffy has accomplished in his Royals career. He is just 55 whiffs away from becoming the franchise’s left-handed strikeout king and is just 91 away from moving into fourth in franchise history.

“I don’t really concern myself with that kind of stuff, but when it happened and when my boys came over and congratulated me, it did me a lot,” Duffy said after the game about reaching 1,000 strikeouts. “I’m really thankful to be here as long as I have…A really cool deal.”

Death by glove

The Royals infield defense gifted the Rays three of their runs.

The opening run scored in the top of the fifth when Carlos Santana couldn’t snare a popup off the bat of Willy Adames.

It was a difficult play for Santana to make. A popup down the first base line from a right-handed hitter will have some wicked backspin on it. Add the wind that was blowing around The K on a brisk night and the fact that Santana drifted almost into Adames making the turn around first while running out the popup and the degree of difficulty was enhanced.

That being said, Santana has to make that catch. But he didn’t make the only mistake on that play. Someone had to yell that the proper play, after the ball hit the ground, was to home plate. The Royals broadcast properly called it out. The replay appeared to show the runner just making the turn at third when the ball was picked up by Santana. He had much more time to set and make the throw to home instead of rushing—and sailing—a toss to second.

The error was followed by a Kevin Kiermaier singled on a 1-2 pitch down the line in left to bring home another run. Duffy took the blame for that one.

“When you can’t pick up your teammate…It’s one of my least favorite things,” Duffy said after the game. “Carlos saved me the last two games, I think twice. And those two games would’ve looked a lot different if it wasn’t for him, so I was kicking myself over that (not being able to pick him up). I came out of what I was trying to do and just kind of started trying to out-stuff…overthrow my fastball. That’s the pitch (to Kiermaier), that’s one I’d like to have back.”

The Rays added an insurance run in the seventh on what was called a fielder’s choice as Whit Merrifield—perhaps starting to turn a double play before the ball reached his glove—let one get by and into the outfield. With runners on first and second, the grounder definitely had double play potential. But with the whiff of the glove instead of two down and a runner at third the Rays had a run in with no outs and runners at the corners. Fortunately, Tyler Zuber came in for relief and escaped without further damage.

All told, three of the four Tampa runs were unearned on the night. Not that it would’ve mattered given the frigidity of the Royals’ bats, but as we’ve seen from the weekend, who knows what can happen in a 0-0 or one-run game in the late innings at The K.

The home plate ump steals the show

I really dislike writing about umpiring. Honestly, in all my years of writing about the Royals, it feels like I’ve rarely done so.

But Monday’s strike zone deserves its own section.

Roberto Ortiz had the honors (or was it dishonors?) behind the plate. In the top of the first, Randy Arozarena expressed some mild incredulity on an 0-1 change from Duffy that was called a strike. It was a borderline pitch. A generous call.

Little did we know what was to unfold.

Things started going haywire in the bottom of the second. Andrew Benintendi looked at two sinkers that were well inside that were called strikes. Fine. Maybe Ortiz was establishing his strike zone for a lefty bat against a left-handed pitcher. But the real crime was punishing Benintendi with back-to-back bad calls, forcing him to expand the zone to stay alive. He went fishing low for the next pitch and hit a weak grounder.

Ortiz rang up Jorge Soler on a cutter well out of the zone in the fourth. This one was egregious given that Carlos Santana had led off the inning with a single. Obviously, there’s no guarantee Soler would’ve advanced the runner, but he didn’t have the chance.

Soler has a fantastic eye at the plate. He picked up a couple of ejections back in 2019 arguing strike calls that went against him. He was usually correct. Given how the Royals were feeling at that moment about Ortiz’s zone, I’m surprised he didn’t say anything to get run there.

More agita in the fifth as Michael A. Taylor takes the first two pitches (both sinkers) well off the zone for called strikes. Fleming goes to almost the exact same spot with a change. Taylor had no chance.

It was a three-pitch strikeout where the batter spit on two of the pitches. This chart is incredibly irritating:

The zone got elevated in the eighth as Ortiz once again did Benintendi wrong.

The first called strike (represented by the orange dots) was the high pitch which was the first pitch of the at bat. It was a pitch that hadn’t been called a strike the entire night and it immediately put Benintendi in the hole. Once the count got to 2-2, Hunter Strickland started firing low. Benintendi fouled off four consecutive pitches—all out of the zone but who knows how they would’ve been called?

I get the argument that if you know the zone is being called beyond the established borders the hitters have to adapt. Except in this case, the zone was so wide—and at points so random—that if a hitter swung at that pitch thinking, “What the hell, it’s going to be a strike anyway,” there was generally nothing positive they could’ve accomplished—had they made contact. The home plate umpire made it impossible for the batters to do their job. And once Ortiz started calling the strike high out of the zone in the eighth, it was simply guessing time behind the plate.

The bad calls weren’t one-sided. The Royals benefitted as well. Duffy had a handful of pitches off the left-handed side of the plate called strikes. He just didn’t work as far off that edge as Fleming. Jake Brentz had a few pitches low and away from his left-handed batters called strikes. It was a bad night all around for Ortiz.

It sure feels like we’ve seen some horrific ball and strike zones from home plate umpires early in this season. Long-time readers know my disdain for replay in baseball (Colby Wilson will have more on that later today. Keep an eye on your inbox!), so you can imagine my take for robot umpires. I’m skeptical it can work in a way that will make everyone happy.

What I don’t understand is that why, until there is some sort of 100 percent accurate automation, there isn’t a merit system in place for umpires. This shouldn’t be like the Supreme Court where when you make the major leagues it’s a job for life. There needs to be accountability. If you’re bad at your job you should be reassigned until you can prove that you’ve improved. Why umpires can’t have a promotion/relegation system where, based on independent evaluations, the bottom X percent are sent to Triple-A for a year. Promote the top minor league umpires to the majors as replacements. And so on. It’s an annual revolving door to ensure the best continue to work the game.

While we’re talking about merit, scrap this garbage where there’s a rotation of umpires for baseball’s marquee events. Take the top 24 umpires for the divisional series. Whittle those 24 down to 12 for the championship series. You know where I’m going for the World Series. Make these assignments mean something other than, “I guess it’s that random umpire’s turn.”

A shakeup in the lineup

Sure, we all pay way too much attention to lineup construction. But the way Mike Matheny has handled a particular situation deserves a little bit of praise.

Benintendi has been the Royals’ number two hitter from the moment the trade was executed with the Red Sox. He’s performed in that spot in the lineup in the past and he’s on the record as saying that’s a place where he’s comfortable. One issue…13 games into his season he’s not hitting. A .216/.286/.275 line with a 63 wRC+ entering Monday is not going to cut it, small sample or not.

About a week ago Matheny dropped a hint to the media that a move down the lineup was coming. Recall this:

“What we normally do, it’s three or four games ahead of time where we say we probably need to start watching a little closer…Only from the perspective of, ‘Is it time to make a change?’ And then give it a few more days,” Matheny said ahead of Wednesday’s game. “Only because the guys are looking for consistency too.”

In the previous series, the Jays threw four consecutive left-handed starters at the Royals. He was 2-11 with 3 RBI in those games. (Obviously, not all of his plate appearances were against southpaws, but you get the point.) Benintendi sat on Sunday as the Royals bumped Carlos Santana up in the order and brought everyone along behind him. It was successful as Santana hit the single before Salvador Perez dropped the game winner into the fountains.

On Monday, Matheny brought out his first new-look lineup of the season. Santana was again batting second. Benintendi was dropped to seventh. The reasoning was explained thusly:

Anne Rogers @anne__rogers

Andrew Benintendi is batting seventh today against Rays lefty Josh Fleming. Matheny said he liked what he saw yesterday with Santana hitting second, and Benintendi in the seventh spot allows for the lefties to be spread out from the bottom to top of the order. #Royals

This is a manager who is deflecting attention from a struggling player. The stated reason behind the move isn’t to help Benintendi, which would draw even more questions (i.e. how long are you going to stick with him?), it’s because the latest iteration of the lineup worked well. And to give the Royals a little more balance at that spot in the order. We were so used to Ned Yost filling out the lineup that you can imagine the explanation that would’ve been forthcoming that he’s doing it to jumpstart Benintendi’s bat. But what happens if there’s not immediate success? Then the questions really start.

With Matheny, it’s about the other guys in the lineup. He’s directing attention—and potential pressure—away from a struggling player. It’s a minor matter, but maybe it makes a difference?

It’s a deft touch that St. Louis Matheny lacked. I expect Benintendi will stay there for Tuesday when the Royals face another Tampa lefty in Rich Hill. And for the foreseeable future…at least until he gets right with the bat.

Central issues

A light schedule on Monday before things ramp back up…

• White Sox 4, Red Sox 11

Happy Patriots Day! White Sox starter Lucas Giolito throws 45 first inning pitches and then goes back out for more punishment in the second. The game ends with Yermín Mercedes and Danny Mendick each pitching an inning. Bless you, Tony LaRussa.

• Minnesota @ Oakland — Postponed

Up next

As you’ve undoubtedly heard, the Royals are the only team in the AL yet to drop a series. They’ve put themselves in a tough spot to continue that streak dropping the first game of a three-game set. Brad Keller will head to the mound to try to get the club back in the win column and to keep them atop the Central on Tuesday.