False hope
The Royals cannot follow up on their breakout Saturday.
We witnessed something on Saturday that we hardly ever seem to see anymore: A Royals home win. Then, one day after stomping to a resounding—and fun—9-5 victory, the Royals offense reverted to an all-too-familiar form.
They dropped the series finale to the Dodgers on Sunday by a score of 5-1. That capped a 1-5 homestand which—hey!—was an improvement over the previous one. Overall the the month of June, the Royals played 13 home games. They won just once.
It took the Royals just two batters to get on the board in the bottom of the first. Jonathan India led off by flipping a cutter off the outer edge to the opposite field for a single. Then, after India advanced to third on a wild pitch, on the eighth pitch of the at bat, Bobby Witt Jr. laced a changeup to deep left field for a run-scoring double. One day after scoring nine runs in a rout of the Dodgers, it felt, even just for a moment, that the good offensive times would continue to roll.
There’s an old saying in baseball that I’ve dropped in this space from time to time: Momentum is the next day’s starting pitcher. Perhaps that needs to be amended. Momentum is the next day’s starting pitcher and/or bulk innings guy.
Maikel Garcia grounded to second to push Witt to third. That brought up Vinnie Pasquantino with one out. Pasquantino, as you know, was something of a sacrifice fly machine last summer. He lofted 13 run-scoring fly balls, tied for the most in the league. This year? Not nearly as automatic. Pasquantino has hit just a single sacrifice fly. Nevertheless, he’s still generally productive with a runner on third and fewer than two out. Last year, with all those sac flies, he cashed in 30 of 51 runners in that situation, a 59 percent success rate. With hitters with at least 50 opportunities last year, Pasquantino was the second best, trailing only Josh Naylor who converted 60 percent of his chances.
This year, though? Pasquantino is still a good bet to come through with runners on third and fewer than two out. Coming into the game on Sunday, he had brought home 10 runs in 19 opportunities. That’s right around the league average rate.
But in this at bat, he got well under a changeup that was left in the middle of the plate. He, stop me if you’ve heard this before, popped it up.
With two outs, it was up to Salvador Perez to pad the early lead. He took a sweeper down for a ball and then watched a good-looking sinker for a called strike. With the count 1-1, he then proceeded to chase back-to-back sweepers that were well off the plate.
Inning over. Rally over. And, it turns out, the offense was over as well.
Left-hander Justin Wrobleski would serve as the bulk guy for the Dodgers. He was fantastic. He allowed a walk to Drew Waters in the third. (It was amazing he wasn’t caught stealing.) Waters advanced to third on a Garcia single with two outs. That was the last time a Royal advanced to second base or beyond.
The box score says the Royals went 1-5 with runners in scoring position. Four of those at bats came in the first inning.
Not good enough. Again.
There’s been a bit of discourse about how the Royals have scuffled on the first pitch of a plate appearance. Overall, when they put the first pitch in play, they’re not doing so hot, hitting .310/.320/.515. All three numbers are well below the league average against the first pitch. Their 81 OPS+ in this situation says they’re 19 percent less productive than a league average offense when putting the first pitch into play. The Royals rank 26 out of 30 teams.
All of the above is suboptimal.
But here’s the deal…you can pick your split and the Royals are probably going to be well back in the pack. That’s because this offense is just not very good.
Let’s focus on the approach for a moment. Anecdotally, it certainly feels like the Royals often utilize a really poor approach at the plate. They take a lot of really good-looking strikes on the first pitch. They then start expanding the zone, flailing at pitches that aren’t really candidates for good contact, if they’re candidates for contact at all.
What’s funny is that once the Royals fall behind 0-1, they turn into a league average offense. Collectively, this team hits .234/.268/.336, good for a 102 OPS+ after they fall behind 0-1.
When they get ahead in the count, they’re terrible. Overall, the team is hitting .242/.343/.374 when they jump ahead 1-0. Yes, those numbers are better than when they fall behind 0-1, which they should be. But the split of when this team gets ahead 1-0 has them at an abysmal 79 OPS+, worse than every team in the majors, save the Chicago White Sox.
You can go further into the splits and look a how they do in certain situations with runner on base or with the bases empty.
Yes, they do worse with runners in scoring position than any other split I listed above. But I tend to dismiss such differences as noise. Who is getting on base or in scoring position? Generally the Royals best hitters which means Witt, Garcia and Pasquantino. Then who is it up to to drive them in? That would be the lower half of the order.
Baseball-Reference does the heavy lifting, breaking the lineup into thirds.
My point is, even with the half-season sample size, be wary of the situational splits. I enjoy the numbers as much as anyone and it’s easy to get lost in the numbers and, by turn, the narrative. Yes, the Royals are poor when they’re hitting with runners in scoring position. But you know what? They’re also kind of bad whenever hitters not named Witt, Garcia and Pasquantino are up at the plate.
The dichotomy of the weekend is why I just can’t back this team to be anything more than .500. Even that feels like a stretch.
The nine runs the Royals hung on the Dodgers on Saturday were an example of what this offense can be. The top of the order did some serious heavy lifting with India and Witt going a combined 8-10 with a pair of doubles. Pasquantino cleaned them up, driving in five runs. Garcia added a couple of RBIs as well. It was their first home win since May 31—a 1-0 victory against Tarik Skubal and the Tigers. The nine runs was more than they scored in their previous six home games combined. It was a delightful offensive explosion.
Yet it’s all too rare.
More common is exactly what we witnessed on Sunday. A brief threat in one inning. And then eight other frames of uninspired offense. With over half of the games of the 2025 season in the books, this is who the Royals are.
The Royals need to do themselves and Jac Caglianone a favor and option him back to Omaha. He was 1-22 on the homestand with one walk and seven strikeouts. Most troubling to me is the fact that he’s not stinging the ball as he had earlier. Just two of the balls he put in play against LA were classified as hard-hit. Three were hard hit in the series prior against the Rays.
This is the worst-case scenario when it comes to bringing up a prospect before he’s ready. The Royals needed someone, anyone, to play in the outfield. Caglianone ripped through Double-A and had gotten off to a hot start for the Storm Chasers in Triple-A. He was rushed, not out of necessity, but of desperation. I, like many, hoped that he would find enough success in the early going to justify the move. That’s not happening and now the danger is that Caglianone’s season gets derailed because his confidence is obliterated.
Was the risk worth it in bringing Caglianone up? I think it was. But in hindsight, it was the wrong move. There’s still time to make it right, but the Royals really need to get on it.
Central Issues
Cardinals 7, Guardians 0
You think the Royals are having a tough time at home? The Guardians finished a 1-5 homestand with their third shutout this week. After being one-hit in Friday’s opener against St. Louis, Cleveland managed a grand total of three hits on Sunday in a game where they went 0-9 with runners in scoring position.
Giants 2, White Sox 5
Chicago trailed 2-1 entering the bottom of the seventh, but exploded for four runs in the inning, all coming with two outs. Kyle Teel doubled in two to take the lead. The Sox added insurance thanks to a balk and a Lenyn Sosa run-scoring single. Chicago won the series, two games to one. The Giants finished a week where they went 1-5 against the Sox and the Miami Marlins.
Twins 0, Tigers 3
Tarik Skubal and two relievers held Minnesota to two hits. Skubal struck out 13 through seven and dropped his ERA to 2.15. Kerry Carpenter homered and tripled to drive in two runs and Riley Green added a home run. The Tigers took the series, two games to one.
Four and a half games is not an insurmountable deficit. What is daunting, though, is that the Royals have to climb over six teams to get themselves in that final Wild Card spot.
Up Next
No rest for the Royals as they head to the Pacific Northwest for a four-game series against the Seattle Mariners. Kevin Seitzer and Edgar Martinez are Seattle’s hitting coaches. In case you were wondering.
June 30 - RHP Michael Wacha (4-7, 3.33) vs. RHP George Kirby (1-4, 5.40) at 8:40 p.m.
July 1 - RHP Michael Lorenzen (4-8, 4.91) vs. RHP Emerson Hancock (3-4, 5.30) at 8:40 p.m.
July 2 - LHP Noah Cameron (2-4, 2.79) vs. RHP Logan Gilbert (2-2, 3.55) at 8:40 p.m.
July 3 - RHP Seth Lugo (5-5, 2.74) vs. RHP Bryan Woo (7-4, 2.93) at 9:10 p.m.
When India & BWJ swatted back-to-back doubles leading off I actually got my hopes up for a win.
Then Vinnie popped out, my stomach fell to the floor and I just knew the game was lost. How sad is that?
Waters frustrates the crap out of me. Can't even bunt with a $#!t, then K's looking at a meatball.
This guy is supposed to have 5 tools? They must be all wrenches; only his glove is decent.
The one good thing about the sad outfield offense is that at least they have learned once and for all that Loftin and Waters are never going to help; Rave most likely not, either.
I want to disagree with your assessment of Jac, but I just can't. Man is he depressing me. He was the only internal hope for this pathetic offense and, so far at least . . .
In order to find hits, maybe it's time to rent a Geiger counter, or break out a diving rod, or maybe Dial-an-Exorcist.
They're going to have to go to silly extremes because talent ain't gonna bail 'em out
Well, in one sense, the Royals were perfect this season, 100 for 100. The outfield they counted on (Melendez, Massey, Renfroe, Biggio) all failed and are gone AND the guys they called up to replace (Loftin, Waters, Rave, Cags) are all disappointments. It's really stunning that out of eight guys, not one could be even replacement level.
My other thought is that it's going to get ugly in August & September after Lugo and Lorenzen are traded and Bubic is shut down to save his arm. In short, put below league-average pitching with the WORST offense in MLB--yuck!