Giving one away

Daniel Lynch IV pitched well. Until he didn't. The Royals were in control. Until they weren't. It was that kind of day.

Sometimes I hate being right.

I knew, just knew, based on the opening series of the season that the Twins would be a difficult matchup for the Royals this year. Back in March, it just seemed like Minnesota had the tools to make life difficult, not just for Kansas City, but for the AL Central in general. While the Twins have stumbled these first two months, they got healthy this week, taking three of four from the Royals, including Thursday’s 7-6 come-from-behind victory.

The Royals are now 2-5 against the Twins in this young season. Not the record you want to have against a division rival. Not at all.

The Royals got off to a good start, putting up four unanswered runs through the first four innings. Four seems to be the theme at the moment as I’ll point out the first four batters in the Royals lineup on Thursday went 6-17 with two walks and drove in five of the six runs the team scored. (Actually, the credit goes to the first three batters in the lineup as Salvador Perez went 0-3, although he did pick up one of the walks. I include him because it suits the narrative that I’m building here and because Salvy slander won’t stand. He’s too good to be included in the bottom half of this batting order.) They were largely responsible for the crooked numbers the Royals hung in the first and ninth innings.

The rest of the lineup? Try 1-18 with two walks. The lone hit and one of the walks belonging to MJ Melendez.

As followers of this franchise, we’re well accustomed to offensive dry spells. If I had a nickel every time I wrote about the Royals needing the big hit or an inning where they had to string together six singles to score two runs, this newsletter would be insanely profitable. Instead, it’s just emotionally gratifying. Now the Royals have legitimate, productive bats in the top half. They’re scoring runs, averaging 4.86 runs per game. They aren’t a stranger to the big inning, batting around more than a few times this season. Yet this game on Thursday can serve as something of a wake-up call. The bottom half of the order isn’t getting it done. Put it another way, they don’t have the talent there to consistently produce.

I remain convinced that Melendez needs a turn in Triple-A to find a bit of confidence, although I’m buoyed by the fact he saw 22 pitches on Thursday, including a pair of epic plate appearances where he saw 12 pitches in the third and eight pitches in the sixth.

Hmmmm, by my rough math skills, that means he also had two plate appearances where he put the first pitch in play. Well, one of those was his home run, so…

Maybe Nelson Velázquez is rediscovering his power stroke, but damn do the Royals miss Michael Massey. I love Freddy Fermin so he gets a pass. (My newsletter, my rules.) And as I’ve written numerous times this year, I can deal with Kyle Isbel hitting ninth.

Kind of strange to be harping on the lineup when the team plated six runs in a losing effort, isn’t it? Six runs seem to be the tipping point between winning and losing. The Royals have played 21 games this season where they’ve scored six or more runs. They’ve won 19 of those contests. With the pitching they’ve had up to this point, when the offense is pushing six runs across the plate, it’s almost a guaranteed victory. A .905 winning percentage when scoring six or more runs? Yeah, that works.

But when things go sideways, things really go sideways.

Daniel Lynch IV got the emergency start on Thursday, in place of scheduled starter Brady Singer who was ill. Lynch gave up a leadoff single to Manuel Margot but then went cruising, setting down the next nine batters in order. He was a model of efficiency. He went through the first inning on 12 pitches, the second on seven pitches and the third required just eight pitches.

Things started to unravel in the fourth. It started on an error charged to Garcia on a ball that seemed to have a lot of topspin and kind of skidded on the infield dirt. Tough play, but one that Garcia should probably make. Ryan Jeffers was up next and unloaded on a changeup that split the plate. I mean, he couldn’t have asked for a better pitch to clobber—an 85 MPH change sitting middle-middle.

From that moment on, the Twins really worked Lynch. He loaded the bases on a walk and a pair of singles yet tiptoed around any additional damage. Yet the Twins sent eight batters to the plate and forced Lynch to throw 29 pitches. The fourth inning washed away any efficiency that Lynch banked through the first three frames. It ensured his day wouldn’t go much longer.

When the fifth inning opened, the Twins were facing Lynch for a third time. Jeffers got him again.

I understand why Matt Quatraro pulled Lynch after the fifth even though he was only at 72 pitches. The lefty wasn’t fooling opposing batters with his slider. Lynch wasn’t throwing that pitch for strikes and the Twins weren’t chasing.

A couple of swings and misses, but those were early in counts. The Lynch slider wasn’t a putaway pitch. There was also the fact that the fourth, and to a lesser extent the fifth, were both stressful innings with elevated pitch counts. Quatraro seems to be pulling his starters earlier, rather than later for the most part this season, trusting a bullpen that probably hasn’t earned that degree of faith. On Thursday, he was asking his relievers to get (hopefully) four innings of quality.

He got 2.1.

The bullpen was relatively rested coming into the game on Thursday. The only reliever who had appeared twice for the Royals in the series was Carlos Hernández, who was shipped to Omaha just before the game as the corresponding move to bring Lynch to the roster. Will Smith and Angel Zerpa had pitched on Wednesday. Sam Long and Chris Stratton threw on Tuesday. Nick Anderson appeared on Monday.

That meant the two best relievers, James McArthur and John Schreiber had yet to appear. Of course, Quatraro was holding them for the later innings.

The problem was, the Royals never got there. Quatraro opted for Stratton to open the sixth. Again, the problems started with an error. This time, it was on a throw from Bobby Witt Jr. It was a difficult play to make, as Witt was moving to his right and ultimately throwing across his body. Witt gets the error as it was his throw, but I have to think that Perez needed to move off the bag to receive it. The ball was topped and hit slowly and the runner, Willi Castro, was going to beat the throw even if it had been on target.

Stratton gave up a single to Max Kepler, scoring Castro who advanced to second on that error. Fine. It’s now a one-run game, but still in favor of the Royals.

Except from there, Stratton lost command and ultimately the game for the Royals. He issued two walks sandwiched around a strikeout. The plate appearances where he walked the two batters were uncompetitive. Stratton wasn’t in the same area code for several of his pitches. That brought up Carlos Correa in the game’s pivotal at bat. Get him out and the Royals still have the lead with a closer bridge to Schreiber and McArthur. Let him reach and you’re looking at a tie game, or worse.

It was worse.

Stratton put a 3-1 fastball on a tee to Correa who lined it to the opposite field for a bases-clearing triple.

Walks and errors. They’ll kill you every time.

The Royals cashed on the Twins’ reciprocal generosity in the ninth when Witt singled home Adam Frazier—who reached on a walk—and Garcia—who got on via a fielder’s choice after an error allowed Isbel to reach—but like on Monday, it just wasn’t enough.

It was the Royals fifth loss in seven games to the Twins.

Central Issues

Tigers 5, Red Sox 0

Jack Flaherty twirled 6.1 innings of one-hit ball, striking out nine. Akil Baddoo got the Tigers on the board in the fifth with a solo home runs and they plated another in the sixth before breaking the game open with a three-run eighth inning. Riley Greene and Gio Urshela both hit home runs for Detroit.

After a rough series in Minnesota, it’s a small consolation to see the Royals still hovering above a .600 winning percentage. They return home for a three-game weekend set against the Padres. The K has been a fortress this year so it’s perfect timing as the club looks to get back in a winning frame of mind.