Lugo and the Royals' bats team up to sting the Rays

It's a sweep for the good guys in Tampa.

If it wasn’t already official, it is now: The Royals are the hottest team in the majors.

After their 8-2 victory against the Tampa Bay Rays on Thursday to complete the sweep of the three-game series, the Royals have now won nine of their last 10. They have outscored their opponents 42-22 over that span. If the Royals had any kind of a functional offense, baseball as a collective would be sitting up and taking notice because the pitching, my friends, has been outstanding. As in 2.2 runs per game over this stretch outstanding. Or 3.4 runs per game allowed over the entire season outstanding.

But the offense did show on Thursday at a minor league ballpark in Tampa. They did stack together a couple of modest rallies. They did salt the game away in the middle innings, leaving it to the back of the bullpen to finish off another opponent flummoxed by the day’s starting pitcher.

It was one of the more comprehensive wins of the season. They should do that more often.

This, from Thursday’s starter Seth Lugo, is absolute madness.

I’ll save you the trouble of counting—because it’s a lot—there are 10 different pitch types Lugo uncorked on Thursday.

It’s fascinating. It’s mesmerizing. The breakdown of how he uses this array against different hitters is just…wow. The changeup is thrown exclusively to lefties. With the arm-side fade, it runs away from those hitters. The sweeper and slider is thrown almost entirely to right-handed hitters. Again, it’s moving away in that instance.

Thursday was the first time this season that Lugo leaned primarily on his curve. I say primarily, but I don’t even know what that means when it comes to his offerings. In this case, it’s 25 percent of the time. Ridiculous.

The curve has been Lugo’s second most frequent pitch, behind the four-seamer. Early in the season, the fastball/curve combo was thrown close to half the time. At least in his first three starts. Since then, he’s steadily reduced the frequency with which he’s thrown the curve. Until Thursday. In his two starts prior to this one against Tampa, Lugo’s main secondary pitch has been his slurve. It was the seventh choice on Thursday.

This is how Lugo’s repertoire has evolved throughout the first month-plus of the season, excluding Thursday’s game:

I’m laughing as I write this because, man…How do you even begin to break something like this down? How does a hitter stand in the box and make contact without looking like a fool?

The new pitch for Lugo this year (I have absolutely no idea if it’s actually new, it’s just that Savant hasn’t charted it until this season), has been the “slow curve.” It’s a different offering from his “regular curve.”

This is Lugo’s curveball, regular:

It’s a big breaker with 55 inches of drop and 15 inches of glove-side run. The above pitch was delivered to Chandler Simpson in the bottom of the third inning.

This is Lugo’s curveball, slow:

You would expect a “slow” curve to have a massive break and it does feature 56 inches of drop. The killer on this pitch, though, is its 22 inches of vertical run. Oh, and the difference in velocity between the “regular” and the “slow” curve is about seven mph.

The “slow” curve was to Simpson in the same at bat in the third. This was the entire sequence from Lugo.

Simpson was able to lay off the second pitch, a changeup at 85 mph. He was not able to hold off on a pitch further down and out of the zone on an 87 mph change. Then the slow curve absolutely destroyed him.

Watching Lugo pitch is like watching Damien Hirst create a Colour Space painting.

Someone get the Art But Make It Sports guy on the phone!

Can you tell the difference? More importantly, is this what a hitter sees when he’s in the box against Lugo?

The Royals offense exploded for eight runs, their highest tally since April 4th against the Baltimore Orioles. On this afternoon, the bats were in Cobra-Kai quick-strike mode. No mercy!

In the fifth inning, Freddy Fermin led off with an automatic double. With two outs, Bobby Witt Jr. decided this would be the most opportune time for him to extend his hitting streak to 22 games. He hammered a first-pitch elevated fastball that was clocked at 98 mph the opposite way and over the wall for a two-run blast. Yes, it was a New Yankee Stadium/Steinbrenner Field gift, but it’s about time the Royals caught that kind of break. And why not Witt?

That homer was followed by a Vinnie Pasquantino double on the next pitch. That was followed by a Salvador Perez double three pitches later. Five pitches, all with two outs, three runs.

A similar scenario unfolded in the sixth. With one out, Mark Canha walked and Fermin singled. After Drew Waters popped out, Jonathan India walked to load the bases. Exit Baz and enter Eric Orze. Orze plunked Witt with his first pitch to bring home the Royals fifth run of the day. On the next pitch, Pasquantino went with a slider to loop a ball to left to bring home two more. Two pitches, again all with two outs, three more runs.

Who among us doesn’t like that?

As noted, Witt’s hitting streak reached 22 games with his home run. It’s tied for the sixth-longest streak in franchise history.

1 - Whit Merrifield - 31 games
2 - George Brett - 30 games
3 - José Offerman - 27 games
T4 - Mike Sweeney - 25 games
T4- George Brett - 25 games
T6 - Brian McRae - 22 games
T6 - Bobby Witt Jr. - 22 games

I think the craziest thing about Witt and his hitting streak is that this is the sixth time since the start of last season he’s gone on a binge of 10 games or more. Six times! The next closest is Francisco Lindor, who’s had four hitting streaks of 10 games or more since the start of 2024.

There isn’t a statistic or factoid that doesn’t make Witt look amazing.

Since the start of the streak, Witt is hitting a cool .363/.442/.550 with nine doubles and two home runs. He’s scored 14 runs. He’s collected 10 RBIs. And how about this one…He’s walked 11 times against just 13 strikeouts. The only thing he hasn’t done is hit a triple. Slacker.

It’s not a coincidence that this Royals hot streak has come when Salvador Perez started getting hot and crushing doubles. Going back to the start of the last homestead, the Captain is hitting .400/.419/.633. He’s collected 11 hits total with seven of them going for two bases. Like Witt, I have something that will absolutely blow your mind. This stretch covers 31 plate appearances and Perez has struck out just two times. Two! That’s a six percent strikeout rate! Six percent! I cannot stop with the exclamation points because I don’t think I’ve ever witnessed a stretch like this in Perez’s career where he’s become the ultimate contact machine.

The potential bummer: He exited Thursday’s game with left hip soreness. After hitting a double, naturally.

I’ve watched Perez play for too long to be worried about something like that.

As speculated in this space on Thursday, the Royals sent down Noah Cameron to get another arm in the bullpen. In this case, it is Taylor Clark who was added to the 40-man roster and recalled from Omaha. To make room for Clark, the Royals moved James McArthur to the 60-day injured list.

Cameron had a stellar debut but was destined for a short stay with the Royals convinced that Cole Ragans will be able to take his next turn in the rotation. And with a stretch of 16 games in 16 days, the Royals really can’t afford to be caught short in the bullpen, even though the starters have generally been exceptional early in the season.

Central Issues

Brewers 0, White Sox 8

The White Sox have won eight games this year. Five of those wins have come by margins of seven runs or more. Someone make it make sense. Miguel Vargas clubbed a three-run blast in the sixth. Luis Robert Jr. hit a bases-clearing double in the seventh. Sean Burke and three Sox relievers combined on the shutout

Twins 3, Guardians 4 - 10 innings

On Tuesday, these two teams had their game delayed for over three hours by the threat of rain. Yes, threat. It rained for about five minutes. On Thursday, the rains finally came. Weird. This was also the eighth time the Guardians walked off the Twins since the start of the 2022 season.

Tigers 10, Angels 4

Detroit was trailing 4-2 entering the eighth inning. The Tigers plated five runs in the eighth, punctuated by a three-run Dillon Dingler donger. They followed that up with three runs in the ninth, with Spencer Torkelson hitting a two-run bomb to put a cap on the scoring.

The Guardians and White Sox both have a run differential of -24. Baseball is weird.