Melendez and the Royals sweep away the Sox

MJ Melendez puts the offense on his back and carries the Royals to a four-game sweep of the White Sox.

How are you feeling? Good? Maybe great? It’s Monday. You’re probably feeling a range of first-of-the-week emotions. Perhaps you feel like poor Pedro Grifol. Maybe he will be a good manager someday, but damn if he hasn’t been dealt a losing hand. Or do you feel like Chris Getz? It can be tough when you’re overmatched.

Forget those guys. Maybe you feel like MJ Melendez. I hope you feel like MJ Melendez. Because Melendez can do damn well about anything. That’s beast mode engaged.

On a wind-swept afternoon at Kauffman Stadium, Melendez completed a weekend of clutch, hammering his third game-winning hit as the Royals broke out the brooms. Kansas City won Sunday’s game 5-3 and took the series 4-0.

Again…How are you feeling???

I’m going to wager you’re feeling damn good. Still, probably not as good as Melendez, though. What a weekend he had.

On Friday, Brady Singer and Erick Fedde engaged in what we used to call an old-fashioned pitcher’s duel. I say old-fashioned because these 2024 Royals seem to specialize in this. What’s old is new again when it comes to this rotation, apparently. Anyway, the Royals scored in the bottom of the first, the White Sox tallied a run in the top of the second. From there…goose eggs. In fact, after Singer allowed the game-tying home run to Gavin Sheets in the second, he retired 15 consecutive batters. I am fully aware this is the White Sox, but still…damn.

Meanwhile, the Royals were dropping a single in here, drawing a walk there, but they just couldn’t get that breakthrough piece of offense required to hang a number on the scoreboard other than the dreaded 0.

Then with one out in the eighth, Salvador Perez drew a walk.

Will you look at that? Perez laid off three sliders out of the zone in that PA. That deserves mention. Maybe I’m reading too much into the situation, but it sure felt as if Perez was up there with the intention of making reliever Michael Kopech work and to get on base. Mission accomplished.

From there, manager Matt Quatraro went to work, pinch-running Dairon Blanco for Perez. Blanco, after looking a bit skittish leading off first in his 2024 debut a week and a half ago, has quickly settled into his specialist role. He waited just two pitches before taking off for second.

In his duel against Kopech, Melendez saw five four-seam fastballs. Melendez swung and missed at one up in the zone, fouled off another and watched to go by out of the zone. With the count at 2-2 Melendez was in protect mode and expanded his zone a bit to make sure he wouldn’t be caught napping. The result was this:

This is just a fine piece of hitting. He couldn’t do anything with a four-seamer in that particular location except for exactly what he did. He dunked it into left field and Blanco motored around to score the decisive run.

Piggybacking off Singer’s stellar start, the bullpen wrapped up the victory with 2.2 innings scoreless. It wasn’t all simple though as Quatraro brought Will Smith in to close out the game in the ninth. Just two nights after he couldn’t wrap up a one-run lead in the ninth against the Orioles, Smith wobbled once again. After getting the first out on a strikeout, Smith allowed a double to Luis Robert Jr. before missing the strike zone in walking the next batter, Kevin Pillar. Uh oh. This couldn’t be happening again. As I wrote after Wednesday’s game, some games turn into “need-to-win games.” The Royals and Smith let that one get away. It was a brutal result. Could it be happening again? Just 48 hours later?

I don’t think it’s overstating things to say that this felt like a season-defining moment. Maybe that sounds ridiculous—this was just the eighth game of the season—but this is where we found the Royals. Another brutal loss—it would’ve been the third game out of four where the Royals let one slip away in the ninth inning—it could’ve been the opening salvo of a death spiral. We’ve seen it before from this team in April.

The stakes just felt incredibly high at that moment.

Maybe Quatraro felt the same because he came and got the ball from Smith. James McArthur came in to close things out. McArthur himself had struggled over his first few appearances, surrendering runs in each of his first three games this year. Not to worry. He required two pitches to get that double play ground ball to secure the victory.

Quatraro managed the hell out of that game in the later innings, pulling all the right levers at exactly the right moments.

Another night, another pitching duel. Seriously, this rotation is insane.

On Saturday Michael Wacha and Chris Flexen traded zeros for the first six innings. Wacha retired the first 10 White Sox he faced before walking Yoán Moncada in the fourth. The first hit he allowed came on a double from Martín Maldonado with one out in the sixth.

Wacha pitched seven innings. Those two aforementioned runners were the only guys he allowed to reach base. Seriously, how is it happening that night after night these guys in this rotation seem to top the starter from the night before? My mind is absolutely blown watching these guys work. What a treat.

With the game tied at 0-0 in the bottom of the seventh, the duo of Perez and Melendez decided to recreate their heroics from the previous game. Perez drove a single off the wall into left to lead off the inning. On the next pitch, Melendez did this:

Did you, ahem, catch what happened there? Perhaps this angle will help shed some light on what happened.

Officially, the ball traveled 416 feet. I’m not sure how that happened since I see the 410 marker on the wall and the ball clearly hits below the top of the wall. It’s kind of funny that Baseball Savant says that ball would’ve been a home run at 23 parks, including Kauffman. Sure thing.

I’m just having a little bit of fun here. Because fun baseball is fun. And whether it’s Jose Canseco’s melon or Dominic Fletcher’s glove, center fielders unintentionally helping the baseball over the wall is freaking hilarious.

Watching from this angle, it’s clear to me the ball hits the wall and then then glove and then goes over the fence. Not sure why Grifol and the White Sox didn’t opt for a crew chief challenge. LOL Sox, I guess.

It’s a little early to be talking omens and destiny and whatnot, but damn if this wasn’t the type of game Denny Mathews talks about on the radio that good teams seem to find the way to win. Good teams need a little bit of luck every now and then. Even when their starting pitching dominates.

It couldn’t last forever. It simply couldn’t. I’m talking about the Royals’ starting rotation dominance. After Wacha’s start on Saturday, the Royals PR team dropped this nugget:

Through 9 games, Royals starters have a 1.25 ERA (8 ER in 57.1 IP) with 28 hits allowed and a Majors-most 8 quality starts…they are the first team in the Modern Era (since 1901) whose starters have allowed no more than 8 runs and 28 hits with at least 57.1 innings through 9 games.

They’re getting pretty granular there, but when you’re searching the record books back to 1901 and don’t find an instance of some combination of numbers in this game happening before…well then. It’s been just an absurd start to the season for this rotation.

Making his second start of the season, Alec Marsh just didn’t have it on Sunday. He fought traffic all afternoon and was routinely missing his spots. Yet I’ll give the guy some credit here because he battled and fought and refused to give in. The Sox dinged him for three runs and Marsh became the first Royals starter this year to fail to complete five innings.

The Royals fought back. First it was an unlikely home run off the bat of Hunter Renfroe. Renfroe has struggled offensively since the season opened, reaching base just four times in his first seven games. Entering play on Sunday, he was hitting an anemic .115/.148/.115 and hasn’t exactly had plate appearances that would inspire confidence.

He had a helluva PA against White Sox starter Garrett Crochet, though. Crochet, Chicago’s Opening Day starter, has been worthy of that distinction, posting a 1.38 ERA in his two previous starts, striking out 16 and walking just one in 13 innings of work. Sunday he didn’t give up a hit until Nelson Velázquez led off the fifth with a single. Crochet, despite looking in command, was fighting the command of his four-seamer; he was leaning on his slider a bit more than usual in key situations. Renfroe and the Royals picked up on this and the right fielder was ready.

Renfroe sent a low 1-2 slider over the wall in left field for his first homer since September 8 of last year to cut the margin to 3-2.

It was never comfortable for the Royals on Sunday. Despite slicing the deficit to a single run, danger was never far from the bases. The Sox got a leadoff single in the sixth and in the seventh had two on with a leadoff double and a one-out walk. They couldn’t score. That set the stage for that man again.

Hello, Mr. Melendez.

A Velázquez walk opened the seventh. (I love how Velázquez was the table-setter for both of the Royals’ big innings on Sunday.) Blanco was the pinch-runner of choice again and he promptly swiped second. (This all sounds very familiar. Imagine how it must sound to a White Sox fan.) Meanwhile, Melendez whiffed on two four-seamers to open his at bat. He let the next two fastballs go to even the count. Sox reliever Devi Garcia spun a center-cut change that Melendez could only foul off. The sixth pitch was an elevated fastball. It was the last pitch of the at bat. It may as well been the last pitch of the series.

Would you believe the White Sox challenged this home run? Ummm…a little too late since the challenge should’ve come the day before. Still, high entertainment value from the White Sox dugout. Five stars. No notes.

If you’re keeping track at home, Melendez gave the Royals the lead in Friday’s game, in Saturday’s game and yes, in Sunday’s game as well. There’s clutch and then there’s what Melendez did this weekend.

One more time. With feeling…

Overall, he was 5-12 with a double and three home runs. He drove in seven of the 20 runs the Royals scored in this series.

That’s how you come up against a bad team and get a four-game sweep.

There’s been a ton of focus on the starting rotation and rightfully so, but let’s take a moment and appreciate the work the bullpen did in this series. After a rock first six games, they pulled it together over their last four. Against Chicago the relievers combined to pitch 12.2 scoreless innings. They allowed eight walks, which isn’t great, but did strike out 11.

Sure the caveat here is this is the White Sox. An already unimposing lineup was made even weaker with the absence of Robert after the series opener. I’m a believer you have to give credit where it’s due. I’m not sold that the bullpen has necessarily fixed the problems that were exposed in the first two series of the year, but it’s good for them to roll off four scoreless outings in a row.

Smith even pitched on Sunday—he got the eighth—and allowed just one baserunner. Angel Zerpa came in for Marsh in a tight spot with two runners on and promptly hit the first batter he faced, reducing his margin for error to zero and he still got out of the inning and returned to pitch another. And McArthur closed out the win to complete the sweep and pick up his second save of the series and the season.

The White Sox outhit the Royals on Sunday 12-5. They had multiple runners on base in six of the nine innings. That they could only plate three runs is a credit to Marsh and the relievers. They kept the game close for Melendez’s third consecutive game of heroics.

I’ve been writing since the season started that the 2024 Royals just vibe differently. Even with a 6-4 record, they’ve been competitive in every game they’ve played thus far. This note from the Royals’ PR team underscores that:

(The Royals) have been tied, led or within 1 run heading into the 8th inning in all 10 games…they’ve held a lead at the end of 44.0 innings (48.9%), have been tied for 31.0 innings (34.4%) and have trailed at the end of only 14.0 innings (15.6%), and 7.0 of those trailing innings came on Opening Day.

It’s still early days and it’s still the White Sox, but you have to start somewhere. This was a fantastic rebound from a tough series in Baltimore. A fun, fun series that featured a little bit of everything. There’s plenty of baseball left, but this team is already forming an identity.

The kids just might be alright.