The bats finally begin to stir, but the pitching carries the day

One big inning, along with another shutout from the pitching staff, pushes the Royals closer to the postseason

It’s almost as if the pitchers accepted a challenge from the hitters: Anything you can do we can do better. So just a day after the Royals offense snapped a 27 inning scoreless streak, the pitchers set a team record with their 26th consecutive inning without allowing a run. One shutout streak is suboptimal. The other is delightful.

With the Royals offense still thawing out of their deep freeze, runs weren’t exactly plentiful, but for the second evening in a row, it was enough. A tidy 3-0 victory over the Washington Nationals was the result.

I understand these Nationals aren’t the ‘27 Yankees. They’re among the more offensively challenged teams in the league. Still, as we said when the Royals were beating the White Sox, good teams crush the teams they’re supposed to crush. Wouldn’t it be great if the bullpen, at this late juncture, started to find their way? The starters have carried this team throughout the season. They’ve continued to do their part, even in September when the team has scuffled. And now the bullpen is showing they can be counted upon in these most important games.

Everyone was a winner on Wednesday. Unfortunately.

Orioles 9, Yankees 3
Rays 1, Tigers 7
Twins 8, Marlins 3
Mariners 8, Astros 1

The Orioles already qualified for the postseason and are four behind the Yankees in the AL East with four games to play. They own the tie breaker so that’s why that sorta matters. Plus! If the Orioles can sweep the Yankees tomorrow, they will still have something to play for when they face the Twins at the weekend.

Speaking of the Twins, they rallied for five runs in the seventh to break a three-all deadlock. Carlos Santana had the big hit with a bases loaded double.

The Mariners were eliminated from the AL West on Tuesday, but remain on the fringes of the Wild Card race along with the Twins.

The Tigers…enough already. Top pitching prospect Jackson Jobe made his major league debut and closed out their victory to keep pace with the Royals.

Same standings as yesterday, except every one of the five teams below is plus-one in the win column.

But with four games left and the two teams on the outside unable to make up any ground, the playoff odds tilt even further in favor of the Tigers and the Royals.

The Tigers have a 91 percent chance of grabbing a Wild Card with the Royals at 85 percent. Hmmm…85.

Michael Lorenzen made his return from a hamstring injury and looked solid in his 2.1 innings of work. He walked two but didn’t allow a hit. He was pulled from the game after just 28 pitches with what the Royals said was hamstring fatigue. It was a precautionary move, according to the team. Lorenzen, who hadn’t thrown many innings in his rehab start and simulated game before being activated, was on a short leash anyway, although I didn’t expect it to be that short. I suppose it doesn’t matter all that much. He can pitch out of the bullpen over these final four games and then in the Wild Card round. If the Royals advance beyond that, he will likely remain in the bullpen.

From there, the bullpen got busy. Daniel Lynch IV was the first man up and he continued to show he’s more than capable working out of relief. He’s now up to 18.2 scoreless innings since rejoining the team at the end of August with 21 strikeouts and four walks. Opponents are hitting .117 against him. Yeah…that will totally work.

Angel Zerpa was next and he went three up, three down. Zerpa has now thrown five innings since his detour to Triple-A and has allowed just a single baserunner while striking out five. I’m starting to wonder if Omaha is where pitchers need to go to get fixed.

John Schrieber is always an experience and he walked the first two hitters and then gave up a bomb to right to Dylan Crews that took Tommy Pham to the fence for the final out. What’s a win without a little sweat.

Sam Long and Lucas Erceg closed it out. Overall, the bullpen went 6.1 innings allowing just two hits, three walks and five strikeouts. Efficient.

If you’re searching for a sign the Royals are emerging from their offensive hibernation, look no further that the sixth inning.

Salvador Perez, who was just 5-29 with no extra-base hits during the losing streak, got the Royals started with a single up the middle. It was scorched, leaving his bat at 112 MPH, it was his fourth hardest-hit ball of the season. (Perez’s three hardest-hit balls in 2024 resulted in two home runs and a double. Just thought that was a fun little fact.)

Yuli Gurriel followed with a double to left. Likewise, it was hammered, with an exit velocity of 106 MPH. That set up runners at second and third with nobody out. I know, I know…It’s entirely possible we are watching another rerun of the last week when the club would put runners in scoring position at any point of an inning, really, and would squander the opportunity. This time, thought, it felt different. For starters, there were those to baseballs that were smoked in play. And it just kind of seemed like Garcia was just kind of leaving baseballs in the fat part of the zone. It was just the right kind of mix for the Royals to capitalize.

The next man up was Robbie Grossman. The switch-hitting Grossman got the start on Wednesday because he hits better from the right side and the Nationals started another lefty. Recall when he joined the team, I pointed out his seasonal splits of .281/.387/.438 for a 151 tOPS+ against lefties far outshone his .172/.277/.207 for a 47 tOPS+ against right-handed pitching. In fact, I went as far as to state that I was behind the Grossman acquisition as long as he never took a plate appearance against a right-handed pitcher.

Naturally, Grossman stuck out in his two at-bats against Nats lefty starter DJ Herz. Matt Quatraro left Grossman in the game to face the right-handed Garcia and whaddya know…he lined a single up the middle to score both Perez and Gurriel. It was the first time the Royals scored two runs in an inning since the Bobby Witt Jr. grand slam against the Tigers back on September 16, a stretch of six-plus games without scoring more than a single run in an inning.

Two runs would be all the Royals got out of the inning, but it felt like plenty given the circumstances. One can’t be too greedy when runs are a scarce commodity.

While it was a pleasant development for this team to score multiple runs in an inning, I felt that what transpired in the bottom of the inning was just as important. The Royals middle infielders made two great defensive plays behind reliever Angel Zerpa. First, Michael Massey:

Again, I find Massey’s defense generally appealing. Underrated, even. He’s just so controlled in the field, never rushing, doesn’t panic…smooth. Here, he had to charge hard, knew the play was going to be close, and flipped it with his glove to first. Amazing.

That was immediately followed by Bobby Witt Jr. laying out for the final out of the inning:

During that losing streak, it felt like Witt was making these dives and coming up just short time and time again. Not because the quality of defense slipped from the shortstop. Don’t be silly. It was just the those balls were perfectly placed, just out of reach of the finest defensive shortstop in the game.

I truly believe that this three-run outburst (and that’s what it was—an outburst), released the shackles that had been confining this team. The defense that showed in the bottom of the sixth was a signal to me that things had regained their proper balance in the baseball universe. The Royals are going to be ok.

I don’t do a song of a day here, although I’ve always been tempted. This one, however, is too good—and relevant—not to embed.

The Royals magic number is three. They close out their series against the Nationals on Thursday at 12:05 Central. Michael Wacha will take on Patrick Corbin.