Brilliance from Bubic

Kris Bubic overwhelmed the Giants, and the offense, on the back of a Vinnie Pasquantino home run, did just enough to secure a win. So very 2025 Royals.

In a season full of outstanding starting pitching performances, Kris Bubic twirled perhaps the shiniest gem of the year on Monday against the San Francisco Giants. In a season full of dreadful offensive showings, the Royals bats waited as long as they possibly could to get him a run.

They got him two. Then tacked on one more and held on for a 3-1 victory.

It was the most 2025 game of this Royals season.

Bubic was brilliant. Full stop. No analysis required.

But you’re here for analysis! Fine. How about this…

Bubic threw seven innings, walked three, allowed two hits (one clean) and struck out five. When we say a guy shoved—and Bubic most definitely shoved on Monday—one may think that’s a synonym for overpowering. But Bubic is more Seth Lugo than Cole Ragans. Bubic bobs and weaves, befuddling hitters with a fastball that defies gravity and a changeup that is attached to a string and a sweeper that is generally perfectly placed.

The result is an uncomfortable plate appearance where the hitter is off-kilter and cannot make solid contact. It’s amazing to watch.

Bubic collected 15 swings and misses on the night, with them fairly evenly dispersed between the fastball, changeup and sweeper. They’re all weapons for the lefty.

And look at his pitch chart from the game.

We usually see clusters with a particular offering that a pitcher can command. On the above chart, I can see three areas where Bubic was pitching to with his three key pitches.

His pitches are stacked on a southwest-to-northeast plane, with the four-seamer on top, the sweeper in the middle and the changeup down. This looks unique to me, and I think it’s key to how he’s getting that weak contact and a chase rate that hovers around 30 percent.

Another one of the ways Bubic has turned himself into a dominant starting pitcher is that he’s bought into the mantra of pitching coaches Brian Sweeney and Zach Bove to “raid the zone.” Prior to the arrival of Sweeney and Bove, Bubic was throwing a first-pitch strike just 56 percent of the time. Since the 2023 season, that has bumped to 63 percent.

I note that because in Monday’s start, Bubic didn’t begin by throwing first-pitch strikes. In fact, he didn’t deliver a first-pitch strike until the sixth batter of the game, Casey Schmitt, lined an elevated four-seamer to left for the final out of the second.

An uncharacteristic Bubic start to the game, but it didn’t cause any issues because the way he was locating and mixing his pitches kept San Francisco hitters off balance the first time through the order.

Look how Bubic handled the Giants number three hitter, the only lefty in the lineup, Jung Hoo Lee. In their first confrontation, there was a plethora of sinkers.

Lee was part of that early sequence I mentioned above where Bubic failed to deliver a first-pitch strike, although it was damn close. (It should’ve been called a strike.) The second pitch was the only non-sinker Bubic threw in that at bat, a slider just off the dish to fall behind 2-0. From there, it was all sinkers, all of them in completely different locations. Lee grounded out to second.

The next at bat was a much shorter affair.

Another ground out, this time to short.

In their final battle, Bubic shelved the sinker and went exclusively with the sweeper.

Away, away, away and away. Lee strikes out in just 12 percent of his at bats. He whiffs on just six percent of his swings. And Bubic had him all kinds of messed up.

Bubic lost his no-hitter in the sixth inning on an infield grounder that should’ve been a routine out. Except second baseman Michael Massey, playing more up the middle and needing to cover some distance to field the ball, slipped on the grass and had his feet fly out from underneath.

Originally, it was scored as an error. Man, that’s a tough spot for an official scorer. In today’s game, that’s a straight-up hit. It’s not a clean hit or anything of the sort, but it’s still a hit. But with a pitcher dealing and on a batted ball that’s going to be an out 99 out of 100 times, I can see that being scored as an error. Because what a way to lose a no-hitter.

Plays can be reviewed by the league, and scoring can be changed for a couple of days after the fact. I immediately found myself wondering if that was a candidate for reversal should Bubic give up a clean hit.

Then, it was changed to a hit. And, you know what? I could agree with that. (I contain multitudes.)

Watching the replays, once Massey lost his footing, it was over. Even had he fielded the ball, there was no way he could have made the throw to first. Maybe fifty years ago, that’s an error, but in 2025, that’s a base hit. Stinks for Bubic and those of us waiting for the first Royals no-hitter since 1991.

One more on Bubic: Regular readers will know I love to use Game Score to get a measure of exactly how good a starting pitcher was in an outing. (Game Score was developed by Bill James and can be found at Baseball Reference. A definition is here.)

Bubic finished with a Game Score of 75 on Monday. That’s the second time he’s finished with a 75 and it’s the third-highest Game Score by a Royals starter this season. But! It is the fifth time Bubic has posted a Game Score of 70 or greater. That’s some impressive consistency. Overall, there have been 170 starts where a pitcher finished at a 70 Game Score or better, and only Zack Wheeler in Philadelphia has more than Bubic with six.

As I was watching Robbie Ray work, I thought to myself, “This guy is junk-balling his way through this lineup.” Then, I would watch him uncork a 93 mph fastball and think, “Well, that’s not really hard, but there’s some life on that four-seamer.” One of the things I love about the data at our fingertips is that you can look something up in real time to see if what you perceive to be happening in the game is true.

Check out how Ray was working through his first four innings.

Everything at the belt and above—save one slider and one changeup—was a four-seamer. Everything below the belt—except those two fastballs off the third base side of the dish—was his secondary pitches. The four-seamer, as I noted, was clocked at 93 mph. The slider, knuckle curve and change were in the mid to lower 80s.

I thought Maikel Garcia had the perfect approach on his at bat in the fourth inning when he singled on a slider through the hole between first and second. You have to wait, wait and wait some more on those offspeed pitches to finish.

One more thing on Bubic: Not only is he pitching incredibly just about every time out, I’m feeling like starting a campaign to promote him for a Gold Glove. He looked smooth in the field on Monday.

The Royals had something cooking in the third against Ray when Kyle Isbel led off with a single on a four-seamer that was in on his hands. He went to second when Ray walked the next batter, leadoff man Jonathan India. That brought up Bobby Witt Jr. with two on and nobody out. A big inning, perhaps?

My friends, I will remind you these are the 2025 Kansas City Royals.

Witt put a charge into a changeup. It left the bat at 101.9 mph. A line drive.

Everthing about the process was perfect. The only thing that was wrong was that it was hit right at the shortstop.

I seriously doubt that Kyle Isbel would’ve been able to get back to second base, had he made the proper baserunning move and froze on the line drive. Instead, for whatever reason, he broke for third. So he probably was out anyway, but kind of inexplicably doubled down and decided to TOOTBLAN in style.

If you’re going to refuse to score runs, you should probably decide to play some solid defense. Like this:

This was the only spot of trouble Bubic was in all night. He allowed a one-out walk and that was followed by a double to put runners on second and third. The next batter, Tyler Fitzgerald, hit a soft liner to Witt, who was playing in as you can see, who caught the ball then did a quick-casual flip to Garcia at third to finish off the double play and the inning.

That’s two quality defenders keeping their heads in the game and showing up to make the play. Credit to Witt for going the fastest route possible to get the ball out of his glove and over to Garcia. Credit to Garcia for backpedaling to the bag once he saw Witt make the catch. To escape that jam without allowing a run was a massive turn of events.

At this point, I’ve written almost 1,500 words and neglected to say a thing about the Royals offense. Makes sense.

Another game where the bats did the bare minimum to secure the victory. Again, I’m not sure how much longer this can continue, but for the moment, it seems to be working. On Monday, the big blow was kick-started by India. I don’t care about his stats; in key situations, the guy grinds out plate appearances. He did it again in the eighth inning on Monday.

Against sidearming/submarining right-hander Tyler Rogers, India fell behind 0-2 on a pair of pitches in the heart of the zone. That arm angle from Rogers makes it difficult for hitters, even on pitches right down the chute.

What a fantastic battle from India. Maybe the at bat of the year. This is what the guy gives the Royals at the leadoff spot. On the ninth pitch, he laced a double to the gap in left-center. With Witt and Vinnie Pasquantino due up, the Royals were in business.

Witt lined out to left. Two down and it was up to Pasquantino. This is what he did.

That is an absolute smash. Not many baseballs fly out of that part of the park in San Francisco.

That gave the Royals a 2-0 lead. I provide the above GIF as a service, because, if you’re like me and a subscriber to the streaming service the Royals have decided to partner with, this is what you saw:

People are paying $20 a month to watch games, and you spit the bit at the most crucial part of the game? Embarrassing and inexcusable. Get it together FanDuel/Ballys/CrappyGamblingSite.

It feels like we can say that Pasquantino is officially “on one” now. Since the low point of his season on April 29, he’s hit .300/.317/.513 with five home runs. He’s still striking out too much for my liking (13 whiffs against just two walks), but the power is coming back. Probably not a coincidence that the Royals are 12-7 in the 19 games since April 29.