California nightmare
The Royals drop three of four to the A’s to wrap their west coast road trip with a 1-6 record. It was as bad as it sounds.
If you’re tuning in every night and following closely, these Royals are going to send you right into psychoanalysis. One week you’re up…the next week you’re down. The swings are so severe…it’s a helluva way to reach mediocrity.
Let’s just dispense with the setup and get right to the carnage.
A Very Brady Outing
If you were searching for competitive baseball this weekend, Friday night was the pick of the bunch. Brady Singer had a Very Brady Outing, working around an error and a walk in the first and a two-out double in the second before momentarily losing it in the fourth. In that fateful frame, the A’s scorched him for three runs on back-to-back doubles from Mitch Moreland and Matt Chapman before Seth Brown finished off the scoring with a two-run bomb.
The slider was generally a sharp pitch for Singer on Friday. He recorded six strikeouts on the pitch, all on sliders out of the zone, swung at and missed by Oakland batters. The pitch betrayed him in that fourth inning when he hung one middle-middle to Moreland on a 2-2 count. Sal Perez was looking for Singer to bury it. It was nowhere close.
In the interest of fairness, here’s a slider that was exceptionally located and irresistible to boot.
We saw a lot of that on Friday. On the flip side, after working well in the first month-plus of the season, Singer’s sinker has slowly been losing its effectiveness. In the table below, “number” refers to the total number of times he’s thrown a sinker while “%” is the percentage of his total pitches. The rest of the numbers are the results.
The home run he allowed to Brown was on the sinker, the first time he’s allowed one to leave the yard in 2021. In his major league career, this is the worst stretch that Singer has had with that pitch. The velocity is fine, the spin rate is consistent…I have no insight as to why his sinker is getting hit harder now. At this point, it’s only an observation.
Singer’s final linescore of three runs allowed in six innings wasn’t bad at all, but with his outings, you’re often left to wonder what could have been.
Kowar gets rocked again
After the disaster that was Jackson Kowar’s MLB debut, I recalibrated my expectations a little for his second outing. It was only fair. Something around the lines of five decent-ish innings would suffice. Some hits, some runs, some danger…all were to be expected. But the hope (at least my personal hope) was that he could relax and navigate any difficult situations that would arise. Perhaps he would be able to channel Triple-A Kowar and find a little success that could serve as a building block.
It didn’t happen.
I’ve rarely seen a starting pitcher at this level battle his control like Kowar. He just could not come close to the strike zone on some of his pitches.
When going back through and rewatching his outing, I was struck by how little Kowar challenged left-handed batters inside on Saturday. He delivered two pitches on the inner third (or a little more inside) to lefties.
Obviously, he doesn’t have a platoon advantage against lefties, but you would think it would serve him well to work a little inside from time to time. You know, mix things up a bit. Instead, the A’s lefties were able to look away, away away. And when they got a pitch they could handle in that location…
That’s actually not an awful pitch. Cam Gallagher set up low and away and that’s where Kowar delivered it. But since he was working away to lefties and since it was a 3-1 count, Matt Olson could hunt fastball in that location. That he was able to pull the pitch into right says everything.
Maybe Kowar was a little more comfortable against the hitters from the right side. His battles with them were generally shorter and while he was still lacking control of the fastball, he was locating within the zone at least a little better. (Believe me, I’m desperately trying to find something good here.) He threw two change-ups to right-handed batters, both in the zone, both early in the count. He retired Chad Pinder on a force to end the first on a first-pitch change. Then he allowed a two-run double to Matt Chapman in the second.
By the time Matheny mercifully came for him, Kowar had delivered 57 pitches and gotten four outs. He got one swing and miss all afternoon—a fastball that struck out Skye Bolt on a foul tip. (Even his swing and miss wasn’t really a swing and miss.) He threw 26 change-ups and recorded seven swings on the pitch and just one called strike.
It was just too easy for A’s batters to spit on the change when it wasn’t in the zone. Mostly because Kowar was unable to work ahead in the count. That tracks to a larger issue that Kowar just couldn’t control his fastball. It was especially a problem on the first pitch of the plate appearance. Kowar faced 12 batters on Saturday, he threw just three strikes on the first pitch. Four if you count the Chapman first-pitch double in the second.
So now what? The schedule sets up for the Royals where they don’t need a fifth starter for the next week-plus of games. They can use the opportunity to move Kowar to the bullpen for a little low-leverage work. A clean inning here or there would probably do wonders for his psyche. Or they can option him down to Omaha for some more starts. Have him work another six starts or so before they even consider bringing him back. It’s only been two starts in the bigs, but they’ve both been disastrous. Whatever it is they’re doing right now at the major league level to prepare him for his outings just isn’t working. The next time Kowar makes a start in a Kansas City uniform, the coaching staff and manager need to be sure that he’s ready. To send him back out in any situation without addressing what we’ve all seen in his first two appearances would be akin to baseball malpractice.
Changing gears with Bubic
Like on Saturday, the A’s gameplay on Sunday seemed to be predicated on patience. Kris Bubic faced 24 batters on the afternoon, three offered at the first pitch. Disregard the two batters who put that first pitch into play, when Bubic was delivering the second pitch of the plate appearance, he was often behind in the count. He jumped ahead 0-1 to only seven of 22 batters. That’s not good enough.
The trouble is, he’s just not commanding either his fastball or his change enough at the moment to be pitching behind in the count. He’s leaving far too many fat pitches in the zone. Here are the balls put in play when the batters were ahead against Bubic.
Naturally, the focus is going to be on Bubic’s change. It got battered around again on Sunday, you can see the cluster of three right in the middle of the zone. It’s not surprising two of those change-ups were put into play and didn’t come back. It was the second consecutive start it didn’t work for him at all. Here are the gory results against that pitch from his last two outings. I’ve included his 2021 season totals to date for reference.
Bubic just doesn’t have the arsenal to survive for long if he can’t locate early and jump ahead in the count. It doesn’t matter if he’s throwing a fastball or the change.
Look at where Perez set the target for a 1-0 pitch against Matt Olson in the first.
Look at the location of the pitch and how Olson got just a little under it.
Or how about in the second against Elvis Andrus? This time, Perez sets up inside for a 2-1 pitch.
Andrus got a center-cut fastball he laced for a double.
And finally, let’s see the three act play that was the Matt Chapman home run off the change in the first.
Perez gives a target where his glove was practically in the dirt. He brought it up when Bubic started his delivery, but it was still out of the zone, looking for a 3-1 pitch where Chapman couldn’t do damage. It didn’t happen.
The reaction…where Bubic is looking for the baseball that is threatening to go into orbit while Perez is just simply asking for another baseball is the perfect summation of a dreadful weekend. Keeping the pitch location on the screen is just the cherry on top.
A brief editorial note
I wanted to expand a little on the Royals offense here, but packed so many gifs and charts above, that I’m running out of room. Perhaps I’ll save it for tomorrow. But let’s just say 1-23 with runners in scoring position is no way to try to win ballgames.
Central issues
Mariners 6, Cleveland 2
Logan Gilbert pitched into the seventh inning for the first time of his career and came out the victor against Shane Bieber. The Mariner offense slammed last season’s AL Cy Young award winner for 10 hits and five runs in 5.2 innings.
White Sox 4, Tigers 1
Carlos Rodón had no-hit stuff through 6.1 innings as the Sox swept the Tigers in a three-game series in Detroit. José Abreu collected three hits, including a single that opened up the scoring in the fourth.
Astros 14, Twins 3
This was a homestand where Twins management was looking to see how their underperforming club measured up against the Yankees and the Astros. The verdict: Not good. They won two of four games in the homestand, dropping the finale in demoralizing fashion. Astro batters collected 20 hits, including seven doubles and three home runs. Michael Brantley went 4-5 with three doubles and drove in four.
Up next
The Royals return to what they hope will be the friendly confines of The K to open a three-game series against the Tigers.
Monday — Matthew Boyd vs Brad Keller
Tuesday — Casey Mize vs Mike Minor
Wednesday — Tarik Skubal vs Brady Singer
Keller will try to stop the hemorrhaging against Detroit. His last time out against the Angels, he ran out of gas in the sixth and was charged with five runs in 5.1 innings. first pitch is set for 7:10 CDT.