Captain Walkoff

Cole Ragans battles, the offense rallies, the bullpen holds it together and Salvy provides the game-winning hit. Your Royals have won five in a row.

There’s not much to dissect in the leadup to the walk-off. Manfred Man on second base. The Captain up. Two pitches. Blammo. Ballgame.

The pitch was a cutter on the outer edge, and as you an see above, belt-high. Just where Salvy likes it. That’s a swing of a guy who knows exactly what he needs to do to that pitch in that situation. Easy. Smooth. Controlled. And impactful.

That’s five wins in a row. The Royals didn’t have a winning streak like that last year until August. It’s the second game in a row the Royals have rallied from being down three runs.

That’s worth a bat flip of some sort.

What an intriguing game. It had a little bit of everything. I’m wondering where to go next after the Salvy walkoff. Let’s take it from the top.

Early on, starter Cole Ragans felt a bit nibbly to me. As if he wasn’t properly attacking the Astro hitters. The stuff was there, but Ragans just lacked a certain…dominance. Just kind of a weird start. The best example of this came against Mauricio Dubón in the second who worked Ragans for a nine pitch at bat before flying out. The first pitch in the confrontation was a ball and then Ragans came back with mostly four-seamers. The fourth pitch was a good one that got a swing, but Dubón fouled it off. After that, though, Ragans was either way out of the zone with his secondary pitches or caught too much of the dish with the four-seamer.

The Astros worked him for 43 pitches the first time through the order. The result was four singles. The second time through the order, Ragans allowed five baserunners—three singles, a double and a walk.

As I was tracking the game, it felt as though the pitches the Astros were hitting for singles weren’t bad ones, necessarily. The just weren’t good enough. There was also some good plate coverage coming from the Astro bats.

These are the pitch locations from Ragas on the singles the Astros hit in the first three innings.

Maybe Ragans wanted some of those pitches a little closer to the edge. Dunno. Mostly it just felt like one of those nights where Ragans was good but not great and the Astros were there to battle. Take the Yordan Alvarez at bat in the fourth that resulted in a run-scoring double, the second two-bagger of the inning.

The sequence is good. Ragans missed up with a four-seamer and down on the change. Down in the count 0-2, he spun a knuckle curve over the heart of the plate. Not a great location to be sure, but Alvarez was certainly looking for something with a little more smoke and couldn’t pull the trigger. The fourth and final pitch was a changeup that barely caught the bottom of the zone. It’s a good pitch given the situation and the sequencing. Alvarez just went down and got it.

Credit to Ragans for limiting the damage. He loaded the bases with no outs in the first; Ragans came this close to getting out with no damage, a run coming across on a potential (and difficult) double play ball. The run in the second was somewhat manufactured with a single, a steal, a walk and another single. The run in the fourth was built on two doubles, the second of which came from the Alvarez at bat above.

Ultimately, Ragans wasn’t at his most sharp and the Astros really worked him with deep counts and balls in play. Still, Ragans was able to get some swing and miss. He got 16 whiffs on the night including five each on his four-seamer and changeup. José Abreu has lost some bat speed, so this GIF may be a bit unfair, but it still underscores what Ragans is capable of even when he’s not at his best.

It’s a perfectly located four-seamer against a guy who has absolutely no hope catching up to it. That was a swing and a miss the moment the ball left Ragans’ hand.

If your ace isn’t going to be at his sharpest, the offense best capitalize on their opportunities.

This game would’ve been incredibly frustrating had the Royals not gotten to Astro starter Christian Javier. They weren’t making insanely hard contact, but it sure felt as through they were squaring him up on the regular, driving balls deep to the outfield. I’m not sure I would say it was only time before the Royals strung together some hits because we’ve all seen previous incarnations of the Kansas City offense fail to capitalize on a pitcher there for the taking. This team is wired a bit differently, though. And thankfully so.

In the second the Royals had runners on second and third and one out. Adam Frazier grounded to third and Hunter Renfroe flew out to end the inning. Not ideal.

Yet the second time up for both Frazier and Renfroe, they reached base to open up the fifth—Frazier on a walk where Javier was spraying his slider and his fastball well out of the zone and Renfroe pulled a center-cut 3-2 change into left for a single.

With runners on first and second, Kyle Isbel was up. He had just four hits in his previous 20 at bats, but I’ve liked the plate appearances he’s strung together for the most part. He squared to bunt. I don’t think he was bunting for a hit because it was directed right at Javier who thought about going to third before flipping it to first. I realize I’m barking at clouds here, but damn do I abhor the bunt in that situation. The Royals were getting to Javier. They didn’t need to surrender an out to make that happen.

So while I can disapprove of the bunt in that situation I can still recognize that it kind of worked. Maikel Garcia hit a deep fly to bring home the first run of the evening for the hometown nine. Bobby Witt Jr. was up next and, seeing Javier for the third time, finally got that breakthrough hit you felt was coming. He went with a fastball on the outer half to the gap in right-center and legged a triple. Witt is just stupid fast. He thought about going all the way around the bases and I seriously thought he had a chance.

I realize the triple was aided by the ball hitting the wall and skipping past the outfielders, but it’s just ridiculous where Witt is in relation to second when the camera cuts back to the behind the plate angle. I have him at about 7.5 second from the moment the bat crushes the baseball to when Witt’s foot touches second base. I maybe a bit slow on my stopwatch because I’m laughing while watching this. He’s so fun.

Officially, Statcast has Witt at 11.17 seconds going home to third. That’s the second-fastest time in the majors this year. Parker Meadows in Detroit went home to third in 11.16 seconds. That’s right. Witt is second-best by one one-hundredths of a second. So I’m saying there’s room for improvement.

With the score tied at three in the bottom of the sixth, the Royals had a chance to break things open. MJ Melendez walked to lead off the inning, swiped second and then went to third when Nelson Velázquez singled. With runners on the corners and no outs, Javier climbed the ladder and struck out Frazier. It was the second time Frazier had a runner at third and less than two outs and he couldn’t bring the run home. Suboptimal.

At this point, manager Joe Espada went to his bullpen, bringing in Rafael Montero. Renfroe grounded to third and Melendez was gunned down by Alex Bregman. Sigh.

Melendez, coming off third, was caught in no man’s land given the location of the grounder and broke for home. Bregman made a high throw to home, but Melendez slid awkwardly…almost like he was half-sliding. He was out. Really, he needs to make a better slide in that situation.

After that, Isbel flew out to shallow left to end the inning. That was quite the wasted opportunity. Maybe they needed to bunt.

From there it settled into the unlikely rhythm of a bullpen game. Both sets of relievers were intent on limiting damage. The best opportunity for either team came in the eighth when Melendez led off with a single. He was lifted for pinch-runner Dairon Blanco and you know what happened next. Yeah, he stole a bag.

Frazier had yet another opportunity to make something happen with a runner on second and one out. The best he could do was advance Blanco 90 feet on a ground out to first. It’s early but Frazier has done nothing in my mind to shake the feeling that he’s just another random veteran the Royals picked up to fill a roster spot that could be better utilized by just about anyone else. This is probably the spot to note that Michael Massey had his rehab assignment shifted to Triple-A on Tuesday and went 2-4 for the Storm Chasers and played seven innings of defense at second. Soon.

A quick word about the bullpen because this post is running a little long: Nails. They were nails. Five innings, four hits, no walks, five strikeouts and most importantly…no runs. They’re on a 16.1 inning scoreless streak. Nick Anderson had the sixth, Chris Stratton took the seventh and John Schreiber pitched the eighth. James McArthur took the ball in the ninth.

Once the game went to extras, there’s always that anxiety that comes with the free runner on second base. The Royals’ bullpen had done the job all evening, but there’s that added pressure that is now just automatic because Rob Manfred hates baseball and wants the games to be over as quickly as possible.

McArthur was working his second inning of relief. That probably tells us something about where Will Smith falls in the bullpen pecking order these days. McArthur cruised through the ninth, getting three ground ball outs on 12 pitches. He started strong in the 10th getting a soft lineout and a strikeout. Then Witt did this.

The diving stop prevented the go-ahead run from scoring. Extremely high game-saving potential there. Seriously…this kid…amazing.

Again…five in a row. What a difference a year makes.