Royals discover the recipe for success
Bubic shoves, Benintendi delivers the key hit and the Royals open the homestand with a victory.
Let’s share recipes. I’ll go first. Here’s how you create a quality baseball game with a victory for the good guys.
Six innings of quality starting pitching
A pinch of solid defense
One timely hit
One replay
An ejection with two outs in the ninth.
Let’s run down those individual ingredients.
Six innings of quality starting pitching
It was just about two months ago when Kris Bubic was exiled to the minor league camp. He struggled with performance in exhibition games and was having a difficult time commanding his fastball. He announced his return to the rotation with authority on Wednesday.
How do you like the location of that heater? An 0-2, 94 mph fastball that hit Cam Gallagher’s target on the corner. Fastballs have become kind of passé these days. Almost everyone is bringing gas. But not everyone is locating the pitch like that. I’ve gif’d a ton of pitches this year…that one may just be my favorite. It’s perfect.
Bubic didn’t allow a runner to reach until the ninth batter of the game. He did miss his location in that instance, elevating a 1-2 fastball to Pablo Reyes who scorched it at 102 mph and off the glove of Kelvin Gutierrez at third.
Bubic then went back to work and retired the next eight in a row before allowing a leadoff walk to Luis Urias in the sixth. It was just a fantastic performance.
Would you like to see something dirty? How about a left-on-left changeup?
Not satisfied yet?
Let’s read the signs together. Changeup!
I mean, running this in to lefties at about 11 mph slower than the fastball is just absolute filth. And as you can tell, when it’s working those hitters just have no chance.
And the change was most definitely working. Bubic offered 33 of them on the night. He got only three called strikes, but that’s not the point. The point…the purpose…is the swing and miss. He picked up five of those on 19 swings total against the pitch.
Bubic deployed that change against lefties sparingly. It’s like having a weapon mass (hitter) destruction at your disposal and being psychotic enough to use it exactly in the right situation. Give me a pitcher willing to do that on the regular.
Each one of those three changeups in the zone was swung at and missed for a third strike.
Just for fun, here are all of the changeups Bubic threw on the night.
He generally did a great job avoiding the middle of the plate in key situations. Five changeups were put in play, all went for outs.
Bubic’s return to the rotation couldn’t have come at a better time for the Royals. With Danny Duffy on the shelf for a few weeks with his strained forearm, the outing we saw on Tuesday was exactly what this team needed in that situation. Bubic has now gone 17.2 innings without giving up a run, the only blemish on his ERA coming in his 2021 debut against the Twins on May 2. In his two extended relief appearances, plus his start on Tuesday he’s put up this pitching line:
16.2 IP, 5 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 9 BB, 12 SO
Opponents are hitting .098 against him and have yet to touch him for an extra base hit. The walks aren’t great, but the encouraging thing was he only allowed two on Tuesday, both coming in the sixth inning when he was probably tiring. Not a stretch to deduce that given most of his pitches were way elevated out of the zone in that inning. But he was able to get a couple pitches down to get two swings that turned into three outs.
Just a fantastic performance.
A pinch of solid defense
The Royals infield defense hasn’t been great this year. Whit Merrifield in particular has looked uncomfortable at times at second. Not only has his glovework been erratic, his throws have sometimes felt tentative. That wasn’t the case at all on Tuesday.
He was ranging to his right.
And ranging to his left.
Not only was Merrifield all over the infield making stops, but he was also uncorking strong throws to first to complete the play. He wasn’t thinking—he didn’t have time to do that—he was just executing. Amazing what happens when a professional ballplayer just reacts. Merrifield’s time at second may be coming to a close in the next week or so when Adalberto Mondesi returns to the lineup, but if he does shift to right field at least he’s leaving the infield on a defensive high note.
One timely hit and one replay
Chris Woodruff pitched a fantastic game. He allowed just seven baserunners through 7.2 innings. Fortunately for the Royals, the last two of those reached with two outs in the eighth. He missed on four consecutive pitches to Merrifield to issue a walk. He followed that up with another ball out of the zone before plunking Carlos Santana with a fastball up and in.
It was one of those moments where it unraveled so quickly for the Brewers. Maybe manager Craig Council should’ve pulled Woodruff when he missed with those four pitches to Merrifield. He had thrown 96 pitches to that point so he was clearly close to the end of his evening. The Santana HBP put them in a bind.
I’ve spent a considerable amount of time over the last month or so documenting how the Royals have put runners on base—particularly first and second—with no outs or one out in an inning…and have failed to cash in on so many of those opportunities. Here’s a situation where runners are on first and second with two outs. And with Woodruff exiting the game, Milwaukee brought in last year’s NL Rookie of the Year in Devin Williams. Williams hasn’t been as dominant in 2021, but needing just one more out the Brewers probably liked their chances.
Andrew Benintendi had other ideas.
Benintendi has been kind of used as a lineup battering ram by Mike Matheny. Since opening the season in dismal fashion as the second place hitter, the manager has moved him around in the batting order. From seventh to fifth back to second and now at the number three spot, all Benintendi has done is hit. Over his last 101 plate appearances, he’s gone off at .319/.376/.440 with eight walks and just 13 strikeouts. That’s exactly the guy you want up in the plate with the game on the line in the late innings. He’s low-key locked in at the moment.
Oh, the irony of a close play at the plate going once again to replay. It turns out there’s a regression to mean on having umpiring and replay calls going against you. On all the replays I saw it looked like the tag arrived just ahead of Merrifield’s hand hitting the plate, but given the lack of camera angles available, there just didn’t seem to be conclusive evidence to overturn. While the call from New York was officially “stands.” It sure didn’t look that clear-cut.
Whatever. The initial call on the field remains far too crucial. The Royals were finally the beneficiaries. They needed a break like that.
An ejection with two outs in the ninth
The Royals added another run when Salvador Perez hustled down the first base line after hitting what should’ve been a routine grounder to short. You think the Royals’ infield defense has struggled at times this year? Luis Urias has been worth -3 Defensive Runs Saved thus far. That’s overall. He’s been worth -6 DRS on his throws.
It was a 2 run lead the Royals turned over to Josh Staumont to close out in the ninth.
With a runner on first and two outs, Avisail Garcia was Milwaukee’s last hope. He watched a 1-0 Staumont fastball that was called a strike at the bottom of the zone. It was a great location. Garcia was displeased and expressed said displeasure by throwing a hand in the air in a dismissive wave of disgust. It was a tad expressive. The home plate umpire Brian Gorman showed restraint. Heat of the moment and all of that.
One pitch later at 2-1, it appeared he checked his swing. The first base umpire said he went. Garcia again expressed his displeasure. Gorman did not exhibit similar restraint.
It was an amazing late-game turn of events. I can’t recall ever seeing a hitter get run on a 2-2 count as the tying run with two outs in the ninth inning. The call on the swing was probably incorrect and it absolutely changed the tenor of the plate appearance. Flipping from a potential 3-1 pitch to a 2-2 offering is a massive deal. But Garcia just can’t react like that in that situation. Remember Ben Revere taking out his frustrations on a trash can just off the dugout in October 2015?
How doomed was Dan Vogelbach coming up to the plate with two strikes already against him? How can you not be romantic about baseball?
Getting back to that recipe metaphor…Mix all those above ingredients together and you get yourself a tasty Royals victory. Just the fourth win of the month but they’re 3-2 since snapping that losing streak.
Central issues
White Sox 4, Twins 5
Tony LaRussa continues to be a gift to the AL Central. A few hours after castigating his own player for swinging on a 3-0 pitch in a blowout and apologizing to the Twins for said action, the Twins chucked an intentional pitch at Yermín Mercedes. And then they rallied for three late runs for a walkoff victory. Miguel Sanó bashed three home runs.
Cleveland 6, Angels 5
After Cleveland blew an early five-run lead, Josh Naylor broke an eighth inning tie with a wall-scraper.
Detroit 5, Mariners 0
Spencer Turnbull threw the fifth no-hitter of 2021. It was the second time the Mariners have been held hitless this month. Baseball!
And that doesn’t include Madison Bumgarner’s seven inning no-no. Yeah…I think that record is in danger.
Up next
The Royals close out the brief two-game set against the Brewers. Brad Keller takes the ball for Kansas City while Milwaukee counters with Corbin Burnes. Burnes has thrown 34.1 innings and allowed just a single walk while striking out 58.
First pitch is scheduled for 7:10.