The winning streak comes to an end

The Royals end a successful homestand with a loss. It sounds weird, but it's the truth.

Rarely are games decided in the first inning. There’s simply too much baseball to come. What can be revealed in the first is the tone of the game. And Sunday’s overall vibe was one of frustration.

The Royals lost the finale of the homestand to the Houston Astros by a score of 7-3. A frustrating afternoon that shouldn’t overshadow what happened this week, as the Royals went 5-1 against the Rockies and those Astros.

It was a good week of baseball that was punctuated by just one of those days.

About that first inning…

Royals starter Kris Bubic fell behind each of the first three hitters he faced. It took a moment for the lefty to rein in the four-seamer. He was able to retire the first two hitters on balls hit in the air before designated hitter Yordan Alvarez tattooed a ball off the wall in deepest right-center field.

Entering Sunday’s game, Alvarez has not been his usual destructive self. From 2022 to 2024, Alvarez has hit .303/.401/.587, good for a total of 16.7 bWAR and an 176 OPS+. He’s one of the premier hitters in the game. This year, though, not so much. Alvarez is off to a .200/.298/.306 start, which translates to a -0.5 bWAR and a 77 OPS+. In the first two games of the series, the Royals had handled Alvarez, shutting him down in all eight of his at bats with two strikeouts. With his first turn at the plate on Sunday, Alvarez served notice he would not be shut down for a third day in a row.

Bubic jumped ahead of the fourth batter of the inning, Christian Walker, getting fouls on his first two offerings. From there, Walker really dug in, fouling off three more four-seamers before getting the right-handed hitter to chase a changeup down and out of the zone to culminate an eight-pitch battle.

Despite not getting touched for a run, the top half of the first inning felt like a grind for Bubic. He needed 22 pitches to get out of the frame. The Astros fouled off six pitches total, and Bubic only got the one swinging strike against Walker.

For the Royals, the bottom of the first began in promising fashion as Jonathan India lined a 3-2 center-cut fastball back up the middle for a single against Astros starter Hunter Brown.

Brown added a sinker to his arsenal in May of last year. By July, it was the second-most utilized offering. It’s been wildly successful for him as opposing batters posted a .250 batting average with a similar .250 slugging percentage. It’s turned him from a back-of-the-rotation starter to a guy who is now a front-line starter. Since he added that sinker, Brown has posted a 2.28 ERA and held opponents to a .210 batting average. He’s allowed just 4.9 hits per nine innings to this point.

It was against this backdrop that India reached to open the game for the Royals. Baserunners figured to be rare with Brown on the mound. There was early promise in that hit.

With the count 1-2 on Bobby Witt Jr., India took off for second. India’s not a burner by any stretch, but he’s a good baserunner. His sprint speed is generally in the 65th percentile or so, and he’s swiped 42 bags in his career. His success rate is just under 80 percent.

On this day, India was out at second trying to steal. It was the second time he was cut down this year in as many attempts. In fact, an abysmal stolen base success rate has become something of a calling card for this Royals team. With the India caught stealing, they are now just 20 out of 32 this season. That’s a 63 percent success rate. That’s awful.

It’s especially egregious given the fact that these Royals have a difficult time getting anyone on base. Even though they had won six in a row, it wasn’t because they experienced some sort of offensive epiphany. Especially coming off a pair of 2-0 victories to open the series against these Astros. Their OBP to open the day was .287. Better, but still lagging far behind the league average of .314.

They are trying to use the stolen base to grab a stray run or two and you can’t really blame them for trying to get a runner in scoring position by any means. Except this method isn’t working for them at all. The main culprit is Maikel Garcia who has been caught stealing a league-high five time in eight attempts. I’m not sure how that’s possible. Witt has been caught three times in 11 tries.

After the attempted stolen base, Witt went down on strikes, a 99 mph heater at the knees. Vinnie Pasquantino followed on a changeup on the lower edge of the zone. Brown was commanding all of his pitches. It was going to be a long day for the offense.

Bubic was done after five innings. Undone by that three-run home run and some poor defense by India in left field in the fifth inning. It was the first time Bubic had allowed four runs since his last appearance before his Tommy John surgery two seasons ago.

His counterpart on the other side, Brown, went six innings, striking out nine. The Royals were able to get on base—they reached eight times with seven hits, including a pair of doubles—but could only get to him for one run.

Chris Stratton came on in the sixth inning and allowed two runs on three hits. That turned a 4-1 game into a 6-1 contest. Quite a difference from a three-run deficit to a five-run one, especially with the Royals’ offense. Stratton has now surrendered 21 hits in 11 innings, allowing 13 runners to score, with 11 of those earned. Yes, I had to triple-check those numbers.

I cannot imagine he is long for this roster.

As poor a game as this one was, I have to revisit something I wrote at the top of this entry: The Royals have been playing some good baseball of late. They swept the Rockies to open the homestand (as they should) and followed that up with a pair of 2-0 wins against these Astros. Sunday’s defeat ended their winning streak at six games. That happened to be the longest winning streak in the AL so far this year.

It hasn’t been especially pretty, but the Royals are just a game under .500, which, given their offensive struggles, feels like an accomplishment.

It was a very good week.

Friday’s 2-0 victory deserves a mention.

The Royals scored their first run when Drew Waters led off the fifth with a double. He was sacrificed to third by Freddie Fermin. Waters scored on a Kyle Isbel sac fly.

They tallied their second run an inning later when Pasquantino and Garcia led off the frame with singles. With runners on first and second, Michael Massey laid down a sacrifice bunt to move both runners up. Pasquantino scored on a Hunter Renfroe sacrifice fly.

That was it. Four productive outs. Two runs. One win.

That felt like the most Royals victory we could ever imagine.

The Royals also collected another sacrifice fly in Saturday’s 2-0 win and then another on Sunday. That meant four of the seven runs they scored over the weekend came via the sacrifice fly. Tough to build a sustained rally on the backs of productive outs.

Central Issues

Angels 0, Twins 5

Starter Joe Ryan racked up 11 strikeouts over seven innings in combining with reliever Justin Topa to shut out the Angels and secure a three-game sweep. Ryan had a career-high 26 swings and misses and walked just one batter while allowing four hits. Like the Royals, the Twins went 5-1 on their homestand.

Boston 13, Guardians 3

Rob Refsnyder homered in the second inning to get the scoring started for the Red Sox and they didn’t stop. They broke the game open in the fifth with five runs. Cleveland starter Logan Allen was charged with seven runs total in 4.1 innings as the Guardians dropped the series, two games to one.

Baltimore 0, Detroit 7

Tarik Skubal struck out 11 over six innings, combining with two relievers to shut out the Orioles. Gleyber Torres singled in a run and brought home two more with a double. The Tigers swept the series, outscoring Baltimore 17-5.

White Sox 2, Athletics 3 - 10 innings

Joshua Palacios homered for the Sox in the first. Brent Rooker doubled in the tying run in the bottom of the inning. From there, the game remained knotted up until the 10th. The Sox plated their Manfred Man in the top and then Luis Urías hit a walk-off bomb in the bottom half to give Sacramento the series win.