New game, same story

The Royals fall to their seventh consecutive defeat but there's no need to panic. Yet.

I feel like Phil Connors.

For a week now, the story has been the same. Some (generally) decent starting pitching. A bullpen that can’t keep a game close. And an offense that can’t do a damn thing.

They had four consecutive games where they scored exactly two runs. Screw that, they decided. So they scored once. A 7-1 defeat at the hands of the Cleveland Guardians. It was their seventh consecutive loss.

Yep. It’s Groundhog Day…in September.

The Royals got a good start from Brady Singer, who went 5.2 innings and allowed just two runs. It was a good start, not a great one, but it was a start that really could’ve been good enough to earn a win. Singer wasn’t at his sharpest and didn’t really have a lot of swing-and-miss, but he battled and kept his team in the game. Well, as much as you can keep a team with a wayward offense in a game.

The sinker and slider were his primary pitches, as expected, but he mixed in far more four-seamers and sweepers than his previous start. The four-seamers were elevated, as they should be, but they were oftentimes well out of the zone. Easy takes. Still, it remains a nice wrinkle to his arsenal. Not a single four-seamer was put in play and only one was swung at and missed. He’s a bit predictable with the pitch, though, rarely throwing it after the third pitch in an at bat.

Singer threw the sweeper 14 times according to Baseball Savant, which feels like an accurate number to me. It was a much more effective pitch in getting a result than the four-seam, which it’s meant to be.

It’s an interesting chart in that the results follow what you would imagine given the location. With switch-hitters and an expanded roster, Cleveland was able to stack their lineup with left-handed bats against Singer. When the pitch bores down and in to the lefty, it has a high potential for a whiff. When it’s up, contact will be made. The thing is, it will be weak contact. Guardian hitters put five sweepers in play with an average exit velocity of 80 MPH. The sweeper is developing into a really good pitch for Singer.

The offense showed a bit of a pulse in the sixth. If you’re a fan of 1970s or 1980s TV hospital dramas, the pulse would be along the lines of “weak and thready” but damnit, it was still a pulse.

Tommy Pham led off with a liner in the gap enabling him to wheel into second. That’s a good start! With first base open and the other eight guys in the lineup struggling with the bat, Guardians starter Tanner Bibee rightly chose to work around Witt, throwing everything off the outside edge hopeful that he would fish, but probably just fine that he kept the bat on his shoulder. With the way this offense is sputtering, I’d walk Witt every single time.

That brought up Michael Massey. It was a helluva plate appearance. One that kind of gave you hope the Royals would sort of catch fire.

Massey fouled off several pitches, including a couple of high fastballs. For some reason, Bibee decided to go to the breaking or offspeed stuff and delivered a change well inside that almost plunked Massey before following that up with a slider that never challenged the zone.

So the bases were loaded. Nobody was out. And Salvador Perez was up. This moment felt like the Royals’ best chance to do some serious damage in weeks.

It didn’t happen.

Salvy hit a rope to left. Sadly, it was hit directly at Steven Kwan. Inexplicably, Pham didn’t immediately retreat to the bag. By the time he made it back to third to tag, it was too late. He slipped anyway. As if the baseball gods sprinkled ice pellets around the base as punishment for not tagging up on a ball hit to the outfield.

These are the little things that crush teams like the Royals that are struggling to do anything right. It’s literally Baseball 101…If the ball is hit in the air to the outfield, go back to the bag. And with Witt on second for that play, who knows if he could’ve ended up at third. Had Kwan decided to uncork a throw to home, he probably would’ve advanced. One thing I’ve learned over the last two-plus seasons of watching Witt, is never to assume anything on the bases when he’s involved.

Pham caught a break when the next batter, Paul DeJong, hit a liner that Kwan needed to range to his left to snare. But that was it. That was all the Royals could manage. One run.

I thought Hoover summed it up well to Anne Rogers:

“With Tommy, Bobby and Massey having really good [plate appearances], yeah, you felt the momentum come. Sal hits the ball really, really hard. Paul does the same thing. We get one, we’re happy with one. But it would have been nice if one of those line drives fell in the gap and we were able to score... It stung that we were only able to get one.”

It was never going to be enough.

After the Royals clawed back that run, it did make the score 2-1 going into the seventh. The Royals team that existed before the last week would’ve been very much in that game. I’m going to use the “R” word here…they had a resilience about them. It’s true. I wrote about it at length. There was a quality that defined this team that they were never, ever out of it.

Now? Now I was looking at the scoreboard to figure the deficit (it was one damn run), while calculating the outs remaining on offense (there were nine) and dreading the way the bullpen would conspire to push the margin even further out of reach.

Damn if it wasn’t just about the most disheartening thing I’ve seen all season.

Bo Naylor led off the seventh against reliever Sam Long. Naylor lined an outside 0-1 slider to center for a single. Remember, at this moment the game was still close. With a one-run lead and number nine hitter Brayan Rocchio up, the Guardians decided to play a little small ball with Rocchio squaring to bunt.

This is great! The Guardians would be giving up an out. Long offered a high slider, up and out of the zone and an elevated curveball. Perhaps a fastball would’ve been a better selection, but I cannot argue against the location of either pitch, especially after Rocchio fouled off both to fall behind in the count 1-2. Now, instead of sacrificing himself, he would need to swing away. A strikeout would be fine. A ground ball would be even better with the potential to get two outs.

Instead, Rocchio pulled a center-cut slider over the wall in left.

You know how these smart speakers are listening to you in your home? Like when you discuss needing to buy a new blender so you can make frozen margaritas and suddenly your social media feeds are full of adds for blenders, margarita glasses and salt? Well, I was texting with a friend throughout the game and he told me this ad appeared on his Facebook feed moments after the ball exited the yard:

My first thought: What the hell?

My second thought: I should buy this shirt.

If that wasn’t bad enough, an inning later the wheels came totally flying off. Lucas Erceg, in his first action since the debacle in Houston, wasn’t sharp. He allowed a couple of singles, hit a batter, and then had an excruciating 11-pitch at bat where he ultimately stuck out Bo Naylor.

Interim manager Paul Hoover went to his bullpen for James McArthur. I totally understand pulling Erceg given he had thrown 27 mostly high-stress pitches. But then McArthur walked Rocchio on five pitches sprayed all over the ballpark to bring in a run.

So let’s recap. In the seventh inning, Rocchio attempted to give himself up, couldn’t get a bunt down and then homered. In the eighth inning, Rocchio drew a bases loaded walk. I missed the meeting where we decided Rocchio is the new José Ramírez.

The one bullpen move I didn’t understand was not sending Daniel Lynch IV back out for the eighth. Again, I understand that Erceg was getting hot in the bullpen, but Lynch threw just one pitch. Freddy Fermin gunned down Ramíez trying to steal second. (It was Fermin’s second caught stealing of the night. That dude is so good.)

Lynch had been summoned to pitch to left-handed hitting Josh Naylor. So why not bring him back for the eighth to face Naylor again? Then Erceg could’ve had the ninth. It just seems like if the bullpen options are thin, why not stick with Lynch in the eighth and then roll with Erceg in the ninth? It’s not a huge deal given the scoreline and the ultimate outcome, and I’m probably making too big a deal of this, but it’s just weird to me the Royals would burn Lynch for just one pitch.

There is good news. Yes. It’s true. I’m not just blowing smoke, either. Legitimate good news. The Royals cut their magic number to 19 on Tuesday. They have shaved five games off that number during their streak. Yes, they haven’t won a baseball game in a week and have solidified their postseason position.

That’s because the Boston Red Sox have gone 2-5 over the last week of games. The Twins have gone 3-3. Nobody is taking charge of this situation.

Far from me to tell anyone how to be a fan, but the standings above are a reason I’d hold off if you were tempted to hit the panic button. Yes, this is a bad time for an extended losing streak, but really, when you are a contending team, there’s never a good time. These aren’t the White Sox.

Stumbling to the finish line when you’ve been in a top-three place isn’t ideal, but the idea is just getting across that line and protecting your spot. We know from watching games this week that a 4.5-game lead can quickly evaporate, but we also know that it takes two teams to make that happen. Nothing is guaranteed, but I’d much rather be in the Royals’ position on September 4 than the Red Sox’s.

Stay strong.