The two sides of Daniel Lynch
The lefty dazzles with the slider, but makes a few too many mistakes and can't avoid the long ball in another Royals loss.
When evaluating the Royals draft class of 2018, the prospect hounds are almost unanimous in their tabbing of Daniel Lynch as the guy with the most upside. With upside comes expectations. And those expectations will only grow as we watch pitcher after pitcher from that draft arrive in the major leagues, only to struggle.
It’s only the fifth game of the season and the first start of 2022 for Lynch, but he had to show something in his appearance against the Cardinals. And while he was touched up for six runs in five innings, Lynch did more than that. At times, he flat dominated a lineup stacked with right-handed power bats.
Out on the road for the first time all season, the Royals dropped their opening set to St. Louis 6-5. A loss is never the desired outcome, but there were still plenty of positives for Lynch to carry for his outing.
If you’re just scouting off the box score (why on earth would you do that?) Daniel Lynch’s linescore was ugly. Three runs in the first represent more of the same given his past first inning struggles. Three more runs in the fourth and it looks like he struggled. The final line score of five innings with seven hits and six runs allowed looks dreadful.
Lynch worked mostly 4-seam/slider with a healthy complement of the changeup.
To expand this table a little more, and to dive into the positives from his performance, Lynch recorded six swings and misses on both his fastball and his slider. He got three on the change. That’s above a 30 percent whiff rate on all three pitches. That’s strong.
Take a moment to further hone in on the slider. A 47 percent CSW% is downright phenomenal. It’s a pitch that was working for most of the night. (With one exception. More on that in a moment.)
Lynch showed what he had in mind early in the first. Against the ever-dangerous Paul Goldschmidt, Lynch worked exclusively fastball/slider. Exclusively is kind of misleading. After all, he only needed four pitches to get Goldschmidt out.
He started with a slider that bored in. Goldschmidt, not expecting the pitch, or simply being aggressive because he thought he was getting a fastball, swung over it.
Lynch went outside with a fastball for his second pitch. It looked like he didn’t “finish” which is something he tends to do from time to time it seems. No harm when the first pitch was an inside slider, though.
But he came back in and dropped a beautiful slider on the inside corner that froze Goldschmidt.
The right-handed batter is behind in the count now. He’s seen two sliders inside for strikes and a fastball off the plate. Now Lynch comes with another fastball. This one over the plate, but elevated and out of the strike zone.
That pitch jumped. It was 95 mph and with the location following the slider, it was a dart. Goldschmidt swung, but the instant he started propelling his bat forward, it was dead man swinging.
That battle against Goldschmidt was the desired modus operandi for Lynch, and one he was generally able to execute. He did it to Goldschmidt again in the third and to Nolan Arenado in that frame as well, getting both to go down swinging against the slider.
Besides the sequencing and execution of his pitches for the most part, the other thing that impressed about Lynch was how quickly he worked. I don’t know if it’s PitchCom or what, but Zack Greinke, Brad Keller and now Daniel Lynch all pitched with a controlled urgency. They worked with a strong tempo, and I don’t doubt the successful parts of all three starts aren’t due in some part to that.
Still, despite the positives, Lynch gave up six runs. All on home runs. These were the dingers that Lynch gave up on Tuesday.
The changeup was to Nolan Arenado in the first. It doesn’t really look elevated (it wasn’t) but it was elevated enough. Look at the location of changeups that went for hits against Lynch.
Compare the above chart to the one below that illustrates the Lynch changeups that weren’t put in play.
It sounds so basic, but Lynch has to keep that cambio down. Way down. Like on the lower edge to just off the other side. If he does that, it goes for a ground ball or, even better, a swing and a miss. If he misses in the zone, he’s flirting with danger. The danger zone, if you will.
It was a particularly poorly located change given the 3-2 count. Arenado is going to be protecting the plate in that situation. He got an 86 mph change, was able to wait on it and then just went and launched it out of the yard.
The fastball was the pitch that Pujols deposited over the left field wall. In a vacuum, not a poor pitch. I’d really like to see Pujols challenged with 95+ mph heat up in the zone. Still, at this point in his career, Pujols is a platoon bat that can still do considerable damage against southpaws.
In 2021, Pujols hit .471 with an .882 slugging percentage on low fastballs in the strike zone. He didn’t miss the one he saw from Lynch on Tuesday.
On the third home run…well, that was just a poor pitch all around. Ahead in the count 1-2, he spun a slider that didn’t slide much, if at all. It hung and Knizner didn’t miss.
Three mistakes…three costly mistakes because two of the dingers came with runners on. And all three came with two outs.
Still…I’m going to take away the positives from this performance. I thought Jeremy Guthrie perfectly summed up the Lynch repertoire.
When the pitches were working, meaning when the change and slider were coming in low, that 94 mph fastball most definitely did “explode” when Lynch was working up in the zone. His sequencing was generally good to change the eye level of the batters. He just couldn’t close out those two innings in a way that would limit the damage.
Salvy sends two
A number of Royals batters are off to suboptimal starts in 2022. Hey, it happens. (A lot it seems with the Royals.) Salvador Perez was one of those who had yet to perform in the small sample that was the season opening series against the Guardians. He was just 2-16—both hits singles—and one RBI.
He broke out in a very Salvy way on Tuesday, bashing not one, but two dingers. He led off the second crushing a 3-2 sinker that was toward the outer half of the strike zone. With an exit velocity of 106.9 mph and a distance of 441 feet, it was the typical titanic Salvy blast. No park in baseball was holding that bomb.
He followed it up in the eighth by turning on a 96 mph fastball and getting it just over the fence. Hey, as long as they clear that barrier, they all count.
Good to see Salvy getting warm.
Central issues
Red Sox 5, Tigers 3
Detroit couldn’t hold on to an early 3-0 lead as the Sox tied the game in the sixth and then grabbed the lead in the eighth on singles from Rafael Devers and Christian Arroyo. Tigers starter Tyler Alexander was strong through five before the wheels fell off in the sixth.
Guardians 10, Reds 5
An all-Ohio battle saw Mr. On Base Steven Kwan reach three more times. He’s now seen 115 pitches without swinging and missing. Lordy. Andrés Giménez broke a 4-4 ninth inning tie with. two-run dinger and José Ramírez added the exclamation point with a grand slam to run the tally to double digits for the new offensive powerhouse that is Cleveland. And starter Shane Bieber allowed no-hits through five.
Mariners 2, White Sox 3
It was the Luis Robert show as he flashed the leather on a run-saving catch in the third and followed that up in the sixth with the go-ahead home run. He was also the catalyst in the eighth when the Sox tallied what would be a crucial insurance run.
Dodgers 7, Twins 1
The Dodgers broke open a tied game in the eighth thanks to three walks, four singles, a double and an error from Twins third baseman Luis Arraez. After the chaos came to a close, Los Angles tallied six runs against three Minnesota pitchers. And then the rain came.
Up next
Speaking of rain, it threaten to wash out Wednesday’s matinee. If it takes place, the game will feature a duel of wily veterans as Zack Greinke takes the mound for the Royals while the Cardinals will counter with Adam Wainwright. First pitch is scheduled for 12:15. We’ll see.
After this brief two game sojurn to the east side of Missouri, the Royals return home for the first of four against the Tigers on Thursday.