Take that! Royals end losing streak by crushing the A's
Mike Minor shoves and carries the Royals until the offense comes alive. The losing streak is dead!
It only took 46 innings.
That was how long it was between Royal leads. The last time they held an advantage in the scoreline was after the fifth inning on Saturday. Saturday!
It was a Kelvin Gutierrez bouncer up the middle, past a drawn-in infield, that plated two runs and allowed us to refer to what happened in that frame as a “rally.” Finally, the Royals held a lead.
Like most rallies, this one started innocuously enough. This time it was with an Andrew Benintendi single up the middle. No big deal. He’s hit 46 of them on the year. Except it was a big deal. Benintendi was battling bit of a mini-slump; that snapped an 0-14 going back to a home run he hit against the Twins last Saturday. Plus, he really didn’t look comfortable in his two previous plate appearances against A’s starter Frankie Montas. Benintendi certainly wasn’t a candidate to ignite a rally.
After swinging and missing on three of five pitches in his first at bat of the night and after grounding out weakly in the fourth, Benintendi took an extremely controlled swing on an elevated 2-2 fastball. It was a pitch with swing and miss intent.
When we talk about a “professional at bat” we normally think of a guy who grinds out a walk. Or fights off a ton of good pitches to extend the battle. Those are absolutely professional at bats. But what Benintendi did in the seventh inning after seeing just five pitches was a professional at bat as well.
As I noted previously, Benintendi didn’t look exactly comfortable in his first two appearances against Montas. His third time up, he continued to expand the zone, chasing a splitter and fighting off a fastball before dropping that single into center.
It was so simple…”just put the ball in play.” But as we saw from Benintendi’s previous efforts to that moment, it’s never as simple as that.
Before we get to some other thoughts on the bats, I have to jump around a bit. Because the true star of the game for the Royals was on the mound for seven innings.
Minor shoves in major fashion
The return engagement of Mike Minor in the Royals’ rotation has been a bit of a grind. Nothing against Minor, who is a cromulent back of the rotation starter. It’s just that it feels like he’s always out there trying to navigate around a baserunner to get out of an inning. Oftentimes, it doesn’t work. And the games just seem to crawl along when he’s on the mound.
That’s just my personal bias. Your mileage may vary. But I have to give a ton of credit where a ton of credit is due…Minor was absolutely nails on Thursday in Oakland.
With a Game Score of 74 it was tied with his start last month against the White Sox for his best start in 2021.
The fastball was absolutely working. He took a smidge off the pitch, velocity-wise, on Thursday but it held its well-above-average spin rate. As I’ve written, that high spin gives it a rising, sometimes explosive look that is deceptive when a pitch is traveling on average at 89.8 mph as it did on Thursday.
Minor threw 52 fastballs and got 30 swings on the pitch. He had 12 misses on those 30 swings, an exceptional 40 percent whiff rate. Add in his nine called strikes on the fastball and his CSW% (called strike plus whiff rate) was a fantastic 38 percent.
Apart from the sneaky deception of the pitch, Minor was locating really well. The fastball was mostly elevated, and usually out of the zone. Look at where those swinging strikes happened against the fastball.
As they would maybe say in Oakland, just spin rate, baby.
When the A’s made contact on the fastball—they put nine in play—they were helpless in squaring it up. Their collective average exit velocity on the pitch was 84.5 mph. Only a Stephen Piscotty single to right in the fifth inning was hit hard.
When the fastball is rising and Minor able to miss bats, it can only help his secondary pitches play up. His change was dancing.
I mean, that’s just unfair. Filthy even. Keep a little focus on that gif. Look where Salvador Perez sets his glove. Look how Lowrie is out in front and has to reach for a pitch he’s never, ever going to make contact with. It’s a perfect pitch in a perfect location on a perfect count. Yes, it was perfection.
The lone mark against Minor—the solo home run from Jed Lowrie to lead off the fifth inning, came on a hanging curve. You know about his proclivity to surrender the long ball—he entered Thursday’s game with a 1.5 HR/9—but that was the first time in 2021 that he surrendered a dinger off the curve.
Other than that mistake, Minor’s knuckle-curve was insanely good. It’s fun anytime you can do this to a major league hitter.
Or this…
Minor catches a lot of grief from Royals fans because he’s the run-of-the-mill backend starter. He’s a veteran who isn’t flashy and is usually going to give up some runs and you hope he can provide some length. After a series of shaky outings from starters to open the road trip the Royals desperately needed quality from Minor. He provided it and then some.
A catcher’s worst nightmare
It wouldn’t be a Royals rally without some sort of weirdness involved. Usually, there’s a productive out or two or some sort of baserunning shenanigans involved when the Royals would score multiple runs in a frame. In this case, it was Jorge Soler and his proclivity for catcher’s interference. It’s uncanny how Soler is able to reach in that manner.
When Soler’s bat ticked the glove of Sean Murphy it was the sixth time Soler reached via the catcher’s interference. Entering this season, he reached that way five times in his career. (Although all five came in 2019 and 2020.)
They’ve come against a variety of pitches in a variety of locations. There’s no pattern involved, you can’t predict when one is likely to happen. Soler just…makes a lot of contact with the catcher’s glove.
In fact, there’s now a race developing in Soler’s stat line…What will he have more of by the end of 2021? Catcher’s interference or home runs?
Speaking of home runs…
Is this really happening?
Lineup construction is overrated. There. I wrote it. But until the game starts, it’s really the only thing we have to discuss so it gets a little too much focus. (Aside from the usual Adalberto Mondesi injury update.)
When the lineups were unveiled on Thursday, there was Soler, hitting ahead of Hunter Dozier in the fifth and sixth spots. Mike Matheny has grouped those two together for the last couple of games, with typically underwhelming results. Although it should be noted that “underwhelming results” has been kind of a mantra for this offense in the last few games.
Soler and Dozier have gotten a lot of focus as two underperforming bats in the lineup. With good reason. Entering Thursday’s game, Soler’s 66 wRC+ was seventh-worst among qualified hitters. Expand the leaderboard to players with 170 plate appearances to get Dozier into the mix and his wRC+ of 62 ranks ninth-worst. Both are supposed to provide spark to the offense. Both have been a drag.
It took a few innings, but both provided big moments for the Royals’ offense on Thursday. Aside from Soler’s catcher’s interference to add a little spark to the rally, Dozier delivered with a hard-hit grounder at 101 mph off the bat that third baseman Matt Chapman couldn’t field cleanly. They don’t call it the hot corner for nothin’.
The double scored Benintendi and moved Soler to third. That set up the go-ahead moment with Gutierrez.
When the lineup flipped over in the eighth it was time for a Royal Power Show as Benintendi connected for a one-out home run, Perez followed with a double and Soler, not wanting his catcher’s interference to eclipse his homer total decided to undress a baseball.
The Royals have played 61 games in 2021. It seems like I’ve written something along the lines of “if they could only get Dozier and Soler going” about…61 times.
But what we saw in the seventh and eighth was what good teams need to do to win games. The Royals offense was futile against Montas through the first six so they needed Minor to keep the game close. He did exactly that in dominating fashion. When Montas tired an the Royals got into the A’s bullpen, it was time for the bats to step up and bully the pitchers. They did exactly that in dominating fashion. This is what the Royals did to Jesús Luzardo in the eighth.
That’s some hard hittin’.
Sometimes, the essence of the game is easily deconstructed. It can’t always be so simple, but on Thursday it was.
Central issues
Mariners 3, Tigers 8
The Mariners jumped out to a lead on their second batter of the game when Mitch Haniger hit a solo home run. The Tigers tied it up on their second batter of the game when Jonathan Schoop bashed one of his own. From there, though, it was all Detroit. Schoop added a single and a double and Robbie Grossman and Jake Rogers each added a home run.
Blue Jays 2, White Sox 5
The injuries are unrelenting on the South Side as the Sox put Nick Madrigal on the 60-day IL with a hamstring tear. Dallas Keuchel went six strong with eight strikeouts.
Yankees 5, Twins 7
I had all the jokes written! The Twins were losing in the bottom of the ninth and Aroldis Chapman was on the mound to close out the victory for New York.
Is it October? The Yankees finish a sweep of the Twins.
And then the Twins went and did this:
Single
Home run
Single
Home run
Chapman didn’t record an out. Josh Donaldson tied it up with the first dinger. Nelson Cruz walked it off with the second.
Up Next
The Royals go for two wins in a row at 8:40 CDT Friday. Brady Singer squares off against Cole Irvin.