Double vision, double dingers, one victory

Salvy crushes two and Dozier slams the go-ahead home run as the Royals take the opener from the Twins.

Sometimes, it’s just best to not tweet.

On Tuesday afternoon, the Royals released their lineup as usual. The only notable thing about the starting nine listed by manager Mike Matheny was that he bumped Nicky Lopez up to second in the order, dropping Bobby Witt Jr. to third. A couple of hours later, the Royals dropped a revised lineup. This one had Salvador Perez as the designated hitter, Hunter Dozier at first and dropped Carlos Santana altogether. It was revealed the change was due to Perez experiencing blurry vision and the Royals decided that moving him to DH would lighten his responsibilities for the game.

I was a bit perplexed. A guy has blurred vision so he’s…the designated hitter? How does this make sense?

I understood the caution on the part of the Royals. But Perez, and I can’t seem to stress this enough, was having difficulty seeing clearly. To me, that would seem to disqualify him from, you know, being able to hit a baseball.

So I constructed a few different tweets and hovered over the button to send them out into the universe. Then thought better and just deleted. The Royals have a medical team and they treated Perez and determined that he was fine to hit. Who am I to question their methods? All of my medical knowledge comes from watching St. Elsewhere. And on another level, it certainly makes sense to not have him behind the plate. There isn’t a more intense position on the field than catcher. So if Perez is going to “take it easy,” being the designated hitter is the way to go.

By not tweeting I saved myself all kinds of grief, and a potential star turn on Freezing Cold Takes. Because as you know by now, all Perez did was crush two solo dingers. He also drew his first walk of the season. The guy simply never ceases to amaze. Underestimate him at your own peril. Blurred vision a few hours before the game starts? No problem. That’s Salvy.

Let’s start with the first inning walk. Perez’s walks need to be celebrated as much as his dingers.

The slider was on a 1-2 pitch and, while usually Perez’s personal brand of two-strike kryptonite, this one was far too off the plate for him to bite. Besides, the Chris Archer slider seems to have a more vertical break than horizontal. It’s the sweeping sliders that will get Perez. The low fastball was the fourth ball in the plate appearance.

This PA came after a Lopez double (immediately paying dividends by hitting second) and a Witt strikeout. With runners on first and second and two outs, Benintendi ended the inning with a strikeout. A missed opportunity.

Perez hit his first homer of the night off Archer in his next turn at the plate…a first-pitch hanging slider over the heart of the dish.

It had a launch angle of 43 degrees if you’re into that sort of thing. So the hang time was a bit extended. It seemed like the ball was in the air forever. As noted earlier, there’s just not a ton of break to that pitch and when it hangs over the middle of the plate…Perez did exactly what power hitters should do when presented that opportunity.

The second Perez dinger came off reliever Tyler Duffey. It was a 1-1 elevated fastball that was clocked around 92 mph. Again, when Perez is locked in and looking to do some harm, that’s a pitch he’s going to hammer.

The ball just kind of leaps off the bat, doesn’t it? Mercy. This one had a launch angle of 40 degrees. Both baseballs were launched into that jet stream that was blowing out to left field on Monday. I hesitate to describe either as “wind aided” because both left the bat like they were shot out of a howitzer with exit velocities greater than 105 mph. Still, it didn’t hurt.

What a night for Perez. He saw 11 pitches total in four plate appearances, collected a walk and smashed two dingers. Hours before he was dealing with blurry vision. Amazing.

The look when you immediately realize you have made a bad decision

This was Benintendi when he decided he should go for two after Kyle Garlick bobbled his single in right-center. Unfortunately for Benny, the ball just kind of popped straight up in the air to Garlick, which gave him a nice angle to get the throw to second base.

Aggressive baserunning is the hallmark of these Royals teams. There will be TOOTBLANS as they try to make things happen. At least this one wouldn’t hurt the Royals.

Dozier making the difference

Two games, two go-ahead dingers. It’s Hunter Dozier’s world.

That baseball was absolutely vaporized. Dozier is now hitting .290/.313/.548 through his first 32 plate appearances of 2022. Quite the change from what he experienced at the start of last year. The Royals desperately need someone…anyone…to solidify the middle of the order. It may as well be Dozier.

With the two home runs and the Benny single coming in the sixth inning off Duffey, let’s just say the Royals were getting a good look at the Minnesota reliever.

The bullpen locks it down

Carlos Hernández did not have an especially good start. He had a difficult time spotting his four-seamer in the first inning, missing wildly high. He only spun a couple of hos secondary pitches, but spiked those badly. He found his arm slot and his rhythm in the second and third innings, before losing it again in the fourth. He lasted only 4.1 innings, meaning it would be up to the bullpen to keep the game close.

Which is exactly what they did. At least until the Royals took the lead. Then they slammed the door shut.

Amir Garrett, Jake Brentz, Collin Snider, Scott Barlow and Josh Staumont combined for 4.2 innings of one-hit ball. Collectively, they struck out five and walked three. Just another round of domination for the relief corps.

But it wasn’t completely smooth sailing. Brentz is still scuffling. He recorded the first two outs in the seventh before allowing a walk and a single. Snider was then summoned to nail down the third out. Yep, let’s just go right ahead and assign Snider as the fireman of this bullpen.

Staumont was a bit shaky as well, missing well up and out of the zone with his heater, putting the tying run on base with a four-pitch walk to the second batter of the inning, Luis Arraez. However, he was able to recover by striking out Jorge Polanco before retiring fan-favorite Carlos Correa on a grounder to third to end the game and secure the victory.