No team in their right mind should want to play these Royals

The Royals nearly complete another comeback. The Mariners should consider themselves fortunate to escape Kansas City with one win in three games.

The Royals attempted to destroy the spirit of the Seattle Mariners—and perhaps the entire Pacific Northwest–by storming back and coming from behind for the third consecutive game. This time, however, the late rally came up just short. The Royals fell 6-5 in 10 innings but took the weekend series, two games to one.

The word “relentless” has been bandied about these last few weeks about this Royals team. It’s the correct adjective. There’s another word that can describe this team, from the perspective of the opposition—”exhausting.” These Royals, by the fact they seem to never be out of the game, have to wear down the other side to the point of total and complete surrender.

It’s not some sort of onslaught that arrives in waves…it’s that slow drip of agony. I said it before but the 2024 Royals are deploying a brand of gurella baseball.

In every game in this series, the Mariners took the lead in the first inning. Twice it was off the bat of leadoff man J.P. Crawford who homered in both games this weekend. Then there was that seven-run debacle on Friday. Yes, in all three games, Seattle jumped in front before the Royals had a chance to come to bat. And in all three games the Royals ultimately pushed these Mariners to the brink. Two wins in three isn’t bad. Seattle has to be relieved to get out of Kansas City with one victory.

Sunday, the Royals were down to their final out. Nick Loftin delayed the Mariners’ post-game celebration when he laced a double. Now it was up to MJ Melendez. Not a problem. He turned on a first pitch slider, crushing it 431 feet and tying the game at three.

It featured an 80-grade bat flip. I love 80-grade bat flips.

Another fantastic moment from Melendez, who’s seemingly been in the center of everything in the last week. From the slide in Cleveland in Thursday’s come from behind victory, to the home run and the defense on Friday, to the game-tying ninth inning dinger on Sunday. All this while he’s been fiddling with his batting stance. And…hold on to your domes…he’s still fiddling.

The photo on the left is from Friday, the still on the right is from Sunday. Notice the position of the hands.

He’s dropped them. Not as low as they had been previously this season. He’s kind of splitting the difference at this moment. It looks like he’s now a bit more upright in his torso, but that may be an illusion because of how straight his bat is in the Sunday at bat.

It’s too early to render judgement on Melendez’s array of batting stances. Mainly because…it’s still an array of batting stances. He had two hits in the last week—the home runs on Friday and Sunday. That’s 2-14 with two walks and four strikeouts. The timely dingers are great, but I’ll continue to remain skeptical as to the long-term impact of making these adjustments in the middle of the season at this level. He may have bought himself some time in the afterglow of the home runs, but the Royals need to keep the leash short here.

In any kind of close game there’s going to be a couple of “what-could’ve-been” moments. It also feels that’s the case just about everytime these Royals lose because they simply scratch and claw and battle until the very last out. In Sunday’s case there were two moments in the top of the tenth, the first coming when Freddy Fermin attempted a back pick at third on the 10th pitch of an 11 pitch battle between James McArthur and Crawford. It was one of the more amazing plays I think I’ve seen as Crawford fouled off six consecutive pitches after starting out 2-1. On that 10th pitch, Fermin set up way outside from the left-handed hitter to the point where I was openly saying, “What in the world is Fermin doing?”

The answer became immediately obvious as he fired down to third, almost catching Ryan Bliss off the bag. That’s some kind of pitchout.

It was a bang-bang play upheld on replay as the call stands. A shame they didn’t get the initial call in their favor as it truly looked like it could’ve gone either way.

The next call that didn’t go in their favor came with two outs. A check swing by Dylan Moore on a 2-2 curve that broke down and out of the zone. Another 50-50 call in my view. I think perhaps the umpires got both right, but it really looked like either was basically a coin flip. In this instance, after Moore got a reprieve from the first base umpire, he took the next pitch for a walk. That’s when the Mariners broke through. Julio Rodríguez singled to plate one, Mitch Garver walked and Cal Raleigh singled to bring home two.

The Royals were literally inches away from getting out of the top of the 10th with the score tied. Instead, they were down three.

But because these 2024 Royals don’t know how to surrender, they did not go down quietly. Hunter Renfroe, who is now batting .247/.323/.461 since the start of May, crushed a hanging sweeper from Austin Voth to cut the Seattle lead to one. Kyle Isbel singled to continue the rally, but the top of the order couldn’t advance the matter any further.

Twice this season, Cole Ragans had gotten 19 swings and misses in a start. On Sunday, he got 22 whiffs. That matches a career high.

Ragans only registered four swings and misses on his four-seamer on Sunday, but he was throwing that about a tick faster than his average velocity this year. The change was the pitch for him. The pitch. The Mariners swung at that offering 17 times and missed on 11 of those. Eleven! He also threw another five for called strikes. The changeup finished with a 52 percent CSW% (called strikes, plus whiffs), which is absolutely an elite rate.

You’ve heard of a pitcher “pulling the string” when he throws a good changeup? About that…

Watching Ragans pitch is like watching a Michelin-starred chef make an omelet—Simple ingredients that, in the right hands, become a symphony of flavor. In Ragans’ case, the ingredients are that 96 MPH fastball, a change with about 10 MPH separation from his heater and the wipeout slider. With a lineup stacked with right-handed hitters, it’s four-seam up, slider in and changeup fading away. A basic recipe that yields consistently delightful results.

Did I mention that slider in to right-handed batters? Devastating.

Ragans’ splits are intriguing in that while he’s definitely a strikeout pitcher, he racks up most of those strikeouts the first time through the order. When seeing a hitter for the first time, Ragans is striking them out 34 percent of the time. The second time, that rate dips to 27 percent where it remains steady the third time through. My theory on this is that Ragans is in extreme attack mode early in the game before he shifts to a more conservative approach where he’s trying not to run a high pitch count that could see him limited to five innings or so.

He went six on Sunday. One of the more unique things I’ve found about Ragans over the year or so he’s been in the rotation is that he finishes with some kind of flair. There have been a handful of outings where Ragans’ final pitch has been his fastest. That wasn’t the case against the Mariners. He wrapped his afternoon with a hellacious battle against Mitch Garver, a 10-pitch confrontation. Look at the location of these pitches.

Ragans gave Garver absolutely no quarter. Just an amazing sequence of pitches after falling behind 2-0. Normally, when a batter fouls off as many pitches as Garver did, the confrontation tilts in his favor. Ahhh…Right. This is how it finished.

Somehow, the Royals are just 7-7 in games Ragans starts. That’s a ridiculous record for a guy who consistently shoves like he did on Sunday. Ragans now has a 3.08 ERA with a 2.32 FIP this season. Over 79 innings, he’s posted an 11.2 K/9 and a 2.3 BB/9. It’s good for a 2.6 fWAR, the third-best mark among starters at the moment.

Central Issues

Twins 11, Pirates 5 - 10 innings

Fresh off a disastrous visit to the Bronx where they were swept, the Twins stumbled into Pittsburgh and promptly lost the first two games of their set against the Pirates. In fact, they failed to score a single run in the first two games. The bats finally showed some spark in the first on Sunday as they plated three runs on a bases-loaded walk, a fielder’s choice and a passed ball. Whatever works. The Pirates briefly held the lead before Minnesota pushed it to extras where they blew the game open with the big blow coming from a Carlos Santana double.

Guardians 6, Marlins 3

While the Royals have been grinding through the toughest portion of their schedule, the Guardians were kicking it in South Beach. Tyler Freeman broke a 2-2 deadlock with a three-run home run in the seventh. Cleveland took two of three from the Marlins.

Brewers 2, Tigers 10

That man Tarik Skubal again. He struck out the side in the first and, while he had to work around some traffic at times, generally kept his foot on the gas. Skubal finished with 6.2 shutout innings with 10 strikeouts, lowering his ERA to 1.92. Jake Rogers continued his hot hitting with a three-run home run in the fifth, part of an eight-run Detroit onslaught. The victory meant the Tigers avoided the sweep.

Red Sox 6, White Sox 4 - 10 innings

Another blown lead for the Hapless White Sox. Boston tied it on a sac fly in the ninth and took the lead in the 10th in the same fashion. The Sox split the series. (See what I did there?)

At +76, the Royals have the fourth-best run differential in the American League. Their average of 4.98 runs scored per game is fourth-best in the majors. The playoff odds report continues to mesmerize.

As the Royals embark on this brutal stretch of schedule, they finished the week 3-2. They came from behind in all three wins.

Relentless. And, for the other team, exhausting.