Hope you wore a seatbelt; the Royalcoster jumped the tracks
The wildest game of the year where Carlos Hernández turns in the another great start, the bats show some admirable fight and the Yankees blow four saves! It was another crazy night at The K.
It took a couple of hours to get going, but the Royalcoaster was full steam ahead from the seventh inning onward on Monday night. After starting pitching dominated through the first six frames, the Royals and Yankees traded single tallies in the seventh, eighth and ninth innings.
A wildly entertaining game was settled beyond the fourth hour thanks to Manfred’s Extra Inning Follies.
The first nine innings were a perfect ballgame. Great starting pitching. Timely hitting. Salvador Perez walked twice! Had both these teams been in a pennant race, it would’ve been edge-of-your-seat anxiety. A fantastic way to spend an August evening. The extra-inning shenanigans took a little shine off the game as the two teams combined for eight runs after the regulation nine.
You know how there’s always a great chance you’ll see something new every time you watch a ballgame? This was some kind of history.
Buckle up. This edition of the newsletter could follow suit and go completely off the rails.
Cruising down Electric Avenue
The game wasn’t decided until late, but make no mistake, in Monday’s extra-inning defeat against the New York Yankees, the scoreline was secondary. This was all about Carlos Hernández.
Building off his previous two starts where he pitched six and five innings respectively, Hernández went 6.2 innings, allowing five hits while striking out three. He threw a career-high 96 pitches.
I’ve called his stuff electric. I continue to maintain this is the case. Although I was a bit surprised to comb through the Savant data and see that Hernández generated only eight whiffs on his 42 swings. They were evenly distributed between his fastballs, curve and slider. He finished the game with a 30 percent CSW% (called strikes plus whiffs) which is lower than I would’ve guessed after watching his outing.
Nevertheless, he executed exactly when he had to. And truthfully, he wasn’t tested all that much by the Yankee lineup. He walked the leadoff hitter, Brett Gardner, but rolled up Giancarlo Stanton on a double-play grounder (more on that in a moment). He allowed a one out triple to DJ LeMahieu hit in a place I’ve never seen a fly ball drop, tucked just around the foul pole in right, but got the strikeout of Luke Voit he needed to ultimately strand the runner. The curve to finish was a thing of beauty.
The battle against Voit was just some fantastic pitching. Hernández worked inside with a sinker and slider to jump ahead 1-2. He went back-to-back curves with the first one further out of the zone but the second was just too tempting.
That whiff of Voit was the first of 11 consecutive retired by Hernández. It included six ground ball outs, three strikeouts and two outs in the air.
The plethora of ground ball outs isn’t really how Hernández gets major league hitters out. In his two seasons in Kansas City entering Monday (covering just 54 innings), only 37 percent of his outs have come on the ground. It’s a 10.2 SO/9 and the fact he whiffs around a quarter of all batters who dare step into the box is how he goes about his business. So while Hernández was successful on Monday night, the ends were a little unorthodox for the right-hander, given the means.
I referenced Hernández’s previous two starts. Let’s roll out the small starting sample size as I did with Daniel Lynch last week.
That’s a fine-looking small sample. The funny thing about this stretch…according to Bill James’ Game Score, Monday was Hernández’s third-best start. Really.
In those three starts Hernández has surrendered four extra base hits. And rolled up four double plays.
Hernández has the best pure stuff of all the young Royals starters we’ve seen roll through Kauffman this year. What’s at issue has been his command. It can be erratic, like just four starts ago where he issued four free passes in less than three innings against Detroit. But four walks over his last 17.2 innings? Yeah, that will play.
Hernández doesn’t have the prospect cachet the collegiate arms of the 2018 draft carry, but his ceiling may be the highest. The stuff is there. It’s all about the command. It was mostly present on Monday.
Hernández was peppering the edges, got a little squeezed on the upper and lower boundaries and it was honestly surprising the Yankee hitters were able to lay off some of those close pitches. He gets wild high from time to time but was able to harness that energy that will lead to an occasional overthrow of a pitch and get subsequent pitches in and around the zone.
He’s also built like a tank and able to maintain that fierce velocity throughout 90-plus pitches.
This was pitch number 95 on the evening.
A 97.9 mph sinker at the knees on the inner half. Absolutely wicked.
Sadly, Voit was able to turn on the next pitch to drive home a run: a center-cut 1-2 slider. The first three pitches in that at bat were on the inner half. It looked like Cam Gallagher was looking for a pitch well inside again. Hernández just missed his spot.
One poor pitch does not an outing make. Hernández will hopefully have the rest of the 2021 season to make the case he deserves a spot in the rotation in 2022.
A pair of professional plate appearances
Maybe you’re tired of opening this newsletter and seeing all these positive things written about Nicky Lopez. But as long as the dude keeps turning out great at bat after great at bat, I’m going to write about it. Cool? Cool.
Lopez singled off Jonathan Loaisiga to ignite the rally in the eighth. He moved to second when Salvador Perez walked for the second time. (Two walks for Perez? The game was already out of control!) He was down to his final strike, just put the bat on the damn ball and completed the Royals’ third comeback of the night.
Isn’t that just a perfect swing? Lopez didn’t try to do too much, he just wanted to shoot the ball through the hole the shortstop was giving him on the left side. He got the pitch he could execute that and—BOOM—tie ball game. For the third time.
I also wanted to point out the plate appearance from Andrew Benintendi in the bottom of the 10th. Clay Holmes fed him a steady diet of sinkers in the mid-90s. Down 1-2, he spun the only slider of the PA. It froze Benintendi and the home plate umpire as well. From there, Benintendi fouled off another pitch and watched two more sail out of the zone.
Like Lopez, Benintendi was just looking for a way to get on base to keep the inning moving. He was successful and scored the tying run in the 10th when Hanser Alberto singled up the middle.
Scorched infield
The bat met the ball and in a blink, it was in Whit Merrifield’s glove, the start of a 4-6-3 double play.
I took a moment to process what I saw…Checked Baseball Savant…OH. MY. GOD. GIANCARLO STANTON.
An exit velocity of 122.2 mph? Are you serious? That’s the hardest-hit ball in 2021 according to Statcast by a full 2 MPH. Just for fun (I realize this is a Royals newsletter and I’m spending a little too much time on a Stanton ball in play, but come on…) I looked up all batted balls scorched over 120 mph since Statcast started tracking.
So that double play is now tied for the hardest-hit ball since Statcast began measuring exit velocity. It also holds the distinction for turning into the most outs.
Weird baseball
The record-tying exit velocity was only the appetizer for a game that was highly entertaining. Here are a few other items of note:
Perez walked twice in a game for the first time since 5/9/2017 at Tampa.
Merrifield got into scoring position for Lopez in the ninth courtesy of his 31st consecutive stolen base.
Holland threw three fastballs faster than 96 mph. That was the first time he’s thrown a ball that hard since June of 2014.
The Royals’ rally in the seventh featured a throwing error on a pickoff, a balk and an ejection.
The Yankees recorded four blown saves. That was the second time a team has done that, the only other time being the Astros on 9/28/1995.
Lopez did not bat for himself in the 11th after taking a grounder off his chin. The bases were loaded and the team was looking for the third out. Two runs scored. Had that grounder stayed down, the Royals would have entered their half of the 11th down just a single run.
Where’s Olivares?
Tweeting the Royals lineup is like a Rorschach test…everyone sees what they want to see. Personally, I rarely ever note when one player is awarded playing time in front of another, or the order presented. I don’t need that level of personal psychoanalysis. But when I sent forth this lineup on Monday afternoon, it just felt there was a glaring omission.
I’ve written this at length: It’s time to let the kids play. And by kids, I don’t mean Ryan O’Hearn. To this point of his major league career, the left-handed hitter has collected 840 plate appearances to the tune of .218/.296/.418, good for an 88 wRC+. I know Dayton Moore likes to say it takes 1,500 plate appearances or whatever the current yardstick is for you to discover who a hitter really is, but I think we can hit the fast forward button on this one.
Once again, the Royals are playing out the string, hurtling toward 90-plus losses and once again the team just refuses to give regular playing time to a young player. I have absolutely no clue if Edward Olivares is a long-term answer for the Royals in the outfield. But I do know he destroyed Triple-A pitching this year while being yo-yoed north and south along I-29.
There have been questions as to whether Olivares’ power he’s flashed in the minors can translate to the majors. Then he went on a tear after his latest recall and banged four in five games. The defense profiles as plus in the corners and acceptable in center, if the Royals decided they wanted to try him in the acreage at The K. Maybe he can help this team in 2022 and beyond. Maybe not. But here’s the kicker…at this point, we just don’t know. And we’re going to remain clueless as long as he’s spending every other game on the bench.
It’s mid-August. The Royals own a .436 winning percentage and they’re still rolling lineups out there with O’Hearn and Michael A. Taylor. And we are left to ponder why. Let’s play the Rorschach test with that lineup. I see a jumbled mess.
Late summer is often the most frustrating time to follow this club.
Olivares pinch-hit for Lopez in the 11th. He singled and drove home Taylor.
Central issues
White Sox 11, Twins 1
The White Sox are probably happy that Eloy Jiménez is back. The Twins, most decidedly, are not. Jiménez launched a pair of bombs in his first two at bats, filling up the line score with five runs.
It’s OK, Minnesota. He did the same thing to the Cubs yesterday.
Reds 3, Cleveland 9
José Ramírez tripled and homered and drove in three runs. Bradley Zimmer smoked one 471 feet. And Reds starter Luis Castillo failed to get out of the third inning.
Up next
How are the two teams supposed to top what we saw last night? The series continues with Daniel Lynch taking the mound for the Royals against Nestor Cortes. First pitch is scheduled for 7:10 CDT.