September warriors

The Royals stay hot, James McArthur is a machine, Brady Singer hits the IL and Brad Keller is off to see a specialist.

Once again, these Royals are September warriors.

On Tuesday, they polished off their sixth victory in the last seven games. The pitchers who picked up the wins are Taylor Clarke, Alec Marsh, Angel Zerpa, James McArthur and Jackson Cowar. Of that group, only Clarke was on the Opening Day roster. Tuesday’s game featured a starting battery of Steven Cruz and Tyler Cropley, who made his major league debut. (And collected his first hit and RBI!)

It’s not how you would’ve drawn it up at the start of the season, but hey…whatever works. Maybe these Royals can catch fire late in September and avoid the franchise record for most losses in a season. With Tuesday’s 7-5 victory over the Guardians, the Royals need to go 7-3 over their last 10 games to avoid that record. Who says there isn’t a reason to watch these Royals?

Although the Royals rolled to the win on Tuesday, their first inning at the plate—or should I say on the bases—was incredibly frustrating. There were not one, but two TOOTBLANs.

The first, Makiel Garcia was caught wandering off third base when Bobby Witt Jr. broke for second on an early move from Cleveland starter Logan Allen. Allen threw to first baseman Bo Naylor, who pivoted and fired across the infield to nail Garcia. I have no idea what Garcia was doing wandering off third. If you’re going to go, go. If not, get back to the bag. Honestly, he wasn’t that far off the base, but it was far enough. It was nincompoopery of the highest order.

The second out was the more traditional kind as Edward Olivares was caught stealing second base.

The good news was MJ Melendez came to play on Tuesday. After Garcia was thrown out, Melendez clubbed a home run after Garcia was thrown out and brought home Witt for a 2-0 lead.

It kind of set the stage for the rest of the game…The Royals would walk it right up to the line, before pulling it back and surviving. There was one man to thank for saving the game and securing the victory.

The star of Tuesday’s victory? Easy. James McArthur.

Handed the unenviable, and almost impossible task, of cleaning up after Carlos Hernández who gave up a home run to shave the Royals’ lead down to one before issuing a walk and a single to open the inning. With runners on first and third and no outs, McArthur simply did September McArthur things. Which is to say he absolutely destroyed the Guardians’ will to compete.

With the tying run 90 feet away and the go-ahead run at second after advancing on a wild pitch, McArthur cooly punched out the side. That undersells the moment. Cleveland doesn’t exactly have the most dangerous lineup in the league—they’re scoring fewer runs per game than the Royals—but McArthur got Josh Naylor to strikeout swinging, caught Kole Calhoun looking and snuffed out the potential rally by getting Ramon Laureano to whiff.

When the inning opened, the Royals had an 87 percent chance of victory. When McArthur entered, it was down to 46 percent. When McArthur was finished cleaning up, order had been properly restored and the Royals were back to being favorites at 87 percent. Fun how that works.

Since his recall on September 1, McArthur has retired 31 of 32 batters faced, including the last 22 in a row. He’s closing in on perfect game territory level of dominance. In 10.1 innings, he’s struck out 11 and hasn’t issued a walk.

McArthur was obtained in early May in a trade with the Phillies. I have no idea if this type of performance will stick when we convene next season, but it’s a promising finish to be sure. This is the type of deal the Royals need to be making where they find a pitcher no longer wanted by his organization, identify a way they can help him find his potential (or beyond) and go out and get him. In McArthur’s case, it was adding a slider to his repertoire. I don’t want to get all hyperbolic, but he’s morphed into something akin to the 2015 version of Wade Davis.

It’s nice to go into the offseason feeling optimistic about at least one pitcher in the bullpen.

Ahead of Tuesday’s game, the Royals made a flurry of roster moves, ending the season for a couple of their pitchers. Let’s discuss both, starting with Brad Keller who hit the IL with symptoms of thoracic outlet syndrome.

I’m mesmerized by Keller’s fWAR chart. Regression is seldom this linear. And fast.

That’s not quite fair to Keller. His 2020 season was fantastic, even if it was just nine starts due to the shortened season. That’s why I included ERA- on the chart. However, his 2020 season amounted to two exceptional months. It was never going to be sustainable.

That’s not a knock. It’s just a fact.

Keller faced 215 batters in 2020. He allowed only four extra-base hits. Seriously. That’s nuts. Two doubles and two home runs. If that doesn’t scream fluke, I don’t know what to tell you. For you to buy into that performance, you would’ve had to believe that Brad Keller was a reincarnation of 1981 Nolan Ryan. (In the strike-shortened season of ‘81, Ryan made 21 starts and allowed just 10 extra-base hits. Ryan’s ERA+ that year was 195. Keller’s ERA+ in 2020 was 189.)

Keller posted a .233 BABIP in ‘20 after averaging around a .290 BABIP in his first two seasons. I dislike when people point at a low BABIP as luck, but in looking at Keller’s 2020 season, I think that’s appropriate. His batted ball profile was unremarkable. He didn’t fool batters enough to get consistent swings and misses, posting a strikeout rate of 5.8 SO/9. Opposing hitters made plenty of contact, but just hit the ball right at the fielders.

Look at these two seasons:

If you had only the data from the table above, wouldn’t you think that both seasons were close when it came to performance? Maybe with a nod to this year being the better of the two? Especially with the lower line drive rate and elevated percentage of grounders.

That wouldn’t be the case.

After holding hitters to a line of .202/.270/.244 in 2020, that flipped to .265/.431/.383 this year. Of course, the big difference between the two seasons was on-base percentage, which is to say, the walks were the problem. Ah, yes…the walks. Keller issued a free pass to 7.9 percent of all batters faced in 2020. That jumped to 21.3 percent this season. When you present the opposition gifts like that, they’re going to take advantage of your largesse.

It was a historically poor season for Keller. Going back to 1969, Keller’s walk rate is the fifth worst among pitchers who threw at least 45 innings.

It’s pretty clear that something hasn’t been right with Keller. He landed on the IL early in the year with right shoulder impingement and was subsequently pulled from a rehab stretch in July after struggling with his control. Now, Keller is off to see a specialist to deal with his symptoms of thoracic outlet syndrome, his Royals career is over and his baseball career hangs in the balance.

I always thought that if the Royals were able to compete (I know, I know), Keller would be either a back-of-the-rotation starter or swingman. That was based on his first couple of seasons where Keller found success, in spite of overpowering stuff, and provided some quality appearances. The timing of his decline, coupled with his health issues, is entirely unfortunate. Even though he was a non-tender candidate last winter, he still could’ve found a nibble or two in free agency this offseason. Now, he will have to prove that he’s healthy and if he is, he’ll probably only get minor league offers.

The Royals also placed Brady Singer on the 15-day IL on Tuesday. The official reason is a left lower lumbar strain. He’s dealt with lower back issues over the last couple of years, but Anne Rogers reported that it felt worse than usual after his start on Monday.

In that start, Singer pushed through six innings against the Guardians, allowing four runs on eight hits. It was, in the prism of his 2023 season, a thoroughly unremarkable start. What was notable was his velocity was way down from his seasonal averages. It continued a trend that began with his start on August 19 in Chicago against the Cubs.

The sinker, which he had been consistently throwing at around 92-93 MPH dipped to 91 MPH in that start. He was down to 90 MPH on Monday.

It’s never a good thing to see a pitcher lose that much velocity. If there’s anyone who can’t afford that kind of dip, it’s Singer. Yeah, yeah, yeah…he remains a two-pitch pitcher with that sinker/slider combo. While the decline in velocity with the slider has been a little more gradual, when the sinker is coming in at 90 to 91 MPH I’m not sure the velocity of the slider matters all that much. Both pitches became extremely more hittable.

The results reflect that. Over his final five starts of 2023, Singer threw just 24 innings and allowed 26 runs. Opponents hit .407/.433/.657 against him.

The Royals shut him down for 10 days at the first of the month and ran a battery of tests.

“We wouldn’t put him on the field if we didn’t feel like he could compete,” general manager J.J. Picollo said. “We’ve seen the drop in velocity, his performance hasn’t been as good, and you get to a point and say, ‘Do we want to keep pushing through the soreness he’s had?’ The thing we are confident about is that there’s nothing wrong with his arm at all. 

“And if the circumstances were different, he would still be pitching. He did not want to stop pitching. … But knowing where we are, let’s do the thing that’s right for your career and for us.’”

I mean, if the Royals were in an actual pennant race and Singer was struggling like this, the entire fanbase would be apoplectic. And with good reason. He’s clearly not right and even though the tests on his arm and elbow say everything is structurally sound, he’s clearly not right. Maybe it is just the back. If so, it’s smart for the Royals to end his season now so he doesn’t get his mechanics out of whack over the last two weeks which could lead to something more serious.

It brings down the curtain on a thoroughly unsatisfying season for Singer, who after his ’22 campaign, looked poised to continue his breakout. It wasn’t to be.

Now the focus turns to next season.