The Royals serve notice

They may have struggled in June, but the Royals wrap the month by making a statement and taking three of four from the division-leading Guardians.

When Cleveland rolled into town on Thursday for a four-game series against the Royals, it felt like a pivotal moment in the 2024 season. As pivotal as a series in June against a division rival can be.

The Royals were home after a disastrous road trip where they went 2-7. In their first series of the current homestand they narrowly took two of three from the Miami Marlins. The opportunity to fatten up against weaker teams had come and gone with the Royals managing only three wins out of nine games against Oakland, Texas and those Marlins. The AL Central leading were coming to Kauffman Stadium. If the Royals were going to sink or swim, now was probably going to be the time we saw the direction the rest of the season was going to take.

On perfect Sunday afternoon, the Royals completed a near-perfect series against those Guardians. It wrapped with a 6-2 thumping behind the brilliant starting pitching of Seth Lugo, the timely hits of Bobby Witt Jr. and the thunder of Salvador Perez. The Royals took three of four from the Guardians, shaved two games off their division lead and served notice to the rest of the AL.

These Royals are not going to fade away.

I thought Lugo made a similar—and immediate—statement of intent on Sunday. This was his first confrontation of the afternoon with Guardians leadoff man Steven Kwan.

Fastball for a called strike. Sinker for a foul. Slider dotted on the corner for a called third strike. Effeciant perfection.

Send this GIF to those pitching labs because that’s simply a textbook backdoor slider.

Lugo jumped ahead of the next hitter, Daniel Schneemann, but ultimately lost him as the curve wasn’t close enough for him to bite. He found his footing against the ever-dangerous José Ramírez.

Ramírez whiffed at the sinker, watched the four-seamer miss off the plate, fouled off the curve and then swung and missed at a lethal changeup.

Ramírez strikes out just a little over 12 percent of the time which is an elite rate. He’s hitting a respectable .293 against changeups this year; slugging .621 against that pitch. He’s not a guy who gets fooled all that often. Yet there was Lugo, pulling that string and catching Ramírez off balance for his second strikeout of the day.

Lugo found his curveball footing with the next batter, Josh Naylor. Naylor fouled off both curves in the zone he saw before lining a fastball back at 107 MPH that caught Lugo on his left wrist. Clearly not ideal, but Lugo was able to shake it off and stay in the game.

That curveball really showed up in the next inning when Lugo was facing Bryan Rocchio with two down.

The first two curves were called strikes. The four-seamer up was just a courtesy pitch. A teaser to let Rocchio think he had a chance. He actually had no chance. Not with another spinner coming his way.

What a beautiful pitch. The Lugo curve is simply mesmerizing. After the game, Bobby Witt Jr. said he’s been referring to Lugo as The Surgeon because he’s up there dissecting hitters. That fits. If I may expand on the analogy, the curve is Lugo’s scalpel, an instrument of precision. It’s also going to leave a scar.

Lugo had it all working on Sunday. His usual assortment of pitches was on display. The only pitch Lugo didn’t throw according to Baseball Savant was his cutter. When you’re getting five whiffs on the change, seven on the curve and three more on the slurve, I suppose you can pocket the cutter for a game.

By the time Lugo was done with the Guardians after six innings, he had punched out 10, the third time he’s reached double-digits this season. Oh, it was also his fifth start of at least six scoreless innings this season. The only other starter to do that is Detroit’s Tarik Skubal. Lugo also dropped his ERA to 2.17 for the year. That’s the second-best ERA from a pitcher in his first 18 starts in a season, trailing only Zack Greinke who posted a 2.12 ERA through his first 18 starts in 2009. We all know how Greinke’s 2009 campaign ended. Lugo is doing something special.

On the other side, Guardian’s starter Logan Allen has struggled this year, especially with his fastball. The southpaw’s four-seamer which averages 91 MPH has been worth -10 runs. (The entire Cleveland rotation is awful with the four-seamer.) It’s just not a pitch that overpowers or surprises hitters. Opponents are hitting .342 against Allen’s fastball with a .614 slugging percentage. Watching the game back on Sunday evening, I thought Rex Hudler was going to jump out of the broadcast booth to take some swings against Allen. Hud was begging hitters to be aggressive.

Alternatively, Allen’s best pitch this season has been his change. Opponents are hitting .220 against that pitch with a .470 slugging percentage. Want to know how the Royals have emerged from those offensive doldrums they were struggling with a week ago? These are the pitches from Allen where the Royals collected base hits:

Mostly well-located changeups. Freddy Fermin turned on a four-seamer for a one-out double in the second. Which was followed by Garrett Hampson lacing a changeup for a double to score the game’s second run. Allen isn’t a particularly effective pitcher, but the Royals couldn’t take advantage of his weakness in the four-seamer. Instead, they strung together solid at bats and, hitting on Allen’s terms, were able to cash in. That’s a good sign for this offense. At least in the short term.

In the fifth inning, Witt hit his ninth triple of the season. It drove in a run and was his third hit of the afternoon. The man is a blur.

Simply incredible. The ball was lined down the left field line. Witt knows as he’s leaving the box he has a double. That’s settled. But what Witt consistently does is think one more. One more base. He might slam on the brakes, but he’s always looking forward to create as much mayhem on the bases as possible. In this case, the play was unfolding in front of him as he was approaching second. Witt was able to hit the bag and make the turn. As the tweet says, it took about 11 seconds for Witt to go home to third and that’s because his Baseball IQ is off the charts. The guy laces a ball to left and he’s thinking three bases? Insane unless you can do it. Witt can absolutely do it.

That triple plated Dairon Blanco who reached via a bunt single, advanced to second on a bunt from Maikel Garcia and then swiped third. Turns out he didn’t need to work so hard. Witt himself was brought home on a Vinnie Pasquantino single. It was the seventh game in a row he’s collected an RBI.

The Pasquantino single stretched the Royals advantage to 4-0 after five innings. Lugo went six and exited the game with that four-run lead. The bullpen would need to record the final nine outs.

There’s still plenty of agita when the Royals go to their bullpen. It’s difficult to shake a reputation, even when there’s been individual moments of excellence. And because things are never easy, you’re left to wonder whether or not the Royals relievers can secure the victory with that four-run lead. Some insurance runs would be nice.

The Royals were set for some padding in their half of the sixth as Nick Loftin and Freddy Fermin both walked to open the frame. Guardians reliever Tim Herrin delivered eight out of his first nine pitches out of the zone. The only pitch he got over the plate was a 3-0 offering to Fermin. He was missing by quite a bit.

That’s why I was particularly frustrated that Garrett Hampson swung at a 1-0 fastball. The pitch was up and in. It could’ve been called a strike. It could’ve been a ball. It was close. Still…don’t you have to at least take a strike in that at bat? At the very least, approach every pitch like it’s 3-0 until you get a strike, meaning look dead center and let it rip only if the pitch is in your happy zone. Ugh.

Hampson showed bunt for the next pitch, which had the infield moving in and then ripped a grounder to third. José Tena made a grab and a heads-up play by going to his bag at third to get the force. Then he uncorked a wild throw to first which let the runners move up ninety feet. With runners on second and third and one out against a pitcher with spotty command, the Royals still stood a decent chance of collecting an insurance run for their bullpen. Blanco grounded back to the pitcher and Garcia ended the inning flying out to right.

You hoped the missed opportunity wouldn’t come back to haunt them.

Missed opportunity? Ha! Salvador Perez isn’t going to miss an opportunity!

The captain has put together an array of impressive plate appearances this season. This one definitely belongs in the top three:

Guardians reliever Pedro Avila is throwing Perez the kitchen sink and spotting his pitches on the edges. He jumps ahead on a changeup and a sinker. He tries to get Perez to fish, but nothing doing. Avila then jumps back to attack mode, breaking off a curve low and away and then a fastball in. Perez fouls off both. After a curve in the dirt, Avila shows a changeup down.

It wasn’t down enough. I think even Salvy was surprised at how the ball jumped off his bat. Perez parks it into the Guardians bullpen and the Royals have a six-run lead.

Fine. We have to discuss the stupid replay review that allowed the home run call to stand for Jhonkensy Noel in the fourth inning on Saturday. The official line is that the replay official in New York could not tell if the ball hit the foul pole. Without “clear and convincing evidence” that meant the call on the field stood. Home run.

Readers, you know I have myriad issues with replay. This boondoggle only confirms those opinions. Replay is a gimmick meant to gin up some sort of artificial drama. Yes, it does sometimes work. The Royals scored their first run on Sunday thanks to the system. Other times though, it’s incredibly flawed. My argument against the system is that if it’s not foolproof, it’s not worth having on the field. They need more cameras and those cameras need to be shooting at a high frame rate that allows the replay official to truly examine the play. It’s not acceptable to have this system in place and then get things wrong because you don’t have the right equipment in place. Either do it correctly, or don’t do it at all.

All that said…how in the world could someone look at this and not see that the ball completely missed the foul pole?

The ball clearly changes direction once it hits the black bar that extends off the pole. Plus, the point of contact is obviously well to the foul side of the pole. To hit both the pole and the bar at the angle at which we can see where made contact is to simply defy physics. Unless there’s some sort of gravity-free zone adjacent to the pole, this doesn’t make sense.

This was a pivotal moment in Saturday’s game. Once the home run was allowed to stand, Cleveland’s win expectancy went up 25 percent. Yes, there was plenty more baseball to be played, but it completely changed the complexion of the game in that moment.

Anyway…I truly dislike writing about this kind of stuff because there’s no way to articulate what happened without sounding like some sort of crackpot ranting about second shooters and grassy knolls and whatnot. Oftentimes though, botched reviews don’t put two runs on the board.

Matt Quatraro is all of us.

As I mentioned, the Royals got some of that replay karma back on Sunday when an out call in the first inning was overturned, giving Perez an RBI on a fielder’s choice. Frankly, I was surprised that call was flipped. The evidence to overturn the call on the field didn’t seem clear and convincing to me. “Clear and convincing” is supposed to be unambiguous but it sure doesn’t seem like anyone at MLB’s replay center has any idea what that means.

Sunday was the one-year anniversary of the trade that brought Cole Ragans to the Royals. You’ll recall JJ Picollo shipped reliever Aroldis Chapman to the Rangers in exchange for Ragans. In my first post following the deal, I called the return “kind of…underwhelming.”

Please don’t cancel your subscription.

Aha! Here’s what else I wrote:

It seems like command has been an issue for Ragans this year, at least in the majors. Leafing through his pitch logs at Baseball Savant, it feels like he’s not finishing at times, leaving all pitches up in the zone. He’s walking 5.2 batters per nine against, but has been successful in limiting the base hits, holding opponents to a .225 batting average against.

He’s reporting to Triple-A to start his Royals career, but given the need for innings at the big league level, I wouldn’t be surprised to see him in Kansas City before the end of July. The minor league pitching coaching will have him work on a few refinements and he’ll be up once he’s comfortable.

So Ragans falls into the category of most of the pitchers the team acquired last year at the deadline: A test for the new pitching development track. If they can fix his command and move him to the rotation while keeping some of that velocity improvement, they may have found something for the back of their rotation. As we all know, that’s something they really need…this season and beyond.

“Back of the rotation.” Lordy.

As you know, Ragans did report to Triple-A and he did fix his command and he did keep his velocity. He also added that nasty slider. In 29 starts since joining the rotation last summer, Ragans has pitched to a 2.86 ERA, good for a 152 ERA+. That’s along with an 11.1 SO/9 and 3.2 BB/9. He’s been an absolute ace from the beginning. As the Royals celebrated their Hall of Fame weekend, I couldn’t help but note that the Ragans trade was very much in the vein of the deals original general manager Cedric Tallis pulled off to lay the foundation that led from an “expansion team” tag to that of “perennial contender.”

It’s obviously too early to grade Picollo, but the early returns are positive. How could they be anything other? Through 86 games, the Royals stand at an impressive 47-39. At this time last year, they were 25-61. A 22 game swing to the good is bananas.

Central Issues

Rockies 5, White Sox 4 - 14 innings

Fourteen innings? Between the Rockies and the White Sox? That seems a tad unnecessary. I love baseball, but I don’t think I love baseball that much.

Tigers 7, Angels 6

Detroit avoided a sweep as starter Casey Mize let Los Angeles put the ball in play and they couldn’t do anything beyond three singles. Meanwhile, Angels starter Tyler Anderson was getting knocked around, allowing six runs on seven hits. The big blow was off reliever Andrew Wantz, who came in behind Anderson with two runners on and served up a bomb to Carson Kelly. The Angels put up a late fight, rallying for five runs in the ninth on home runs from Zach Neto and Jo Adell.

Twins 5, Mariners 3

The Twins went homer-happy in June, clubbing 30 dingers in the month. Trevor Larnach hit a two-run bomb in the eighth inning in Seattle to break a 3-3 deadlock and make it 19 games in a row for Twins hitters to leave the yard. Starter Joe Ryan struck out 10 in 5.2 innings. Minnesota won two of three against the Mariners.

As we close June, here are the current odds for teams in the Wild Card mix. The Orioles and Yankees are in a dead heat in the AL East, but the Orioles have the current edge in winning percentage. I don’t know if you’re aware, but the Royals broke the Yankees. New York is 5-10 since leaving Kansas City back on June 13.

While the Royals hold the sixth-best record in the AL, the Astros are firmly in the mix. They took two of three from the Mets this weekend and are now over .500 for the first time this season.