Derailed in the second

Brady Singer gives up a big inning as the Royals fail to overtake the Twins in the game and in the standings. Plus, Bobby Witt Jr. remains ridiculous.

Since the All-Star Break, the Royals haven’t missed a beat. Entering play Monday, they had collected 13 wins in 21 games, a .619 winning percentage. That’s tied with the Oakland A’s for the best record in the AL since the break. (The A’s? Not everything can make sense.)

Their opponents on Monday, the Minnesota Twins, have been playing…let’s just say mediocre baseball since the break. Their post-All-Star Game record stood at 11-10 ahead of the series opener against the Royals. That’s allowed Kansas City to stomp to within a half-game of Minnesota in the AL Central standings. Both teams have narrowed the gap to slumping divisional leaders Cleveland. Forget the Wild Card for a moment. The race is very much on in the division.

With an opportunity to leap the Twins in the standings, Brady Singer stumbled in the second inning and the bats couldn’t recover enough to ever mount a serious challenge. The Twins are serving as the Royals’ scourge in the division and on Monday, thumped them by a scoreline of 8-3. The Royals have just two victories in eight games against these Twins in 2024. Should both teams finish with an equal record, they are in danger of losing the head-to-head tiebreaker. They remain in third in the Central.

There have been better nights.

When Brady Singer struggled in the past—and by past I’m thinking about every season except for the current one—it seemed there would be one or two bleeders that would eventually turn into a tidal wave of runs. He would be going along and the wheels would suddenly fly off. At least that was my perception while watching him pitch. I would usually brace for the speedbump type of inning.

To Singer’s credit, in 2024, those types of innings have become infrequent, if they happen at all. He’s truly turned things around from what we saw in 2023 and 2021 specifically and has become a pitcher who keeps his composure on the mound and pitches in what seems to be a thoughtful manner. He’s been a pleasant surprise as a starter.

Then the second inning happened in Minnesota on Monday. Flashback city.

Singer was absolutely cruising out of the gate. He punched out four of the first six Twins batters he faced. The sweeper was sweeping, the slider was diving and his sinker had plenty of ride. He racked up five swings and misses over those first six batters and was hitting his spots.

He had two outs in the bottom of the second and looked to finish off Carlos Santana to complete the inning.

Historically, Singer has struggled early in innings. These are his career splits divided by outs in an inning:

When the opposition gets to Singer for a rally, it’s often when the inning is getting underway. Singer has performed much better when closing out a frame than at the start. It’s really kind of extreme. It’s a trend that has continued in his starts this year. At least prior to Monday.

The yearly splits have the sOPS+ number, which is the OPS+ relative to the league. So what you’re seeing above is that Singer is about 25 percent better than the league average when pitching with two outs in an inning. Get to him early in the frame if you can, because he’s going to shut you down late.

Suddenly, Singer lost his touch when facing Carlos Santana. He delivered five pitches total—two sinkers and three sliders—and you could argue that all five missed the zone. After the game Singer admitted he was looking to get Santana to go after the low pitches. At the same time he acknowledged that Santana doesn’t generally expand his zone. Still, it’s a two out walk. Singer owns the game with two outs, right? Shake it off and attack the next batter. Ryan Jeffers, up next, fouled off three pitches in a row before he flicked an outside slider that was running away from him into center field.

Fine. Two on. Two out. No damage at that point. Make a pitch and shut it down.

Suddenly, Singer just started catching too much of the plate. A single to Austin Martin plated the Twins’ first run of the game. A slider down and in to Willi Castro was yanked out of the yard for three more. Trevor Larnach was on a changeup and pulled it into right field. Royce Lewis battled for seven pitches before hammering the eighth, a belt-high sinker, into the stands in left.

All with two outs.

Here are the pitches and location that led to the two out carnage.

Singer is filling up the zone here and he’s doing it mostly early in the count. The sliders aren’t down enough, the sinkers are either belt-high or in the middle and the change is just sitting there begging to be put into play. All Singer needed was one stinking out. One out! The Twins scored six before he found a way to get it.

Overall, Singer recorded 10 swings and misses on the evening. He struck out nine batters in his fifteen outs he recorded. He finished with a 25 percent CSW% (called strikes plus whiff), which isn’t that great, but it’s something Singer can work with. But that second inning, man. It was like 2021 (or 2023) all over again.

Singer threw 95 pitches overall, with nine sweepers according to Statcast, which is about the percentage I’ve been guessing he’s thrown in most of his starts this year, before they started registering. It’s an incredibly tempting pitch as Twins hitters offered at eight of those nine. They missed completely on three and fouled off four. It’s a weapon for sure.

See? Filthy.

That sweeper to Max Kepler was always going to be down. Kepler knew it. And it sure looks like it’s going maybe a touch the inner half of the zone. It’s a beautiful pitch because Kepler has to swing at it because it certainly looks like it’s going to be close to the zone and with two strikes he has to protect. Then the pitch dips and dives and sweeps to a location where nobody can put wood on it. That’s when Kepler knows he’s toast.

The pitch that let him down on Monday was his four-seamer. When Singer is at his best, that four-seam is up. Against the Twins, he was spraying it all over the place.

The four-seam fastball isn’t an out pitch for Singer, but it’s something to get the hitter’s attention when it’s coming in up in the zone. It sets up his sinker which should be delivered a little lower in the zone, has some good horizontal movement and will run away on a left-handed hitter. That pitch wasn’t consistently up enough to be more than just fodder for Twins hitters. That, in turn, led the Twins to sit on that sinker. Six of them were put in play on Monday, tagged at an average exit velocity of 98 MPH.

It was not Brady Singer’s night.

Still, we saw that Singer can be dangerous, even with three pitches working. That sweeper adds so much. It was just a terrible lapse in concentration that derailed his second inning and his evening.

Who in baseball today would you classify as a true power hitter? Standby. We’ll discuss that for obvious reasons in a moment. (You probably already know where I’m going with this.)

Meanwhile, this wouldn’t be a proper Royals newsletter if we didn’t take the time to marvel at Bobby Witt Jr. on a daily basis. Monday’s moment came in the first inning when he launched a laser into the stands in left field.

That was a rope. I mean, it barely got off the ground. We all love the towering, majestic home runs, but damn if it isn’t wild how this kid can clobber a baseball. It was the third time this year that Witt has hit a home run with a launch angle of 18 degrees.

I think home runs hit like the one Witt crushed on Monday night are indicative of real, raw power. These are not accidental dingers. They don’t get caught in the jet stream or prevailing winds and they don’t touch the sky and drift over the wall. These baseball’s are punished, hit with intent.

There have been 29 home runs hit in 2024 that left the yard with a launch angle of 18 degrees or lower. Four players have hit multiple such home runs.

Pete Alonso - 3
Giancarlo Stanton - 3
Bobby Witt Jr. - 3
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. - 2

Back to the question above, who in 2024 do we think of as a true power hitter? You’d definitely include Alonso and Stanton on your list. Maybe Guerrero. Along with others like Aaron Judge, obviously. However the point is, to hit a home run on a line like the players above can, you have to have some real strength. Three of these guys fit the mold of the 21st century hulking power hitter.

Then there’s Bobby Witt Jr.

Would you mention him as a classic “power hitter?” I have to be honest, I don’t think I would’ve and that’s after watching him play night after night. And it’s after thinking about him and whatever he’s done that night long after the conclusion of the game. Stanton, Alonso and Guerrero have all led their league in home runs at some point. That’s generally how we think of a power hitter. A true power hitter.

Maybe we need to recalibrate how we think of Witt. Yes, he’s fast as hell. Yes, he’s a great defender. Yes, he’s a good hitter. And damnit, he’s establishing himself as a true, classic power hitter.

The kid is everything.

Central Issues

Cubs 8, Guardians 9

Jhonkensy Noel hammered two home runs, driving in four, as the Guardians surged out to a five-run lead. The Cleveland bullpen gave it all away, though, as Tim Herrin, Scott Barlow and Peter Strzelecki combined to allow three hits, two walks and five runs to score. The Guardians pushed ahead in the eighth on a José Ramírez leadoff double and back-to-back singles from Will Brennan and Josh Naylor.

Yankees 2, White Sox 12

I’ve been in the hinterlands of late, so I missed the opportunity to comment on the White Sox’s dismissal of manager Pedro Grifol. There was certainly no way any manager would succeed given the disaster that’s unfolding on the South Side. Although it certainly sounds like Grifol was overmatched in his tenure. A rookie manager trying to make his mark with a team of dead-enders usually doesn’t end well.

That said, the Yankees should be embarrassed by the above scoreline.

The Royals missed a chance, but not an opportunity. If they can pull it together and get the bats going behind Seth Lugo on Tuesday and Cole Ragans on Wednesday, they can still jump ahead of the Twins in the Central standings before they exit Minnesota. Wouldn’t that be something?