Royals sweep away the Pirates

The offense continues to roll along and the bullpen turned in another stellar performance to secure the victory and a two-game sweep. Baseball is fun again!

It started slowly, and you may have doubted it would ever happen, but sometimes these things just take some time. By the end, it was just a complete offensive performance from the Royals on Tuesday night. Eight of the nine batters in the lineup collected at least one base hit. The lone batter without a hit—Nicky Lopez—reached base twice via a walk. And each of the first four batters in the lineup got on base at least twice.

The Royals tallied double-digit runs for the fourth time this season, and have scored five runs or more in five consecutive games. The offense is rolling.

And most importantly, after losing 11 in a row, the Royals have now won 11 of their last 17. The record stands at 27-26. It’s the first time since May 7 the team is back above .500.

Ambush!

If you think back to the 2015 championship season, much was made of Alcides Escobar and his frequent swinging at the first pitch. He was “ambushing” to use the proper baseball term, by figuring the opposing pitcher would want to jump ahead of the leadoff man by delivering a first-pitch fastball down the chute. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it worked in important situations in consecutive games. And sometimes it led to Mets pitchers doing a little headhunting.

Anyway, the term ambush felt a little loose to me, when applied to Escobar. He didn’t really have a plan at the plate, he just wanted to swing early and often. It wasn’t an ambush. It was his modus operandi.

What Andrew Benintendi did in the fifth inning on Tuesday was a true ambush. With a run already in, no outs and a free pass issued to Nicky Lopez at the number nine spot and then to Carlos Santana to load the bases, the Pirates starting pitcher Wil Crowe was on the ropes. On the other side, Benintendi is a hitter who always goes up to the plate with a plan. With a pitcher just trying to survive, the plan in this at bat was to hunt fastball down the middle. A room service, get ahead in the count, kind of pitch.

Benintendi crushed it.

That, my friends, is an ambush.

There were plenty of offensive stars on Tuesday. Whit Merrifield collected three hits. Michael A. Taylor sparked the fifth inning rally with a leadoff triple. Carlos Santana saw 27 pitches in five plate appearances!

But the focus was on Salvador Perez and his two home runs.

The first was just an absolute laser. Remember my comment on Adalberto Mondesi’s home run in Tuesday’s newsletter where it just seemed like it had a little extra hang time? Savant measured that homer as staying in the air for 6.4 seconds. Perez’s first one on Tuesday was in the air for only 3.6 seconds. I’m not sure a batted ball can leave the yard any faster.

On a rope.

Perez is warming up. That was his fifth consecutive game where he’s driven in a run; that neatly coincides with this Royals’ current offensive explosion.

Cutter like a knife

We’ve kind of stopped talking about the Jakob Junis cutter since he’s been shifted to a relief role. He just hasn’t been used all that much and the pitch tracking systems employed by MLB and displayed at sites like Baseball Savant seem to have an extremely difficult time classifying the pitch. It moves like a slider, but it generally arrives with a little more pace.

Besides, the results really haven’t been there for Junis since his move back to the bullpen. In seven appearances (one start as the opener) he’s thrown 9.1 innings with a 9.64 ERA. Opponents are hitting .366/.413/.756 against him in that stretch. That’s not great.

In relief, Junis isn’t throwing his pitches any harder than normal. For some pitchers, the shift to the bullpen comes with a bump in velocity as in a shorter outing they can just go ahead and air it out. It doesn’t look like Junis has done that. We did see a bit of a velocity bump when he went to the bullpen in 2020.

On Tuesday, Junis was handed the eighth inning. It was a good situation to bring him in. With a four-run lead, it wasn’t a high leverage situation, but with the Royals needing six outs total to close out the victory, it wasn’t the most comfortable of margins either. He found himself in a spot of trouble when he allowed back-to-back singles to open the frame. Both came on pitches that were located well. Both were softly hit. Just one of those “tip your cap” moments when hitters figure out a way to beat good pitching.

With runners on first and second and no out, Junis was able to battle back and close out the inning. Sandwiched between a couple of pop outs was a strikeout to the leadoff batter Frazier. It came on a pitch classified as a fastball, but damn if this didn’t have a little cut to it at 92.2 mph.

It was the kind of outing that’s been too rare for Junis out of the bullpen. He needs to come in and cut it loose in those short stints and challenge the hitters. The Royals desperately need another relief weapon. I still cling to the hope that it could be Junis.

Singer’s struggles

While there were plenty of positives on Tuesday, we have to discuss what didn’t go as well. Brady Singer scuffled in his start, working around baserunners all evening. Even though he pitched into the sixth and walked just one batter, it never really looked like he found his groove. By the time he exited, his start had a Game Score of 40, making it one of his least productive starts of 2021.

The broadcast talked about how hitters have gone on the attack against Singer’s slider. It’s true. Last year, they were swinging at the pitch 46.6 percent of the time. This year, it’s increased to 57.9 percent.

Entering Tuesday night there had been almost an equal number of batted ball events against Singer’s sinker and his slider. There was one difference in the results.

More hits are going for extra bases against the slider. Big extra-base hits. As in every home run he’s allowed in 2021 has come on the pitch. He’s also allowed a double and triple on the slider.

On Tuesday, the Pirates put seven sliders in play against Singer. All stayed in the yard, but a couple did some damage.

• Adam Frazier hit a double to open the game.

• Gregory Polanco fly out to end the first.

• Kevin Newman fielder’s choice ground ball to end the second.

• Polanco sac fly to center in the third.

• Michael Perez double to drive in a run in the fourth.

• Frazier fly out to center in the fourth.

• Ben Gamel fly out to left to end the fifth.

The sliders in play accounted for two of the four runs Singer allowed. He only had an 18 percent CSW% (called strikes plus whiffs) on the pitch, a rate far too low for it to be successful. For his second pitch in a limited arsenal, it’s far too easy for opposing hitters to hunt.

Here’s how that above table now stands after Tuesday night.

Now, let’s have a discussion about Singer and that famous “bulldog mentality” that those around the Royals love to talk about. Or as Ned Yost would say, those times when Singer has the ass. We’ve seen plenty of examples of this in his time in Kansas City. Sometimes it works for him. Oftentimes, it gets him deeper in the soup. On Tuesday, it was immediately obvious when Singer got derailed in the third that it wasn’t helping.

It began with a comebacker that nailed his upper leg. He grabbed the ball quickly enough, but didn’t set his feet and uncorked a throw that short-hopped Santana at first.

He followed that up with an intense sequence of change-ups against Adam Frazier before losing him on a walk. Then, with Ka’ai Tom up next and looking to bunt, Singer went too far up and in, hitting the batter and loading the bases. A single and a pair of deep sacrifice flies plated three runs and gave Pittsburgh the lead. The sac flies weren’t exactly tagged. It’s not like they were in danger of leaving the yard or dropping for a hit. But the damage was really done on the throwing error, the walk and the HBP. Singer put himself in a spot that was going to be impossible to escape unscathed.

It was a sequence we’ve seen all too frequently from Singer where a couple of well-placed batted balls or a mistake of his own leads to an unraveling. Why does this happen so often? Why do little things tend to get out of control so quickly? It’s obvious the Royals realize this is an issue. They try to get him focused with a quick visit to the mound or a check in between innings, but oftentimes it comes too late, when the damage is already done.

Baseball is such a mental game, that I’m not ever comfortable writing about this stuff. But in Singer’s case it just feels so obvious when there are going to be moments of struggle…when Singer has the ass. Some players can elevate their play in that situation. Others have a difficult time channeling that energy into something positive. I’m not sure it works for Singer.

And it’s just impossible to always state with certainty that we know exactly what is going on in a player’s mind. Take the sixth inning for example. It felt very similar to the three-run third. After a leadoff single, Singer should have started a double play on another comebacker. Instead, he rushed to complete the play and airmailed the throw to second.

This time he steadied himself and struck out the next two batters. The first came on an exquisite sinker on the inside corner.

The second was on a fantastic sequence that ended with a swing and a miss on a sinker up out of the zone that followed a slider down and away.

Allowed to face Frazier for the fourth time, Singer’s final pitch on the night was an elevated sinker that was in the middle of the zone. Not a poor pitch and it resulted in soft contact. Benintendi and Kelvin Gutierrez converged and I thought the left fielder should have taken charge.

The ball was hit at 69.8 mph and carried an xBA of .140. Those flares are normally caught. Baseball remains a funny game…Sometimes you can do everything right to escape a jam and still give up a run.

Injury updates

Foremost on everyone’s mind Tuesday afternoon was the status of Adalberto Mondesi. He wasn’t in the starting lineup posted mid-afternoon and manager Mike Matheny gave an update on how his shortstop felt shortly after.

The good news, according to Matheny, is that Mondesi after exiting Monday’s game in the eighth inning, the shortstop felt better Tuesday morning. They expected the hamstring to tighten overnight and it sounds like that didn’t happen. The Royals are encouraged by this and the plan was to keep him out on Tuesday and reevaluate him on the off day Wednesday.

There was a little confusion as to exactly when the injury happened. It was kind of difficult to sort out following along on Twitter. So let’s just get the scoop from the manager himself:

“It’s something that he felt as he was coming in to field that ball. As he made the break in which was an incredible play…I think very few shortstops in the league make that play. Just the closing speed. He ran down the ball, he beat the ball. I think it was midway through, around stride three, he felt it grab just a little bit but not enough to keep from continuing to make the play. Then as he was coming off the field jogging, he felt it and wisely told the training staff.”

Again, it’s impossible to tell from the video exactly when it happened. Try to locate “stride three” and see if you can find anything.

Remember, this is the Royals we’re dealing with. They give away nothing when it comes to injuries. An ailment that doesn’t seem severe today, turns into a handful of missed games later. The true update on Mondesi is if the Royals have any info, they’re not sharing. Who knows if he’ll be back in the lineup on Thursday? Your guess is as good as mine. What we do know is that the Royals are a more complete team with him on the field.

Meanwhile, Danny Duffy is throwing with some “intensity” as he continues to work through a grade 1 flexor strain in his forearm. There is not yet a timetable for his return, but Matheny did say he would not be ready next week when the team will need to go back to the usual five-man rotation.

Jorge Soler has been dealing with a sore groin but is “getting closer to being an option for us” according to Matheny. He hasn’t played since leaving after one at bat last Saturday against the Twins.

Central issues

• White Sox 5, Cleveland 6

The White Sox made it interesting, rallying for two runs in the top of the ninth against closer James Karinchak. He wriggled out of a bases-loaded jam to secure the win for Cleveland. Shane Bieber went seven and allowed just two earned runs and struck out seven.

Cleveland did all their damage against Dylan Cease in the first four innings. Austin Hedges chased him with a two-run home run in the bottom of the fourth.

• Twins 4, Orioles 7

After reeling off four straight wins over the Orioles in the last week-plus, the Twins hit a speed bump. The O’s touched starter Michael Pineda for five runs in three innings on seven hits. Mitch Garver left the game with a…testicle contusion.

• Tigers 10, Brewers 7

Slugfest at the brewery as the Tigers launched four home runs and the Brewers countered with five of their own. Most of them came in tandem as Jonathan Schoop and Eric Haase each hit a pair for Detroit and Kolten Wong and Tyrone Taylor both knocked a couple out of the yard for Milwaukee. The difference was a bases-loaded double from Miguel Cabrera.

Up next

The Royals are off on Wednesday before opening a four-game set against the Twins. It’s the beginning of a stretch where the Royals will play 14 consecutive days.

The rotation isn’t official let beyond Kris Bubic starting in the series opener. The Twins haven’t announced any of their starters for the series.