The Texas three-game massacre
Instead of chainsaws, this gruesome weekend featured strikeouts aplenty, errors and some terrifying pitching performances. Kind of makes you miss the chainsaws, doesn't it?
I really hope you didn’t plan your weekend around watching Royals baseball. Weekends are made for relaxing, maybe doing some chores around the house, or going out with family and friends. A weekend watching Royals baseball these days is a miserable experience.
That’s what it was in the Royals’ first visit to that air-conditioned monolith in the heart of Texas: a miserable experience. The Royals got blasted by the Rangers, losing all three games. The combined score was 21-5. And it wasn’t even that close.
Texas cashed in on two big innings against Mike Minor on Friday, went down without a fight against Rangers starter Kyle Gibson on Saturday and capitulated early on Sunday. The Royals led for precisely an inning and a half all weekend.
Oh, in keeping with our typical runner in scoring position watch, I should point out the Royals’ offense went 3-18 with RISP over the weekend, including the typically abysmal 1-9 on Sunday.
If that intro doesn’t get you to subscribe to this newsletter, nothing will. So uplifting. Enjoy Arby’s.
To their credit, at least the Royals keep things interesting. Which means they give us plenty to discuss.
Duffy going hybrid
Two days after his return to the rotation, sans rehab starts in the minors, there was Danny Duffy getting loose in the Royals’ bullpen in the seventh inning of the 9-4 loss to Texas. Duffy entered the game and threw a scoreless inning with 15 pitches.
After the game, Mike Matheny told reporters that Duffy entering the game was part of the plan.
“We knew we were going to pitch him today (Friday). I was hoping it was going to be in leverage, to be honest. What that means is probably less of a ramp-up in traditional sense of probably what you would look for. More of what we saw before, keeping him to a modest pitch count. Trying to figure out how to keep him on the mound as often as possible. Keep him healthy. That’s really what it comes down to.”
This apparently wasn’t a one-off to build strength coming off the injury. The Royals have decided to use Duffy in what Matheny is calling a “hybrid” role.
“We’ve had some talks with Danny, with the medical team, sports science, obviously the front office as well, (we’ll) continue to give him starts but limit how long that’s going to go. That’s where he’s run into trouble, when we push him. So if we can keep those shorter and then use him in between (starts) the situation is kind of a hybrid. We’re still kind of pushing those pitch counts and limits but you’re spreading them out a little bit instead of bundling them in one particular outing.
So if we rewind ourselves to Duffy meeting with the media before his last start, he said he felt like he could go around 55-60 pitches. However, he was pulled after just two innings and 42 pitches. Knowing what we know now since he threw an additional 15 pitches on Friday, that gets him to his stated target pitch count. As Matheny said, they’re spreading out the pitches instead of bundling them.
It’s an interesting method for alleviating workload and managing the pitch count. Will it work? Perhaps. But I do know that if there was a starter on the staff who could bounce between starting and relief, it would be Duffy. Don’t forget at times, the lefty has expressed a desire to pitch out of the bullpen.
In his start on Wednesday, Duffy went with his four-seamer 45 percent of the time, followed by his sinker at 21 percent. Both pitches averaged around 94.8 mph.
In relief on Friday, Duffy shelved the sinker but stuck with the four-seamer for 47 percent of his pitches. He didn’t let the fastball eat like he would have had he been sent to the bullpen full-time. It clocked 94.8 mph on average, the same as we saw in his start on Wednesday.
The four-seam had some life, though.
For his secondary pitches, he relied on the changeup and the slider in both the start and the relief appearance. The change has been an extremely effective pitch for him this year against right-handed batters.
Here is how he located in his start on Wednesday:
He did a fantastic job keeping the changeup down so it’s not surprising that he got four whiffs out of five swings on the pitch. It’s a nice contrast with the four-seamer up.
Here’s where Duffy located during his relief outing:
The downside to the hybrid that Matheny talked about is that Duffy was pitching really well as a starter prior to his injury, and the Royals need innings. But maybe by the time Duffy is adequately stretched out, he can give the Royals four innings in a start, followed by a couple in relief in between. That seems optimistic (and probably too aggressive given that they are trying to manage innings and keep Duffy healthy). But we’ll have to wait and see.
When the Royals attempt something like this, it often feels half-baked and with a limited amount of enthusiasm and patience from the club. So if you don’t believe the Royals when they say “this is how it’s going to play out” then I completely understand. By the All-Star break, they may have completely abandoned this idea.
Again, if there’s anyone on the staff to try a hybrid model with, it would be Duffy. He’s the ultimate team player and has never thrown more than 180 innings in a season. Since 2017, he’s battled myriad injuries, including but not limited to, his shoulder, his elbow and an oblique. According to injury data gathered at Baseball Prospectus, Duffy has spent 169 days on the IL since 2017 and that doesn’t include the 26 days he missed at the end of 2018 when the Royals shut him down with shoulder tendonitis.
So in an effort to maximize innings and results, it’s a hybrid for Duffy. For now.
No miss for Lopez
In Saturday’s 8-0 defeat, Royals batters struck out 12 times. That’s a lot, but not exactly uncommon. They’ve struck out 12 or more times in 10 of the 76 games they’ve played so far in 2021.
The only batter who did not strike out in Saturday’s loss was their number nine hitter, Nicky Lopez.
Lopez is quietly putting together a solid year at the bottom of the Royals’ lineup, mostly filling in for the oft-injured Adalberto Mondesi at shortstop. Among players with 200 or more plate appearances so far in 2021, Lopez’s 13.1 strikeout rate is 12th best in the league, just ahead of teammate Whit Merrifield.
This isn’t the same Lopez we saw in his first two seasons in the majors. It’s not even the Lopez we saw in March in Surprise. This is exactly who Lopez is supposed to be at the plate. A dependable bat who will take a walk and won’t get himself out with the strikeout.
Just look at his evolution as a hitter.
The walk rate has increased every season he’s played in the big leagues. The strikeout rate, which was incredibly high for him last year has stabilized to a number you can live with. His OBP and the rest of his offensive value has therefore increased. He’s finally at a point where he’s providing overall value to the lineup. The bat isn’t holding him back like it did last year. Heck, even his baserunning has improved. After going 1-6 in stolen base attempts in 2019 and 2020 combined, he’s a perfect 7-7 so far this year.
The thing that has consistently amazed with Lopez this year is his lack of swing and miss on pitches in the zone. Over the last month of games he’s played, Lopez has only swung and missed on six pitches located in the strike zone.
Two of the swings and misses came against John King, a tough lefty, on Friday night. The chart above also has two swings and misses against Nathan Eovaldi, who he will face again on Thursday. Otherwise, Lopez is making a lot of contact. His overall contact rate this year stands at 88.1 percent, well above the 75.5 percent league average.
In a season that has brought a lot of frustration, as we experienced on Saturday, Lopez has been the perfect number nine hitter for this ballclub. And I just brought a little bit of positivity into this edition of your daily Royals newsletter.
Another very Brady start
I know I’ve used that subhead before, but…it still fits.
Brady Singer immediately got himself into trouble on Sunday.
Another throwing error from Singer…this one after an 0-2 count on a good slider out of the zone that Isiah Kiner-Falefa was lucky to get the bat on and put in play. A tough play, but Singer had time to set his feet and throw. He just lets the game speed up when he’s fielding.
Then followed a triple allowed to Adolis García on an 0-2 fastball that caught way too much of the zone. And after that a fat slider to Joey Gallo. You really don’t want to throw a fat slider to Joey Gallo.
Boom. Four batters into the game, the Rangers had three runs. And the way the Royals’ offense can go into its shell, that was pretty much the ballgame.
Singer danced around another error in the second, but was generally solid for the remainder of the afternoon. Again, it was that singular lack of focus in an inning that doomed his afternoon.
The sinker was lively, showing some nice arm-side fade.
He recorded five strikeouts on the afternoon, four of them on his sinker. Again however, he refused to go beyond the sinker/slider combo. It didn’t seem to bite him in this outing, but he did require 90 pitches to navigate five innings.
Overall, it wasn’t a bad start necessarily, but it wasn’t a good one, either. And these days for the Royals to win, you need to have a good start. But besides that, in every start that Singer makes, you just want to see some sort of progress. Some sort of indication that he’s evolving and improving as a major league starter. We haven’t seen that at all this year. Every start seems to be a carbon copy of every other start. If this is who he’s going to be in the major leagues, maybe he’s next in line to go to the Duffy hybrid model of pitching.
Central issues
Mariners 3, White Sox 2 — completion of suspended game
Mariners 5, White Sox 7 — 7 innings
In the suspended game from Saturday, Héctor Santiago became the first pitcher ejected since MLB began instituting checks for illegal substances. A fun sideshow that will undoubtedly overshadow the efforts of Taylor Trammell who homered off Liam Hendricks with two outs in the ninth to break a 2-2 deadlock. It was Trammell’s second dinger of the game.
In the regularly scheduled game, there were no ejections, only baseball. Yermín Mercedes drove in three and Zack Collins was responsible for the other four runs.
Astros 1, Tigers 2 — 10 innings
A day after snapping Houston’s 11 game winning streak, the Tigers walked off the Astros on a…squeeze play. Akil Baddoo slid across with the winning run.
Twins 8, Cleveland 2
It was the return of the Bomba Squad as Andrelton Simmons, Josh Donaldson and Nelson Cruz all went deep for Minnesota, accounting for six of their eight runs.
The Twins took two of three from Cleveland and have now won seven of their last nine games.
Quite a logjam in the basement, eh? The Royals, who had been in a fairly comfortable third place since falling out of first in early May will need to get their act together to stay there.
Up next
The Royals are currently 1-5 on this three-city road trip that now travels to Boston for a four-game set. Three days removed from his relief outing, Duffy gets the start in game one. Here is how the probables line up for the series:
Monday — Danny Duffy vs Garrett Richards
Tuesday — Brad Keller vs Nick Pivetta
Wednesday — Mike Minor vs Martin Pérez
Thursday — TBD vs Nathan Eovaldi
If the rotation holds, Saturday would be a bullpen game. Perhaps with Kyle Zimmer again? Also, given the hybrid use for Duffy, look for him to back Minor up on Wednesday.
The Royals took two of three from Boston in their meeting a week and a half ago at The K. It’s one of two series they’ve won in the month of June.
#Fountains