And the Baseball Gods smiled

The Royals evened their series against Toronto with pitching, defense and timely hitting while catching a very important break.

It was destined to be one of those nights.

Starter Michael Wacha had runners on base all night but battled enough to limit the damage to two runs. Meanwhile, the Royals bats were once again silent, collecting three singles against Toronto starter Kevin Gausman but coming up short even though two of those hits led off the inning. The result was by no means settled as the game progressed to the bottom of the fifth, but there wasn’t much happening that would lead you to believe the Royals would punch their way back in, even though they were only down two runs.

Funny how quickly a ballgame can change.

Adam Frazier at designated hitter led off the bottom of the fifth blistering a double to right.

Frazier’s Royals career is off to a rough start. Entering play Tuesday, he was hitting .174/.333/.196 in 57 plate appearances. That’s good for a 70 wRC+. That double bumped his slugging percentage on the year to .224, so he has that going for him. What I really wanted to point out from the GIF above was that Frazier really put the perfect swing on the Gausman four-seamer that was down and in. He was so quick to the ball.

At 101.9 MPH off the bat with a 20-degree launch angle, Frazier wasn’t credited with a barrel. The exit velocity wasn’t the highest of Frazier’s season, nor was the distance it traveled the furthest. Still, it was a perfect confluence of swing speed and bat path to pull that ball into right for a leadoff double.

Frazier moved to third on a Dairon Blanco groundout. Then, things got weird.

First was the dreaded contact play. With Michael Massey up, he hit a chopper back to Gausman. Frazier broke on contact and was dead the moment he took two steps toward home. It was the second night in a row Frazier was cut down at home on the contact play. Here’s what Matt Quatraro had to say about the contact play following Monday’s loss:

“We’re going to have one guy on base there regardless after that play is over. So it’s not the end of the world that he was thrown out at the plate. We got a guy on third with two outs or we got a guy on first with two outs, we’re down three at the time so…”

Max Rieper at Royals Review wrote a very good article going inside Quatraro’s comments about the contact play. The bottom line, you’re trading a guy on third with two outs with a guy on first with two outs. The difference in the expected runs given the situation is worth taking the risk of putting pressure on the defense to make the play at the plate. Although on Tuesday, given the contact Massey made to chop the ball back to Gausman, there wasn’t any kind of pressure.

Instead what Fraizer did in this situation was stop. He froze in that no-man’s land halfway down the line. He put himself in a rundown which allowed Massey to move up to second base. Again, the tradeoff there isn’t so huge. It’s a runner on second with two outs instead of a runner on third with two outs. I get it. Although I would still insist that the runner on third has to make sure the ball is hit a little harder and is going to travel at least beyond the pitcher before breaking for home.

Maybe it’s sabermetric karma for Quatraro’s explanation of the contact play. Maybe it’s just the Royals’ turn for some good fortune. Whatever the reason, when Kyle Isbel strode to the plate, the Baseball Gods decided to smile upon the Royals.

Isbel hit a chopper to third. It was routine. It was simple. It was a play that would be converted into an out 999 times out of 1,000.

This was the one time it wasn’t.

Jays first baseman Vladimir Guerrero Jr. just didn’t catch the ball. A total whiff. Massey scores on the play from second and, instead of heading back out for defense still down two runs, the Royals are on the board.

What a turn of events. Outs don’t come much more sure than that. Hell, even the Bally Sports scorebug flipped to the next inning.

The Jays offered the Royals a gift. It was partially cashed in immediately when Massey touched home with the first run of the game. However in order to be the most gracious of hosts, the Royals needed to do more with this opportunity. They needed to make the Jays pay. They needed to capitalize.

It took just three pitches.

Maikel Garcia was up next. After watching a fastball go by for strike one, he went down and out of the zone for a sinker and blooped it into center for a single. Isbel motored to third.

Bobby Witt Jr. came to the plate. Witt broke out in the second half of last season, but in many ways, this is the key year in the career of the young shortstop. By signing that extension and committing himself long-term to Kansas City and the Royals, this is now his team. I understand that Salvador Perez is the captain and the lone tie to the Royals championship teams from a decade ago and he’s certainly the veteran who sets a particular tone with his toughness, but Witt brings a certain energy to the team that has centered itself around the younger players. There’s a buzz around this kid. A gravitational pull toward him. He is The Man.

And for Witt to truly be The Man, he needs to come up big in opportunities that can shift the ballgame in his team’s favor. Especially ones that are bequeathed to him by an opponent. As such, Witt stepped to the plate on Tuesday and did this to the first pitch he saw:

Witt dropped the barrel on a knee-high splitter and swung with malice. He didn’t get under the ball, but he hit it hard enough and put it right down the third base line that it rolled for a double, scoring Isbel and Garcia all the way from first.

From there, the Royals bullpen and defense took over. It’s as if this game came to us from some sort of laboratory where the baseball scientist concocted a complete, competitive ballgame for our Tuesday evening enjoyment.

Let’s chat about that defense for a moment, shall we? Because good defense is very pleasing to behold.

That’s MJ Melendez laying out to rob Kevin Kiermaier in the sixth inning. There’s a couple things to note about the gif above. First, the jump that Melendez got was really good. That’s an area of his defense that is much improved from last year. Statcast ranked 101 outfielders from last season and Melendez’s average feet saved by a combination of reaction, burst and route was -2.4 feet versus the average. That put him 96th out of those 101. That’s Kyle Schwarber and Nick Castellanos territory.

This year, Melendez’s average feet saved is still a negative versus the average, but it’s improved to -1.2 feet. He’s actually getting dinged on his routes, which was something of a strength for him last year. And that’s the other thing I’d like to draw your attention to from the GIF above. His route was damn near perfect. It had to be or Kiermaier is rolling into second and probably taking third for good measure.

Melendez isn’t going to win a Gold Glove, but that’s not necessary. He’s obviously worked on his defense and we’ve seen the results in the first month of the season.

The other defender worth mentioning is Vinnie Pasquantino at first.

Initially, you’re dazzled by Witt’s backhand, plant and seed he threw to Pasquantino at first. But just as important to get that out recorded was Vinnie’s footwork and the fact that he performed the splits while making the stretch. Seriously, the GIF above does not do the first baseman justice.

I don’t think that Pasquantino was ever a poor defensive first baseman, although The Fielding Bible said he was worth -4 Defensive Runs Saved last year, which is quite a bit given he missed a majority of the season. This year? This year Pasquantino has been worth +5 DRS. That’s a helluva turnaround in the metrics.

But you can actually see the improvement. He’s moving better around the base and getting in position to field ground balls. His feeds to pitchers covering first is a bit more fluid than in the past. He’s picking more throws out of the dirt, which is really critical when you have Witt and Maikel Garcia on the left side of the infield attempting to pull off insane defensive plays of their own night after night. And Pasquantino’s footwork around the bag is so smooth. It’s so obvious that he spent the time rehabbing from his shoulder injury and the rest of the offseason dedicated to his fitness and flexibility. Pasquantino always going to be a big guy, but he’s not lumbering around the bag anymore. He’s truly improved.

We’ll wrap today with a fun factoid courtesy of the Royals Media Department:

(The Royals) won despite scoring 3 runs or fewer for the fourth time this season (7-68 in 2023) but for the first time against a team other than the White Sox.

Obviously, you want to score a few more runs than three, if at all possible. Duh. But that 7-68 mark referenced above was the worst mark in the majors last year among all teams when scoring three runs or fewer. The median winning percentage with that criteria is around .200. The Royals were at .093.

They’re going to be better this year because they have the pitching and the defense to counter the nights the bats run cold. The 2024 Royals are a much more complete team than we’ve seen in these parts in the last several seasons. Nights like Tuesday only underscore that improvement.