The bloop that saved Pittsburgh
Junis shoves once again but the offense offers little as the Royals' five-game winning streak comes to an end.
National League baseball, man. The purity. The strategy. It looks a lot like American League baseball, but different.
At least that’s the way it goes for the Royals. After tearing through the Junior Circuit for the season’s first 21 games, the Royals head into Pittsburgh and promptly lose their first game in almost a week. The five-game winning streak…poof. The undefeated record in one-run games…gone. National League baseball does not care for your record or standing.
A well-placed grounder on a well-timed hit and run followed by a well-placed pop fly. That was the difference between possible victory and certain defeat. Despite another stellar starting pitching performance from Jakob Junis, this was just another one of those nights where nothing was firing from the offense. It usually takes more than a single run to lock down the win.
Junis continues to shine
It turns out the National League edition Jakob Junis is the mirror image of his AL counterpart. Another start, another moment for Junis to shove. Once again he pitched with purpose and precision.
Junis threw 84 pitches on the night and had a CSW% of 36 percent. He totaled 13 swings and misses in all, with eight coming on the slider/cutter combo. He worked the cutter to both sides of the plate and used it to set up his slider which continues to be a massive swing and miss pitch.
Would you like to see something nasty?
The ball was dancing for Junis, absolutely moving. The data from Baseball Savant for the game indicated that there was much more movement on the four-seamer than usual, along with more dive on the cutter/slider he was offering. His velocity was down, especially on the fastball, but the movement gave it a little more deception than usual.
Here is 88 mph right where Perez was asking for it:
At one point, Junis retired 14 Pirates in a row. He generally worked ahead in the count and was able to mix his pitches to keep those batters off balance. Again, exactly as advertised coming out of Arizona in the spring. It was his most complete and assured start of the season.
Junis has now pitched 23.1 innings on the season. He’s striking out 28.7 percent of all batters faced which is the best rate of his career by far. The walk rate of 7.4 percent is maybe a touch higher than you would like, but it’s a livable rate given that he’s become so difficult to effectively barrel. According to Fangraphs, he’s sporting an ERA- of 84 at the moment, making him 16 percent better than the league average pitcher.
Roll on.
The search for consistent offense continues
Entering play on Tuesday, I would have felt comfortable describing the Royals’ offense as averageish. They were scoring 4.48 runs per game, slightly above the league average of 4.3 R/G. Their collective .303 OBP was about seven points below average, but their .393 slugging percentage was about three points above average. Baseball-Reference had their OPS+ at 94. Fangraphs had their wRC+ at 96.
Yeah. Averagish.
The problem is, it’s still early days in the 2021 season. We think we know a few things about the Royals’ offense, but there’s still quite a bit to uncover. We’ve seen the lineup firing on all cylinders in the first couple of games of the year. We’ve seen the late clutch hits. And we’ve also witnessed them score two runs or fewer in six games. Things are still sorting themselves out.
There are going to be nights like Tuesday in Pittsburgh. The Royals collected four hits—two of them off the bat of Carlos Santana didn’t even leave the infield—and two walks. They could only muster a single run.
It wasn’t as if the Royals didn’t make good contact. At times, they made great contact. In eight at bats, a Kansas City batter put the ball in play with an exit velocity greater than 100 mph. Only one of those—a Salvador Perez single in the first—went for a base hit. Check these exit velocities off Pirates starter Tyler Anderson:
One of the keys regarding those batted balls was the fact they were truly scattered throughout Anderson’s start. The only inning where the Royals had two hard-hit batted balls was in that first. They had one in the second, one in the third, one in the fifth and one in the sixth. Against the Pirates bullpen, they added one more in the seventh (Nicky Lopez at 100.5 off Duane Underwood Jr. that was a lineout) and a final one in the eighth (Salvador Perez at 102.9 mph off Sam Howard for another lineout).
Hitting the ball hard is no guarantee of base hits or runs. Especially if the majority of the baserunners come with two outs. On four different occasions, the Royals opened an inning by making two outs, then put a runner on. Needless to say, none of those runners came around to score. The lone inning where they were able to get their leadoff man on base—the third inning when Lopez walked—they scored! Sometimes, baseball can be boiled down to a simple truth.
The offense just isn’t firing at the moment. And now, with the volatility in the rankings with the small sample that comes with April baseball, the Royals offense is no longer looking averagish.
Unlucky seventh
The Pirates likewise put eight balls into play with an exit velocity greater than 100 mph. The irony was the decisive run in the seventh inning had more to do with the placement of those batted balls than how hard they were hit.
Jacob Stallings led off the inning with a single. With one out and the count 1-1, the Pirates put on a hit and run. Junis got the ground ball he was looking for, but it was hit to the right of Lopez, who was positioned tightly up the middle. It looked like he may have broken to the bag to cover. It also looked like Merrifield was already at the bag. In his postgame comments, Matheny said Lopez “lost his footing” but to me, it looked more like Lopez tried to quickly change his momentum. He dove, but the ball tipped off his glove and sauntered into the outfield. The xBA of that hit was .120. Stallings was able to continue to third.
With Wilmer Difo pinch-hitting the Royals called on Scott Barlow. Barlow has been summoned as a fireman a couple of times this year and has stranded one out of two inherited runners. Like Junis prior, he got what he wanted, weak contact in the form of a shallow fly ball. There was no way Stallings could tag if the ball was caught, except it was perfectly placed, landing between a charging Hunter Dozier from left and Michael A. Taylor from center. Stallings scored and the Pirates had their final margin of victory.
The Royals turned the double play one batter later to get out of the inning.
Sometimes, it’s just not your night.
Central issues
Detroit 5, Chicago 2
Clinging to 2-1 lead in the seventh inning, Tony LaRussa sent Lucas Giolito back to the mound with the righty nearing 100 pitches. It didn’t turn out well. A Wilson Ramos double and Niko Goodrum homer provided the edge in the seventh. Jonathan Schoop added a dinger in the eighth. The White Sox went 0-11 with runners in scoring position.
The Tigers were charged with five errors and won.
Meanwhile…
Minnesota 4, Cleveland 7
Kenta Maeda started and pitched into the sixth but gave up three home runs. Alex Colomé was summoned to keep the deficit at one in the eighth inning and gave up two. The Twins are imploding, friends. The Royals visit next.
Meanwhile…
The Twins have dropped into the cellar of the division.
Up Next
The Royals will try for their first victory at PNC Park since June 28, 2009. That’s a lifetime of baseball ago. Just for fun, here’s are the starting lineups from that day.
I visit the Jose Guillen page because I’m a masochist. I can’t believe I’ve neglected Willie Bloomquist. Click!
Mike Minor will try to keep the Royals’ string of good starting pitching outings going. First pitch is scheduled for 5:35.