The Royals issue a declaration of intent

How do the Royals respond to an uninspiring weekend where they lost two of three to the Phillies? By punching the division-leading Guardians square in the mouth. They are coming for the Central.

Where to begin? The Royals played a little over five hours of baseball on Monday, and they, for the most part, absolutely ruled. They fell behind by two runs early in the first game, then stormed back and captured it by the score of 4-3. In the nightcap, they spotted Cleveland three runs in the first before scoring in each of the next five innings to destroy the Guardians 9-4.

To win two games in a day, it’s going to take some big performances. The Royals got a massive day from The Captain, Salvador Perez, who followed up a 3-3 performance in the first game with a pair of doubles with a 2-4 statement in the second, both hits leaving the yard. The second of which was a grand slam. Overall, Perez went 5-7 with two doubles and two home runs. He scored three times and drove in six. He also walked twice!

Then there was the bullpen. Pressed into action in the fifth inning of both games, the relief corps came through big time, throwing a combined 9.1 innings, allowing six hits and just one run.

Perez delivered the game two heroics, but it was the young guys, specifically MJ Melendez and Bobby Witt Jr. who delivered the victory in game one.

By the time the 18th inning of the day was played, the most impactful day of the 2024 season had come to a close. The Royals shaved two games off the Cleveland lead in the division while putting two games of distance between themselves and the Boston Red Sox in the Wild Card race. Boston dropped both the conclusion of a suspended game and the regularly scheduled contest. Oh, and the Minnesota Twins lost as well.

What a day.

Sometimes a player will impact the game with a big hit. Sometimes a player will make a difference with his glove.

And on Monday afternoon, Melendez did both.

First, the bat. Melendez roped a liner just far enough that it carried over the wall in right field.

Statcast says the ball traveled 343 feet. Inches above the line making it the difference between a three-run home run and a one (or two?) run double. Amazing.

An inning and a half later, the glove.

According to Rogers, Melendez ran about 90 feet to make that grab in around five seconds. A quick nit to pick, if I may: We have exit velocity and distance and launch angle all a simple click away while we’re watching the game. Give me some of these defensive numbers! I want to know the route efficiency. I want to know Melendez’s jump time. I want to know catch probability. These are all things that arrive instantly. I crave this information.

Brief rant aside, just a phenomenal grab by Melendez. I like how you can see the third base coach windmilling the runner around third. Obviously, if Melendez doesn’t make that catch, two runs will probably score on the play. It’s not exactly a game-saving catch, but it’s close enough.

Play two games in one day and the odds are strong that Bobby Witt Jr. will be doing something impactful. Like this:

Guardians reliever Hunter Gaddis started Witt off with a belt-high slider. Center cut. Witt watched it for a strike. Gaddis’ next pitch was another slider, this one knee-high. Witt crushed it.

And that was the difference.

I love that a guy like Melendez, who has been crushing it at the plate of late and who has dramatically improved his outfield defense, came through to get the Royals in position to win the game. Yet they still need their superstar to bring the victory across the finish line. It’s not as if Witt one-upped Melendez. It was more as if Witt acknowledged the work Melendez did to that point and just took over from there. It’s a team game, don’t you know.

Not everything was sunshine, though. Cole Ragans started the first game and was on the struggle bus all afternoon. He was spraying everything to the glove side, often missing his locations badly. His velocity, which has been trending downward on the four-seam since before the All-Star Break, was way down on both the fastball (1.6 MPH below his average velocity) and his slider (a whopping 2.9 MPH down from his average). I’m aware that some have been sounding the alarm bells regarding Ragans and the drop in velocity on his four-seam. I haven’t necessarily shared those concerns. Yet, after watching him struggle with his command, I’m starting to get a little worried.

This was the Ragans’ pitch chart against left-handed hitters. He was working away all afternoon and was just not really dialed in around the plate.

The four-seamer in the middle was a 3-1 fastball at 94 MPH to Josh Naylor that went for an out. Lucky. The other four-seamer that was on the inside part of the plate was a 3-0 pitch to Stephen Kwan that was wrongly called a ball.

Kind of a similar story to right-handed batters, with the fastball flying all over the place. Especially inside and up and out of the zone.

Concern spiked after a four-pitch walk to open the fifth and the trainer came out and Ragans left the game. Turns out, that was about a cramp in his left leg.

From Anne Rogers:

Ragans said he felt off from the start of Monday’s game, battling his mechanics and trying to stay in his delivery. When he’s hitting his leg as he walks back up the mound between pitches, that means he’s trying to remind himself to stay in his legs during his delivery.

That mental cue didn’t help much Monday when Ragans was battling all his pitches except his slider. The breaking ball was the one pitch he was able to land in the zone and get weak contact off it.

“When I stay in my legs, I usually have a little better command,” Ragans said. “But today, the mechanics weren’t there. … Pretty erratic. Did not command the fastball, didn’t get ahead.”

Just 36 percent of Ragans’ pitches were in the zone, according to Baseball Savant. The lefty generated just three swings and misses. It was so far from a typical Ragans start that you have to be worried. Even if the Royals say it’s just a leg cramp and if Ragans says he battled his mechanics. We’re going to have to wait and see how things go in his next start before we’re allowed to relax here.

Manager Matt Quatraro is so even-keeled that you may not have even noticed, but the dude was managing this game like it was important. Which, duh, it was.

From Rogers:

“That was not the plan,” Quatraro said of going to his bullpen early. “We didn’t have that in the book. You definitely have to consider both games, but at the same time, if you have a chance to win, you try to win this game. You have no idea what Game 2 is going to bring. The bullpen stepped up huge. To go through five innings and give up one run there against that team is a really good outing.”

When Ragans exited, Quatraro went to former closer James McArthur. The Royals were leading by a run at that point and a runner was on first with nobody out. McArthur hasn’t been as sharp as we all know he can be, but he has that closer’s pedigree. As he’s slipped down the pecking order, he’s still a guy who can be called on to put out a spark before it rages into an inferno.

With that trouble dispatched, Quatraro turned to Kris Bubic. This was notable because Bubic pitched on Sunday. While he threw just three pitches in that outing, this was the first time he appeared in back-to-back games out of the bullpen. And that comes after pitching with just a day of rest (from Friday to Sunday) for the first time all year. Bubic, it would appear, has been unleashed for the stretch run.

Bubic got through the sixth and returned for the seventh which featured José Ramíez who is dangerous no matter which side of the plate he’s hitting from. This year, he owns lefties in particular and doubled off Bubic. One batter later, Josh Naylor tied the game with a single.

Not the preferred outcome to be sure. I think that had the game not been the first one of two on the day, Bubic wouldn’t have stayed in to face either Ramírez or Naylor.

Right-hander John Schreiber was next and he cruised through his 1.2 innings. The Witt home run meant the ninth was Lucas Erceg time and we have quickly become familiar with how that ends.

In the flurry of transactions ahead of the games on Monday, the Royals reshuffled their bullpen. Angel Zerpa, who has struggled of late and who has failed to pitch a clean inning in his last 10 appearances, was optioned to Omaha. It should also be noted that he threw on both Saturday and Sunday for a total of 48 pitches. Not only would he not be available on Monday, it’s likely he’d be on the sidelines on Tuesday as well. Optioning him after all the work was just smart general managing. Daniel Lynch IV was called up to replace Zerpa.

Then, the Royals placed lefty Will Smith on the IL with low back spasms. Smith, like Zerpa, also pitched on both Saturday and Sunday. In fact, Smith has now allowed multiple runs in each of his last five appearances. That’s 4.2 innings where he’s surrendered 12 hits, 14 runs, walked two, hit two batters and allowed three home runs. If it wasn’t the IL the Royals would’ve been entirely justified in just releasing him outright following a string of performances like that. The corresponding move there was the return of Carlos Hernández.

They also brought up Alec Marsh as the 27th man. He would start the nightcap.

Back to the bullpen for a moment. No matter how you feel about this team, and I remain optimistic they are playoff-bound, the bullpen is serious nightmare fuel at this point. The good news: Quatraro has only used his pen for 410 innings this year, the least in the majors. The bad news: They’re just not very good with a collective 7.6 SO/9 (29th in the majors) and a 4.47 ERA (26th). Zerpa makes me twitchy and Smith is just not a guy who can be trusted to pitch in any kind of, let’s say medium-low leverage situation. If the Royals are going to be serious about getting to October and hanging around as long as possible, this needs to be addressed. Zerpa will have some time to get right in Omaha. As for Smith, maybe he is hurting and needs some time. I don’t know. I do know that when he returns, he will need to prove himself all over again. Given how he’s performed of late, the Royals cannot even entertain the notion of putting him on a postseason roster at this point.

The nightcap was all about the Salvy Show. He let the youngs carry the team to victory in the first game and then decided to show them how the veterans do things after dark.

Bam! A solo home run in the fifth to break a 4-4 deadlock. I’m going to bypass the GIF of his first homer because this might be my favorite screengrab of all time.

It seriously does not get better than that.

And then…

Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! A grand slam in the sixth to provide the insurance.

That ball traveled 457 feet. I didn’t see it land in the GIF because I think it turned into vapor on its way over the fence. He’s swinging so hard. It’s a 3-1 pitch and he just has menace on his mind. Killshot delivered.

As we look back on Perez’s career, we will always marvel at his 2021 offensive explosion where he clubbed 48 home runs and drove in 121 while slugging .544. What he’s done this year, at 34 years old, is even more impressive. He’s now on 25 home runs. He has 94 RBIs. After Monday, he’s hitting .282/.341/.494, good for a 125 wRC+. A freaking .341 on-base percentage!!! This could be the best all-around season of his career.

I just need him to steal a base.

After a shaky start from Marsh—he allowed the first four Guardians hitters to reach with three of them coming around to score—he settled in for the most part. Sam Long got the team through the fifth and then the sixth innings. Lynch went three innings where he allowed just one hit and one walk to pick up his first career save. Again, just a stellar job by the bullpen to keep the team in both games. They’re far from a sure thing night after night, but it’s nice to see them step up and help this team bring home a pair of victories.

Here’s a current look at the standings.

Truly a big-picture look as the Tigers now meet my threshold for .500 baseball. They played the White Sox over the weekend. Enough said.

The Royals are at +1.5 in the Wild Card Game Back column, meaning they are a game and a half ahead of the Twins. So add that number to the 5.5 games the Red Sox are trailing that third and final spot and you see the Royals have opened up a 6.5 game safety net. It’s not even September, but this is a very good place to be as we enter the week before Labor Day.

Are you prepared for what comes next? It’s time to talk Magic Number. Kansas City started the day with a Magic Number of 29. After the conclusion of play on Monday, the Royals’ Magic Number is 25. Yeah…Monday was huge.

And that’s just for the playoffs. The Royals are threatening to upend the AL Central.

As noted, they are a game back of the Guardians. They’ve been in this position recently and then had that abysmal weekend against the Phillies. This is a different situation, however. Poor games to close out the last homestand notwithstanding, the Royals are surging over their last 10 games. The Guardians are slipping.

The Royals are now 3-2 in those 20 games that will define this season.