Three Up, Three Down: The Royals are helpless against the masterful Ohtani

Facing off against the best baseball player in the world on the mound, did the Royals stand a chance? What do you think?

Shohei Ohtani is a treasure.

Count me among those who consider Ohtani to be in the conversation for best ballplayer ever. What the dude does on a nightly basis is simply amazing. Whether he’s hitting or pitching, he’s a delight to watch.

It’s obviously better when he’s beating other teams, but there was an air of inevitability around Friday’s game. The Royals’ pitching did its part, limiting the Angels to just two runs on five hits. The Royals’ offense…Blech.

Some things are best left unwritten.

That’s a helluva sales pitch. Have you thought about subscribing to a newsletter dedicated to the current worst team in baseball? Hit that button and let’s get on with this.

You don’t subscribe to this newsletter for clever innuendo. (Or maybe you do. Who am I to judge?) So I am duty-bound to discuss the Ohtani domination of the Royals’ offense…Given the current state of the bats, and Ohtani being the best baseball player on the planet, Friday night’s showdown went exactly as expected. To get things started, Ohtani rolled up the Royals in the first inning on three consecutive strikeouts. He obliterated Bobby Witt Jr. on sweepers in the fourth.

The ownership of Witt notwithstanding, there was a relative strikeout drought for Ohtani in the middle innings. He remedied that by punching out six in a row to close out his night. It wasn’t a fair fight. Still, it was an absolute masterclass in pitching. The Royals managed four baserunners against Ohtani in seven innings. They actually got two of those in the same inning. After the Witt strikeout illustrated above, MJ Melendez put together a very nice plate appearance where, after falling behind 0-2, he battled back, fouled off a couple of pitches, and drew a walk. Vinnie Pasquantino followed with a flare single. A rally!

Alas, it was quickly snuffed out on a double play ground ball off the bat of Salvador Perez.

Ohtani’s final pitching line: 7 IP, 2 H, 2 BB, 11 SO

Four-seamers at 100 MPH. Sweepers at 78 MPH. Curves at 68 MPH. Painting the corners and just generally confounding hitters. I have absolutely no idea how anyone hits Ohtani. The Royals stood no chance.

If you thought the Royals would have a chance with Ohtani out of the game, you haven’t watched any Royals baseball this season. Against the Angels bullpen for the final two innings, the Royals mustered just a single baserunner for the rest of the night. It happened to be Witt, who was obviously relieved that Ohtani was out of the game so he went ahead and singled in the ninth. To keep with the theme of the night (and the season), Melendez and Pasquantino went down on strikes to end the game. And so it goes.

The Royals broke out The Opener for Friday night’s game for the first time in the Matt Quatraro era. Taylor Clarke took the reins for the first two innings and was followed by Ryan Yarbrough as the bulk guy. It worked well enough. Clarke cruised through his two frames, six up and six down. He recorded three flyouts, two ground outs and a strikeout—who happened to be Ohtani. Clarke needed just 22 pitches to record those six outs. When drawing up a blueprint for how you want The Opener to operate, it has to look exactly like that.

Yarbrough did well enough considering he’s been roughed up in every other appearance he’s made this year. The damage on Friday was done by the bottom of the Angels order. Yarbrough pegged rookie Zach Neto with a curve ball in the third. (Sweet batflip, bro! He actually did it twice!) Chad Wallach, just recalled prior to the game when the Angels placed catcher Logan O’Hoppe on the IL, crushed a belt-high changeup out of the park.

Admittedly, with Ohtani on the bump, the Royals didn’t have an especially large margin of error. They needed to keep the game close for as long as possible. That the eight and nine hitters, both relative newcomers to the roster this year for the Angels did the damage…That’s just how things are going for the Royals these days.

Ahead of the game on Friday, the Royals announced Kris Bubic will undergo Tommy John surgery. It was hardly surprising, given he had gone for a second opinion.

It’s a damn shame because, even though it was just two starts, it really felt like Bubic was ready to take a large step forward. Not only does this set him back at least 12 months, but I’m skeptical that the velocity bump he recently discovered can return after he has the operation. Take this with the knowledge my medical expertise consists solely of watching episodes of St. Elsewhere in the 1980s, but Bubic has always been a guy living in the lower 90s with the four-seamer. He would let it eat when he pitched in relief from time to time, but those two starts to open the season was really the first time he uncorked—and held—that kind of velocity. I think it’s questionable that he returns with that same kind of heat.

Hey, maybe his rehab goes really well and he comes back even stronger. It’s possible. Except given his track record and very recent velocity bump, I won’t be surprised if he returns more like the pitcher he was in 2021 than the dude we saw against the Blue Jays and Giants earlier this month.

It just feels like these days Royals fans can’t have nice things.

The record is 4-16. They have lost seven straight.