Tigers maul Royals; sweep the series

An Alec Marsh versus Tarik Skubal matchup went exactly how you thought it would. The Wild Card race gets tight, but the Royals still control the narrative down the stretch.

I‘m going to put off discussing what we saw on Wednesday for as long as possible. Can you blame me? Instead, let’s open this one up with a little bit of optimism. Yes, optimism.

Here goes…

The Royals have an 82-71 record. They are currently in position of the second Wild Card in the AL and have the fifth-best record in the league. They lead the Twins by one and a half games (fine, because of the stupid tiebreaker rule, it’s really just a half a game) and are two and a half back of the Baltimore Orioles for the first Wild Card.

The schedule is their friend for at least the next week of games. First, the San Francisco Giants roll into Kauffman for a three-game set. Sure, the Giants may look hot, but they rolled the Orioles (if you think the Royals are on the verge of collapse, you should see what’s happening in Baltimore), sweeping their series. After that, the Royals close out their 2024 regular season with a visit to Washington D.C. and the Nationals, a team currently 16 games under .500.

They have an 89 percent chance to claim a Wild Card spot, according to FanGraphs.

Remember the Royals' September Swoon back in 2015? You’ll recall that the Royals were rolling that season. That is, until the calendar flipped to September. They played 28 games that month, winning just 11. It was the only month of that season where they played under .500. And you know how that story ended.

Now a shift in tone…

The above comparison is flawed in that the 2015 Royals were under no pressure at all to close out the season in strong fashion. When play opened on September 1, 2015, the Royals were firmly in first place in the AL Central, 13 games ahead of the second-place Twins. They were also comfortably in possession of the best record in the league, 6.5 games better than their eventual ALCS opponents the Toronto Blue Jays. There wasn’t really any pressure on the 2015 team because there wasn’t a viable threat.

This time around, dropping three in a row to the Detroit Tigers not only opens the door, it invites them in and points them in the direction of where we keep the jewelry. Two games now separate the Royals, Twins and Tigers. Two of these teams will make the Wild Card (assuming Baltimore doesn’t give it away). The Royals position, strong a week ago, feels a little thin this morning.

The Royals have ceded around nine percent in their postseason odds from last weekend. What once felt inevitable now feels a little less so.

Let’s go ahead and take a look at the current standings.

It’s insane how the three teams currently in a playoff spot are wheezing to the finish line. I’m half tempted to proclaim the Tigers the best of the bunch and just shut the whole thing down. But I’m kind of sore about these three games so I’m not going there.

(I’m including the Mariners here, even though they’ve been cooked for some time. And because I’m really wanting to point you to this video of Randy Arozarena swinging and losing his bat and then what happens next…oh, my.)

How about the remaining schedules for these teams?

Orioles
3 vs Detroit
3 at Yankees
3 at Twins

Whoa. That’s a brutal stretch to finish the season. That final three game set with the Twins looks huge. There is a plausable scenario where they completely collapse and finish outside of the postseason.

Royals
3 vs San Francisco
3 at Washington
3 at Atlanta

How in the world do the Royals finish the season with three consecutive series against National League teams? As noted above, they play a couple of sub-.500 clubs. The best-case scenario is that the Braves get eliminated sometime in the next six games. They’re currently trailing the Mets for the final NL Wild Card spot by two games. The two teams face off in the penultimate series of the season, so it could all be settled by a week from Friday.

Twins
1 at Cleveland
3 at Boston
3 vs Miami
3 vs Baltimore

In Wednesday’s game against Cleveland, the Twins loaded the bases with nobody out in the 10th and managed to score two. The Guardians walked them off with three in their half of the 10th. Once the Twins finish with Cleveland on Thursday, I think their remaining games are favorable for them.

Tigers
3 at Baltimore
3 vs Tampa
3 vs White Sox

The Tigers took two of three off Baltimore last weekend. Finishing against the White Sox is an absolute gift.

With a week and a half left in the season, we are at the point where time is running out on the Tigers. Even if now that they’re back in the mix and with a semi-favorable schedule.

I can see just about every scenario imaginable playing out. Such as Baltimore crashing out and all three teams from the Central getting in. That would be amazing. Or Baltimore stumbling enough that the Royals get right and push past them for the first Wild Card and the opportunity to host the first round of the playoffs at Kauffman.

What I don’t want to happen is for the tiebreakers to come into play.

Orioles - own the tiebreaker over the Royals. They are 3-0 against the Twins so one more win would give them the tiebreaker there. They are 1-2 against the Tigers.

Royals - they lost the tiebreaker to the Twins and the Orioles but have the advantage over the Tigers. Take that, Detroit!

Twins - They hold the tiebreaker over the Tigers.

Nine games left and a slew of possibilities are still on the board. Myself? I still think the Royals grab one of those three spots. Nobody said it would be easy.

As for Wednesday’s game, I put off talking about it as long as I could. Alec Marsh picked the absolute worst time to post his worst start of the season. Yeah, I realize I used the word “worst” twice in that sentence about Marsh’s start. That’s only because I couldn’t figure out a way to work in one or two more “worsts.” It was that kind of start.

He was spraying everything everywhere, except for when he was throwing fastballs over the heart of the plate. Marsh ended his night throwing 73 pitches, 39 of which went for strikes. Somehow he struck out five batters. I’m shocked, too. He walked three and gave up a bomb to Riley Greene. Honestly, I’m kind of stunned that he was able to hold Detroit to only four runs.

Daniel Lynch IV came on in relief and was absolute nails. The anti-Marsh. Lynch went 3.1 innings of clean baseball, mixing his four-seam and changeup along with his absolutely devastating slider. Is Lynch more comfortable coming out of the bullpen? Dunno. But I do know he looks like a completely different pitcher than the one we saw starting games for this team last year. He’s now gone 14.1 scoreless innings since his return from the minors. He’s allowed five hits and three walks against 16 strikeouts in that stretch.

The Tigers started six left-handed hitters. That’s going to help Lynch when he entered the game. Lefties saw a steady diet of sliders. Like this duel against Kerry Carpenter in the fourth.

Here’s how that third pitch looked.

Yeah. No chance.

Against righties, Lynch went full arsenal. This is how he attacked the next hitter, Wenceel Pérez:

Lynch had Pérez guessing. Once that slider was called for the second strike on the edge, Pérez really expanded his zone. And it was all away, away, away.

Then this is how the sixth pitch looked:

I just adore confrontations like this one. Lynch’s command was near-perfect, every pitch set up the next one and the batter had absolutely zero chance.

The temptation is to give the guy more innings, but if he can go three-plus in middle relief, there’s plenty of value in that. He completely shut down the Tiger bats after Marsh gave them free reign in the first three innings. That meant keeping the game close. Even if the Royals weren’t going to get unstuck on offense. Still…

Detroit starter Tarik Skubal is probably going to win the American League Cy Young award. Yes, Cole Ragans and Seth Lugo both deserve serious consideration, but Skubal is on target to win the pitching triple crown. That’s impressive, even if we discount pitcher wins these days. He’s striking out 10.7 per nine while posting a walk rate of 1.7 BB/9. His ERA of 2.33 leads the AL. His ERA- of 62 is the best in the AL as well.

So I was keeping that in mind as I watched batter after batter chase pitches out of the zone and generally look foolish—at least after the first inning. Skubal is a fantastic pitcher. The Royals overall offensive approach hasn’t been the best of late, but it’s not going to get any better against a starter the caliber of Skubal. He’s exactly the pitcher you don’t want to face when you’re scuffling.

The Royals were able to chase Skubal after five, but one of the reasons for this late season surge from Detroit has been on the back of their bullpen. Manager AJ Hinch seems to have an extreme comfort level with his relievers and has consistently punched the right bullpen buttons. He had it mostly working again on Wednesday.

In the series, the Tigers bullpen threw 16.1 innings over the three games. They allowed three runs on 12 hits while striking out 15. Most of the damage came on Monday when the Royals chased starter Reese Olson (who was on about a limit of 50 pitches in his first start after missing time on the IL) in the third. They’re not an untouchable group, but they’re damn good.

So the Royals took the early lead against the leading AL Cy Young contender, gave it back when their starter wasn’t sharp at all and then couldn’t do a thing against a bullpen that has been remarkably solid down the stretch. I’m reminded of a random Orioles game against the White Sox (really!) earlier this season where Baltimore starter Kyle Bradish shut down Chicago, striking out 11 over seven innings. After the game, then-Sox manager Pedro Grifol lit up his team for not being prepared and not showing up. Hall of Fame pitcher and Orioles broadcaster replied with something along the lines of, “You know, Kyle Bradish is really good.”

That’s where I land on Wednesday’s game. Yeah, it was frustrating the Royals couldn’t get anything going with the bats, but Tarik Skubal (and the Detroit bullpen) is really good.

Make no mistake…We’ve been calling this team resilient all season. Now is the time they get to prove that they can bounce back when it matters the most. They still control their own destiny. Now they have to finish the task at hand.