Sometimes things are so inevitable that they will happen no matter the circumstances. For the last week plus we have heard about the Kansas City Royals interest in free agent righty Ian Kennedy and on Saturday morning they pulled the trigger on a 5 year, $70 million dollar deal.
Source confirms: Kennedy to #Royals, five years, $70M – and with an opt-out after two seasons. First reported: @jonheyman.
The deal does have an opt out after year two(appears to be a player option) which would be after the 2017 season, where the Royals would already have Wade Davis, Lorenzo Cain, Eric Hosmer, Mike Moustakas and Alcides Escobar possibly eligible for free agency. This obviously means the Royals are taking advantage of the two year window in front of them and adding another arm to the rotation was at the top of the list for General Manager Dayton Moore. There are a number of immediate questions about Kennedy(as well as some positives), but first let’s give you an idea of just who Ian Kennedy really is.
Ian Kennedy is going into his 31 year old season as a former big time prospect in the New York Yankees organization who has toiled in the majors since 2007. His best season to date is the 2011 campaign, where he went 21-4 for the Diamondbacks, striking out 8.03 batters per 9, a 2.88 ERA, an ERA+ of 137 and 4.8 WAR. Unfortunately, that 2011 season seems to be the outlier of Kennedy’s career, as he has been a fairly mediocre starter throughout his time in the big leagues, including three straight seasons of being a below average pitcher from 2013-2015. That being said, there are plusses and minuses to the signing.
Let’s start with the giant pink elephant in the room: home runs. Last year, Kennedy gave up 31 home runs, 19 in his home field of Petco Park. Yes, the Petco park that is considered a major pitchers park. For whatever reason, balls flew out of that place at a higher rate last year, and Kennedy and former Padres teammate James Shields paid the price for the increase. In fact, Kennedy allowed home runs on 17% of his fly balls in 2015, only toppled by Shields and Kyle Kendrick, with a difference of only less than half of one percentage point. Yes, it appeared that balls flew out of Petco last year, but giving up that many home runs is still a blemish on the stat board and has to be taken into consideration. It appears that the Royals scouts and front office believe that playing in Kauffman Stadium, which has a low home run rate, plus adding in the Royals stellar defense in the outfield will help Kennedy with some of those fly balls. It’s possible…but as this chart shows, maybe not as much as we would hope:
What the graph shows is that if you took those 31 home runs and moved them to Kauffman, 3/4 of them would still leave the park. Add in that Kennedy won’t be starting all of his games in Kansas City, and…well, you can see why there is some worry.
Now, I feel like I can’t paint the ‘Ian Kennedy picture’ without mentioning some of the positives. For one, his K/9 rate the last has been above 8 for three straight seasons and has been sitting at a steady 9.3 for the last two. The guy has noticed an uptick in his velocity and it has shown in his strikeout numbers. But the increase in velocity has also accounted for a high hard-hit rate, which normally means a low soft-hit rate. In fact, Kennedy has not a hard-hit % below 30% since…you guessed it, that great 2011 season. In other words, when batters do make contact off of Kennedy, they are getting good wood on the ball. That makes it harder to keep the scoring down and also hurts the chances of a pitcher pitching deeper into the game. Last year, Kennedy averaged 5.6 innings per start, but over his career he has been a workhouse. Since 2010, the lowest amount of innings Kennedy has accumulated is 168 in 2015, while in that span he has had three seasons over 200 innings(and one at 194). So Kennedy will give you innings, which has long been a goal of Moore when he acquires starting pitchers.
Also, his walk rate went down this past year, down to 2.78 after hovering in the 3’s for the previous two years. So you have a guy who has increased his strikeout rate while lowering his walk rate, which is a plus for any starter in the majors. Kennedy also seemed to improve his statistics in June of last year, possibly due to a shift on the pitching rubber:
The picture on the left is from his last start, the one on the right is from his first start in June. As you can tell, he went from throwing on the 3rd base side of the rubber to the 1st base side. There was a noticeable improvement, as his home runs dipped down and his OPS allowed improved by almost 200 points. I’m sure all of this will be digested by Royals pitching coach Dave Eiland, who within himself is a big part of this puzzle. You see, Kennedy is not a stranger to Eiland:
Ian Kennedy goes to KC, where he'll work with his former pitching coach, Dave Eiland. Big ballpark, strong OF defense for KC will help.
Eiland was the pitching coach for the Yankees when Kennedy made it to the big leagues so Eiland is familiar with him not only from then but back when he had success during his days as a prospect in the New York system. One has to think a big part of Kansas City feeling so confident in giving him this big contract was having Eiland in their back pocket to guide him back to success. Eiland has shown over the years to have a knack of turning questionable pitchers into solid starters by just tweaking the most subtle of things. All you have to look at is Jeremy Guthrie time in Kansas City(before 2015) and most recently Edinson Volquez. If anyone can turn Kennedy around, it would be Eiland.
There is one more positive to the this signing, and that would be durability. Kennedy has been lucky so far in his career and hasn’t had a major arm injury. In fact, Kennedy spent a little bit of time on the disable list last year, but it was for a hamstring strain. Kennedy has been healthy enough to make at least 30 starts in all 6 of his seasons as a regular. Add in the innings totals and at the very least you have a starter that you can count on to take the mound once every five games. Anymore, that is a major victory within itself in this game.
So where do I stand? This is an odd signing in that I am not totally for sure how I feel. I like that the Royals seem to have signed a durable starter who can log some innings for the team before turning it over to the pen. There were times this past season where the starters went four or five innings and were done for the day. I’m not a big fan of a five year deal, but there is the opt out clause after year two, so hopefully Kennedy takes that and the Royals don’t get stuck with the last three years of the contract. For me it’s not even about Kennedy as much as I don’t like giving any pitcher a long-term deal, not with how easy it is to get arm injuries in this day and age. Over his career Kennedy has been about a league average pitcher and I have a feeling that is what Kansas City will get from him this year. I think there will be times he looks really good on the hill, and I think there will be times those hard hit fly balls will leave the playing field. Steamer projections are predicting Kennedy to make 31 starts, logging 182 innings with an ERA of 3.90, an FIP of 4.02 and 2.2 WAR. Honestly, I would take that and would even applaud that kind of season. The best part of the signing is that the Royals showed a willingness to spend money and give them as good a chance as any to keep a contending baseball team on the field. The last few years, Dayton Moore has shown an ability to make questionable acquisitions and have them turn to gold(paging Morales, Kendrys). At this point, if Dayton likes this move than I am on board. I just hope the ride isn’t too bumpy.
The Kansas City Royals have waited 30 years to say they are World Champions. Whenever anyone around Kansas City talks about the Royals, it is inevitable that the 1985 Royals, the only other Kansas City team to win the World Series, are brought up. In some ways I’m sure it felt like big shoes to fill, living up to the legend of a team that made a lot of us(myself included) Royals fans. Now though is another champion for future teams to live up to. In what was possibly the most dramatic 5 game World Series in history, Kansas City can now call themselves ‘World Champs’!
There are so many stories to tell here, and all deserve your time and praise, but let’s start with the beginning of the season. This was a team that felt like they had unfinished business, left with the bad taste in their mouth from being beat by the Giants the year before in the World Series. This was a team that was on a mission to finish what they fell just short of in 2014. Not only is it a difficult path to make back to back World Series in this day and age, but they were doing it without some big components from the year before. Billy Butler was gone. James Shields-gone. Nori Aoki jumped ship to the world champs. In their place was Kendrys Morales, Edinson Volquez and Alex Rios, two of which were coming off of disappointing seasons. In fact, guys like Mike Moustakas and Eric Hosmer were also coming off of less than stellar campaigns, which is why the PECOTA projections had Kansas City at 72 wins. In fact, I was a bit skeptical of their chances, expecting them to be in the hunt while falling just short. It wasn’t that I didn’t want my team to ‘Take the Crown’; I just wasn’t for sure that a majority of the lineup was going to improve on their 2014 numbers. Luckily, I was wrong.
What happened during the regular season would seem like a fairy tale written up by a Royals fan before the season began, while bordering on fan fiction(somehow Salvador Perez and his perfume would fit in here). The team got off to a hot start, took control of the American League Central and held it for 3/4 of the season. In fact, if it wasn’t for the surging Minnesota Twins stepping up near the beginning of the summer, the Royals might have lead the division all season long. There was so many highlights to the regular season, like Mike Moustakas’ offensive turnaround, as he learned to hit to the opposite field, forcing opposing teams to quit putting the shift on him and play him straight up. There was the monster comeback season by Morales, toppling 100 RBI’s while adding power to the middle of the order. There was another phenomenal season by Wade Davis and Volquez turned out to be a solid replacement for Shields. Lorenzo Cain really blossomed this year, putting together a MVP caliber season after dealing with injuries almost every year before. The team almost single-handedly took over the All-Star Game, with 4 Kansas City starters in the game and 8 total players representing the Royals. Hell, we Royals fans almost voted Omar Infante into the game, and most of us agree he was awful this year! Then in July, the Royals front office stepped up, acquiring Johnny Cueto and Ben Zobrist to further elevate their chances of capturing a world championship. Zobrist was a huge acquisition, as he filled in for left fielder Alex Gordon while he was out with a groin strain, then slid over to second base, taking over for the black hole of offense known as Infante. Cueto had very mixed results, sometimes looking like the ace he was in Cincinnati, other times looking like a back of the rotation arm who had to be perfect to succeed. Either way, Royals management did their part by giving the team the pieces to win, leaving it all up to the players to take it home. In fact, the Royals steamrolled through the competition most of this year, putting up the best record in the American League and garnering them home field advantage throughout the playoffs. This team was on a mission from day one and accomplished the first part of it; making the playoffs. Now it was time to do the hard part: advance to the World Series.
In the American League Division Series, the Royals would play the Houston Astros, a young team that gave Kansas City trouble during the regular season. This series pretty much dictated the Royals fate and what we should have expected from this Royals team. Royals would lose Game 1, but then would mount one of their famous comebacks late in Game 2 to pull out a victory. Game 3 went to Houston, as Dallas Keuchel shutdown the Royals offense, and at this point it was ‘do or die’ for Kansas City. In Game 4, Houston took a four run lead into the Top of the 8th, which seemed like a death kneel for this Royals team. The Royals ‘kept the line moving’ in this inning, with a bit of help from Carlos Correa, and would not only storm back, but would end up taking the lead, taking the game and forcing a Game 5.
Game 4 of the ALDS might be the greatest summary of what this Kansas City Royals team did this entire postseason. When their backs were against the wall, they didn’t give up. The picked and picked, battling pitchers while finding a way to get on base and keep a rally going. The word ‘relentless’ has been used at great lengths these past few weeks, but I also think you can use the word ‘stubborn’. This Royals team just would not quit, which was night and day from what we saw just a few years earlier. Once you get in the playoffs you are playing nothing but great teams, and the Royals frustrated every last one of them. The philosophy of ‘putting the ball in play, forcing the defense to make the play’ really has worked for this team, and I’m not for sure it can be duplicated. You would think Game 4 of the ALDS was a standalone game, one that was the outlier of the group, but it isn’t. The Royals entire postseason was some variation of that Monday afternoon in Houston, where even myself doubted this team would come back and win. Game 5 was almost a non-contest, once Johnny Cueto got past the Luis Valbuena home run. It was smooth sailing after that blast for Cueto, as the Royals punched their ticket to the ALCS.
Before we move on to the ALCS, I want to point out something here. I have long criticized Ned Yost and his managing style. Before last September, he seemed like a disaster waiting to happen. There was concern that the same mistakes he made in Milwaukee would be repeated in Kansas City, costing the Royals any semblance of glory. But sometimes people surprise you and change their ways, and Yost did just that. Starting in late September 2014, Yost started listening more to his coaching staff and venture outside of the box some more. It was very slight at first(letting Kelvin Herrera pitch more than an inning at a time), but by the playoffs he made almost every logical move a manager could make. That continued this year and to be honest, a lot of it was just letting the players go out and play. Trust them. The players stepped up this year and deserve a lot of the credit, but Yost’s more laid back managing style was a welcome plus. I’m still not a big Yost fan, but I will give the man credit when I feel he deserves it. Quite a bit of the Royals success this year can be tied into Yost relaxing his style and allowing himself to not be confined to an old way of thinking that had held him back in the past.
(Photo by Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images)
This would lead to the ALCS, the match-up that almost everyone wanted, Royals vs. Blue Jays. These two teams had some issues this past August and despite the fact that no one expected any extra fireworks this series(I mean, it is the postseason; no one wants to lose time in October over something stupid), some of the bad feelings were still lingering. Game 1 went to Kansas City, thanks to another solid postseason start from Edinson Volquez and some timely hitting. Game 2 was the perfect definition of #RoyalsDevil Magic, as Kansas City looked lost for 6 innings against David Price, to the point Price had retired 18 straight batters before heading to the 7th inning. Then it happened; Zobrist hit a fly ball to right field that fell in between Ryan Goins and Jose Bautista in what looked like a miscommunication. What followed was the Royals doing what they do, or what they call ‘keep the line moving’. By the end of the inning the Royals had taken the lead and put a seed of doubt into the Blue Jays’ minds on their ability to stop this Kansas City team. Game 3 went to Toronto, as the two teams ventured north of the border, which was followed by a Royals offensive slaughter of the Blue Jays in Game 4. The Royals could have clinched the series with a win in Toronto for Game 5, but Marco Estrada shut down Kansas City, which meant the series would return to Kauffman Stadium, with the Royals only needing one win to head to the World Series.
I think when we really dissect this postseason for the Royals, what we will find is a number of games that will go down in Kansas City history as some of the most memorable games in team history. Obviously Game 4 of the ALDS ranks high on the list, but the argument can also be made for a couple of the World Series games and for Game 2 of the ALCS. But without a doubt, Game 6 of the ALCS will be on that list, as it turned into another classic nail-biter that left Royals fans on the edge of their seats. The Royals would take the lead early on thanks to a Ben Zobrist and Mike Moustakas hitting solo home runs, and would hold the lead until the Top of the 8th. Jose Bautista would club his second home run of the game, a 2 run shot, that would tie the game at 3 and had sucked a lot of air out of the ballpark. There would be a slight rain delay before starting the bottom of the inning(could it have been building to the drama that was to happen?) but it didn’t slow down the Royals. Lorenzo Cain led off the inning with a walk, then Eric Hosmer would stride to the plate, yet another clutch situation for him in a postseason filled with clutch hits for the Gold Glove first baseman. Hosmer would line a single down the right field line, which meant no matter what Cain was getting to third. But the Royals scouts had noticed earlier in the series that Bautista would always throw the ball into second base with runners on first, while third base coach Mike Jirschele had also noticed it was normally done in a lackadaisical manner. The Blue Jays were not prepared for Cain to be racing home on the play, as Troy Tulowitzki was caught a bit off-guard when after receiving the ball from Bautista, he turned around to notice Cain was headed home. Cain was in safely, giving the Royals the lead and giving Kansas City another memorable moment this postseason.
Cain’s play was even more impressive when you realize he was tracked at nearly 21 mph by Statcast on his trip around the bases. The almost unstoppable Wade Davis would come in to pitch the top of the 9th, and despite the allowing the tying and go-ahead runs to get on base to start the inning, Davis would shut down the Blue Jays, getting probabley future AL MVP Josh Donaldson to ground out to end the game and give Kansas City back to back World Series appearances for the first time in team history.
The Royals were now only four wins away from a World Championship, their first in 30 years.
So the stage was set for the Royals returning to the World Series, this time to face the New York Mets. It was interesting to notice the narrative thrown out by the media during this series, as it focused on New York, making their first World Series appearance since 2000, trying to bring the trophy back to the ‘Empire State’. Should it have been the narrative? Probably not, as it should have been the Royals trying to do what they couldn’t do last year and win their first Championship since 1985. But because New York is considered the center of the sports world(or even just the center of most things in this country, whether you are talking about entertainment or sports), the focus was bound to be on the Mets. I wasn’t overly bothered by it, because once again it made the Royals the underdog, a role that this team cherishes. This series would get off to a hot start, as I think it safe to say Game 1 will go down as a World Series classic. There are so many little tidbits from this game that I loved, and maybe it was because it was my first ever World Series game to be in attendance for, but here is just a snippet of what all happened in this game:
The game started out with the news leaking on Twitter about Edinson Volquez’s father had passed away earlier in the day, unbeknownst to Eddie. The crowd, in support, chanted “Eddie” numerous times throughout the contest.
Alcides Escobar would hit the first inside the park home run in World Series history since George “Mule” Haas of the Philadelphia Athletics in 1929. Escobar’s hit was on the first pitch of the bottom of the 1st inning.
The Mets would take a 4-3 lead in the Top of the 8th thanks to an Eric Hosmer error, allowing Juan Lagares to score from second. It was an odd sight, since the Royals had been almost spotless defensively during the playoffs this year before that, and since Hosmer is normally so sure-handed.
The Royals would tie the game back up in the bottom of the 9th with an Alex Gordon homer off of Jeurys Familia, the Mets closer. This was a monster of a shot that Statcast had at 438 ft, off of a 97 mph sinker:
Chris Young, who was scheduled to start in Game 4 of the series, would come in and throw 3 shutout innings, stifling the Mets. This might have been the biggest pitching outing of the series, outside of Johnny Cueto’s Game 2 start.
The game was won in the bottom of the 14th by Kansas City. I was live tweeting the game for work, and might have foreshadowed the win as I sent this out in the middle of the 14th:
Bottom of the 14th would start with Escobar reaching on an error by David Wright(which I had wanted to tweet out ‘costly error?’ but since I was on the work account I figured I shouldn’t), followed by a Zobrist single and a Cain intentional walk. This led to the bases loaded with no outs and Hosmer at the plate, hoping to redeem himself for his error back in the 8th. Hosmer would lift a fairly deep fly ball to right field, scoring Escobar and giving the Royals a Game 1 victory. This game was the third World Series game to go 14 innings and undoubtedly will go down as a classic. In a lot of ways, this game set the tone for the rest of the series.
Game 2 would see Johnny Cueto put up the best game score for a Royals pitcher in a playoff game in history, as the Royals would go up 2-0 in the series with a 7-1 victory. The two teams would travel to New York for three games, and the Mets would take Game 3, 9-3 as Royals starter Yordano Ventura saw a loss in velocity and the Royals never seemed to find their footing in this game. Game 4 would be another close one that the Royals took, 5-3 and gave Kansas City a 3-1 lead in the series, needing only one more win to be world champions. This would lead to yet another classic Royals comeback in Game 5.
(AP Photo/Julie Jacobson)
For 8 innings in Game 5, it looked as if the Royals number might be up, as Matt Harvey was dominating Kansas City, looking as sharp as I have seen him all season(in what starts I have seen him in). Harvey would come out for the Top of 9th, which seemed fine since he had been handcuffing the Royals all night long. He would allow a leadoff walk to Cain, who would then steal second base. Eric Hosmer, who to this point had been hitting about .111 in the series, came up big again with a double off the left field wall, scoring Cain and cutting the Mets lead to 2-1. Familia would come in for New York and he would get Moustakas to ground out, moving Hosmer to third. So with one out and the Royals down by one, Salvador Perez would hit a slow chopper to David Wright at third. Wright would glance back at Hosmer, who was just a little bit of the way down the line at third, then toss to first. Hosmer, in what would be equal parts genius and stupid, took off for home once Wright slinged it over, causing Lucas Duda to hurry a throw home. The throw would be wide of catcher Travis D’arnaud, as Hosmer slid into home safely.
Now, I know the broadcasters said it was good baserunning by Hosmer, but like I said, it was just as much a lucky play. Probably nine times out of ten, that throw is accurate and Hosmer would have been out by a mile. Royals scouts had told the team to run on Duda and D’arnaud as much as possible, and it seemed Kansas City picked an opportune time to take advantage of that knowledge. But as most everything this postseason, the play went the Royals way and the game was now knotted up at two. It would stay this way until the 12th inning, as Jarrod Dyson was on third and Christian Colon, former #1 Draft Pick for the Royals, making his lone postseason at bat and he would deliver big:
The Royals would tack on four more runs and then would hand the ball over to the best relief pitcher in baseball the last two years, Wade Davis:
For the first time since 1985, the Kansas City Royals are World Champions! For everything that the city of Kansas City, the organization and even us fans have endured, this was the sweetest victory that one could imagine. Demons were purged, losses have faded and now here they stand, the best team in baseball in 2015.
When the 2015 season started, 30 teams all wanted one thing, to call themselves the World Champions. Only one team gets that distinction, and this year it is the Kansas City Royals. For years this team has heard about the ghosts of Royals past: George Brett, Willie Wilson, Dane Iorg, Jim Sundberg, Bret Saberhagen, Darryl Motley and so many more. Those ghosts will no longer haunt this team, as they have accomplished their only goal this season: win the World Series. It has been a crazy ride all season long, one that could make this team the greatest Royals team of all-time(they have competition with those late 70’s teams that faced the Yankees in the playoffs) and will hopefully not leave ghosts of their own for future generations. What this team did was the equivalent of slaying the dragon, or blowing up the Death Star. What this team did was put the focus back on an organization that for years was one to duplicate throughout the 70’s and 80’s. Celebrate this victory, Kansas City. Your Royals are the World Champions!
A great man once said “It ain’t over till it’s over”. Nope, I’m not talking about Lenny Kravitz, although he turned that saying into a nice little soft rock hit in the 90’s. Mr. Yogi Berra made that saying famous but the Kansas City Royals are trying to make it a mantra. The Royals have a history in the playoffs of coming back from the jaws of defeat to live another day. Go back to one of my favorite games of all-time, Game 6 of the 1985 World Series, the whole reason I even know who Dane Iorg is. Then there is the most famous Royal comeback, the Wild Card game from 2014, a game that no Royal fan will ever forget. After today, you can go ahead and add Game 4 of the 2015 ALDS to that list.
Headed to the bottom of the 7th inning, the Royals were down by a lone run, 3-2 with Kelvin Herrera was on the mound. Herrera would walk George Springer to lead off the inning, leading to Ryan Madson being brought in to face Carlos Correa. What followed felt like a horror movie or one of those nightmares you have that you can’t wake up from. Correa would hit a 2-run bomb, which would be followed by a solo home run from new Royals nemesis Colby Rasmus and the Astros lead now sat at 6-2. At this point the Royals had gotten 6 hits and 2 walks but was only able to muster 2 runs off of a Salvador Perez home run. So to say it did not look good going to the Top of the 8th would be an understatement. I thought it was over. I really did.
What followed would be the perfect example of why you should never give up on this team. I should probably point out here that the highest Win Probability percentage Houston had was 98.4%, which was when Carlos Gomez singled in the bottom of the 7th with the Astros up 6-2. If you would like to see the full graph of the Astros Win Probability click here. Trust me, it is a fun little look into how quickly things fell apart for Houston. Now, back to the game. Over the last few years there is a fun little saying some of us have on Twitter called “#deathbysingles’, or basically what happens from time to time when the Royals start an offensive attack, which doesn’t always include extra base hits. The Royals have also started calling it ‘going on down the line’, or a way to keep the rally going. It focuses way more on every single plate appearance rather than looking 2-3 batters ahead. Focus on your at bat and try to keep the base runners moving.
What followed can only be explained as #RoyalsDevilMagic, a term coined last year when the Royals would find a way, anyway, to win a ballgame. I felt we saw some of that same magic on Friday in Game 2. Rios(Tips?), Escobar & Zobrist would lead off the attack with singles. Cain would follow with another single to knock in a run, 6-3. The Astros win probability was now down to 70.7%. Eric Hosmer would follow with a key hit to right field to make it 6-4. Before this at bat, Hosmer had been 1 for 15 in the series and it just felt like he needed something(anything?) to get his bat going and to help what had been an issue for this team with runners in scoring position. Houston’s win probability now down to 55.6%. Kendrys Morales would then hit a chopper up the middle(aided by glancing off Tony Sipp’s glove) that looked like a fairly easy play for Carlos Correa. Instead, the ball takes a weird hop(with a little help from Correa taking his eye off the ball. It appeared as if he was already looking at second base) and two runs would score, tying the game at 6. This would be a costly error for the Astros, knocking their win probability down to 24.4%. Funny thing is that the next two at bats felt like the most important at bats in the game. Mike Moustakas would strike out, but not before making it tough on Sipp, an at bat that saw him foul off pitch after pitch. Following that, Houston closer Luke Gregerson would come in to try and stop the bleeding. Houston’s win probability had jumped up to 35.3%.
Gregerson is very familiar to the Royals. He pitched for the A’s last year in the infamous Wild Card game and would let the Royals back into that game, allowing a couple of inherited runners to score. In this game he would come in and face backup catcher Drew Butera. Butera had entered the game an inning earlier after Perez was hit by a pitch. Butera is known for his glove…and for how poor of a hitter he is. But he would have the at bat of the game, pushing Gregerson to a 10 pitch walk, one in which Butera was down 0-2 to begin the plate appearance. Houston’s win probability was back down to 31.7%. This loaded the bases again for Alex Gordon, a man who has been struggling since his return from injury last month. Gordon would hit a grounder that almost got past second baseman Jose Altuve, as Altuve dove for the ball then flipped to first for the second out of the inning. Hosmer would score though and the Royals would have the lead, 7-6. The Astros now had a 23.6% chance of winning. Rios would then walk(second time he had been on base in this inning) followed by an Escobar strike out to end the inning:
Just realized this: Entering the eighth inning, Alex Rios had reached base once in this series. He reached base twice in the eighth.
Houston now had a 29.2% chance of victory, down 67.7% from when the inning started. The Houston crowd had been silenced by the Royals offense. Astros fans now understood ‘Death By Singles’.
Now all that stood in Houston’s way of tying the game up was one Wade Davis. Yes, the nearly unhittable and unflappable Wade Davis. Davis was in for a six out save, the first of his career. Just another 1-2-3 inning for Davis, one in which the Astros chance of winning had dropped to 15.5%. The knockout punch was dealt in the top of the inning, as Hosmer would strike again, dealing a death blow with a 2-run homer. The Astros now sat at a 3.3% win expectancy, or next to nil. Davis would close it out in the bottom of the 9th, tying up the series and sealing a Game 5 in Kansas City…
…and there you go. One of the greatest comebacks in Royals history leads to another do or die game on Wednesday. I have no clue what will unfold for Game 5, but it probably can’t top Game 4. I didn’t even mention Mike Moustakas’ words at the end of the 7th inning, probably an “Animal House” style speech:
Mike Moustakas played the Raul Ibanez role this time. He gave a motivational speech, in the form of mostly expletives, before the 8th.
What a great game. This Royals team is worth all those years I sat through bad baseball, hoping that next year would be “the year”. In fact, I don’t think I have comedown from this game yet:
I'm still wired. What a win. What a team. Waiting all these years for a winner has paid off the last two years! #Royals#TakeTheCrown
I’m going to let everyone in on a little secret that most of us longtime Kansas City Royals fans don’t tell anyone: we still sometimes expect things to go wrong. Yep, it’s not healthy and the last 15 months have helped tone down some of that thinking, but it still pops up now and then. To be honest, you can’t blame us. Before last year, the Royals hadn’t been to the playoffs since 1985 and had only one winning season between 1995-2012. Trust me, we have watched so much bad baseball in that span that it’s hard to just push it out of one’s head. So when the Royals were down 4-2 to start the 4th inning, there was a linger of doubt in my mind that they could bounce back. The rational part of my brain said “hey, it’s only two runs” but the irrational side said “please don’t let them go to Houston down two games to none and then have to face Dallas Keuchel”. Luckily, that did not happen, as the Royals pulled out a 5-4 win in Game 2 of the ALDS in dramatic fashion. But it wasn’t just that they averted defeat, oh no. No, the Royals of 2014 showed up and returned some ‘Royals Devil Magic’.
Let’s start with what I felt was a bit of a turning point. In the 5th inning it appeared the Royals changed their philosophy at the plate. Earlier in the game they appeared to be swinging at Scott Kazmir’s pitches early in the count, a strategy that had mixed results. But in the 5th it felt like a light bulb went off in their heads and they realized that home plate Umpire Angel Hernandez wasn’t calling a consistent strike zone and to play that to their advantage. So the Royals started taking more pitches, driving Kazmir’s pitch count up and forcing him to throw strikes. This would pay off in spades come the 6th inning.
Lorenzo Cain would start things off the festivities in the 6th with a 1 out double. Houston would pull Kazmir at this point and bring in lefty specialist Oliver Perez to face Eric Hosmer. The first two pitches Hosmer would flail at and it put him down 0-2 in the count. To say Hosmer did not look good on those two swings would be an understatement. Perez’s slider seemed to have Hosmer’s number, until pitch three, a pitch that Hosmer had no business actually making contact with. In fact, even Hosmer was unsure of what he hit:
Asked what pitch he hit off Oliver Perez for that RBI single, Eric Hosmer said he had no earthly clue.
This hit was huge. I had even sent a text out when it happened and said that exact thing, as I felt it was a game-changer and looked to remind the Royals they were still in this ballgame. It also set up an array of events that was very reminiscent of 2014, as Kendrys Morales would hit against the Houston shift and poke the ball to right field, followed by a walk to Mike Moustakas to load the bases. Josh Fields was in the game at this point for the Astros and would walk Salvador Perez on four pitches, bringing in the tying run. Seriously, Perez not only hit a solo home run earlier in the game, but also took not only this walk, but pushed another at bat earlier to a 3-2 count before striking out. If you follow the Royals in any manner, you know that Salvy very seldom walks and most of the time is swinging early and often. I don’t know if this is a new way of thinking for him or just a rare occurrence. What I do know is the game was tied now and the Royals confidence was soaring. I want to add a personal note here: from my vantage point in the stadium, the 6th inning made everyone stop and pay attention to what was developing. By the end of the inning no one was milling around to get food or drinks. No, from what I could see everyone had stopped what they were doing and was watching the Royals comeback. There are very few times I have seen this at a ballgame but it was a great sight to see everyone glued into the action.
Moving to the 7th inning(after a great top half of the inning thrown by Kelvin Herrera) and Alcides Escobar would leadoff the inning with a triple, a ball hit over the outfielder’s heads. The Astros notoriously play shallow in the outfield and it helped Esky in this case. Another interesting tidbit from this play: both Astros outfielders on that play(Jake Marisnick and George Springer) said after the game that neither could hear the other talking to each other as they scrambled for the ball at the fence. Yes, the Kansas City crowd was that loud!
Every player I talked to in the #Astros clubhouse tipped their cap to the crowd here at The K. Pat yourself on the back, #Royals fans.
This would bring Ben Zobrist to the plate and he would plate a single to left and bring in Escobar and give the Royals the lead:
A couple of tidbits here. First, that was the first lead the Royals would take in the series. Second, this was another aggressive at bat for Kansas City and I tend to think that is what the Royals need to do the rest of the playoffs. By nature this is an aggressive team that likes to use their speed and ability to put the ball in play to mess with other team’s defenses. In fact, very little of that aggressive attack was used in September, a month where the Royals struggled. Hopefully the Royals build off of this game and start employing a more aggressive attitude.
One final pivotal play. In the Top of the 9th and Wade Davis would issue a walk to pinch hitter Preston Tucker. Carlos Gomez would pinch run, and before even throwing another pitch would attempt a pick-off at first. The ump would call Gomez safe on a close throw, but the Royals would ask for a review of the play. The call would be reversed and Kansas City would go from one out and tying run on base to two outs and no one on.
A really big play for the Royals and Davis would get Jose Altuve out next to wrap up the win and the series was now tied at one game apiece headed to Houston.
So will the offense that showed up Friday afternoon stick around for the next couple games in Houston? There really is no way to tell but that game really felt like a momentum shift for this ballclub as they get set to face Keuchel in Game 3 on Sunday. The last time Kansas City faced Keuchel was in Kansas City back in July the Royals employed an all right-handed lineup against him and the Royals would win by a score of 5-1. Yes, Keuchel is going to be a tough challenge but he is not unbeatable. If the Royals can be aggressive at the plate and on the bases(and if Edinson Volquez can hold the Astros in check) then the Royals could be looking at another ‘W’ in the series. There has never been a greater time to step on the throttle and show the world what you are made of. If Kansas City plays like they did on Friday then it could be an early offseason for Houston. I might never completely rid myself of worrying about Kansas City collapsing late in the game, but I have never believed so much in a team like I have this one. The bad times might not ever completely go away, but the good times are the games I will hold onto forever.
It’s that time of year, where the leaves turn colors, the hoodies are dragged out of the closet and, if you are lucky, your favorite baseball team can start thinking about the playoffs. This also means that as a fan you can start piecing together how you think your team’s playoff roster will look. As a Kansas City Royals fan, we never knew this was a ‘thing’, since up until last year we never had to worry about the Royals playing October baseball. But with Kansas City’s magic number currently sitting at ‘3’, it is pretty safe to say they will be playing past October 4th and hopefully deeper into the postseason. With that said, I was asked over the weekend what I thought the Royals playoff roster would look like. So here is my guess, although to be honest it looked a bit different than on Friday.
Catchers(2): Salvador Perez, Drew Butera
Infielders(5): Eric Hosmer, Ben Zobrist, Alcides Escobar, Mike Moustakas, Christian Colon
Obviously, this was fairly easy, since you have the four starting infielders and a backup. Originally I felt like Omar Infante would get picked over Colon, despite the fact that Colon is more versatile whereas Infante is solely a second baseman. Then Omar came up with an oblique injury on Friday, which could sideline him for close to a month if not longer. As most also know, Zobrist can also play the outfield so he could almost be counted as an infielder and an outfielder if necessary.
Outfielders(5):Alex Gordon, Lorenzo Cain, Alex Rios, Jarrod Dyson, Jonny Gomes
There was some debate just a week ago that Rios could be on the outside looking in for a roster spot due to his poor performance most of this year. Then he went out last week, continuing his hot hitting since his return from the chickenpox(which is not a minor league team in the Frontier League) and pretty much sewed up a spot for the playoffs. In my mind this pushed Paulo Orlando off the team, as I think the Royals will want Jonny Gomes’ bat for pinch hitting late in the game or against a tough lefthander. I had an argument with someone over Gomes being on the team, as I am of the belief that he was acquired for the sole purpose of being used in the playoffs while this other person who will not be named believes he won’t because the Royals aren’t using him much. I guess we will see, but in the playoffs I can’t see the reasoning behind six outfielders, or having Orlando on the team for solely defensive purposes. But, there might be a spot for him otherwise, which I will get to later.
DH(1):Kendrys Morales
Starting Pitchers(4): Johnny Cueto, Yordano Ventura, Edinson Volquez, Kris Medlen
This seems pretty self-explanatory, especially once Danny Duffy was sent to the bullpen. I still laugh when thinking about some of the Royals fans believing that Cueto might not be on this roster if he continued to under-perform. The wild card in this group is Yordano Ventura; if he pitches like he has over the last 4-6 weeks then he will be a solid number two. If he reverts back to his form from earlier this year there could be an issue. I also think Medlen could be a major player, which seems a bit inconceivable considering where he was at when the season started(starting the climb back from Tommy John Surgery). This isn’t the most solid group but if they can go 5-6 innings every game in the playoffs, hopefully the bullpen can do the rest.
Relievers(8):Wade Davis, Kelvin Herrera, Ryan Madson, Franklin Morales, Danny Duffy, Luke Hochevar, Chris Young, Greg Holland
Speaking of, the bullpen is still a strong suit for this Kansas City team but not quite the monster it was last year. Greg Holland has fallen from grace and it was announced earlier today that Wade Davis is the closer going forward while Holland’s role on the team is to be determined. It also came to light that Holland has been dealing with an elbow issue since the All-Star break and isn’t reliable enough to close games for Kansas City. I’m not shocked to learn Holland was hurt, as I have suspected it most of this year, but this puts a giant question mark into the playoff roster. Can Holland be relied on to perform in any close game, even if that means coming in as early as the 6th inning? Or is he past the point of being trusted in such a situation and be completely left off the roster? I really don’t have an answer to this, but I also know manager Ned Yost is a loyal person and might keep Holland around for that reason only. The other options would be to leave him off while adding Paulo Orlando to the team, trusting that a 7-man bullpen is good enough in the ALDS, or you add young pitcher Miguel Almonte to the pen. Almonte has been a mixed bag so far in September and probably isn’t ready for the big stage, but he does have electric stuff and if used in the proper situation could be a viable option. IF Holland is left off the roster, Orlando very well could be the one given the nod.
The other roster question for the bullpen is whether to go with Chris Young or Jeremy Guthrie as the long reliever. I know there some Royals fan snickering right now for even mentioning Guthrie, but hear me out. Over the weekend I felt like it could be Guthrie, since he was given the starting nod once Duffy was shuffled to the pen and because Chris Young hasn’t been used much over the last couple months. In fact, in August Young didn’t throw more than an inning in any outing, and only appeared in five games during the entire month. Young does have a 2 and a 3 inning outing so far in September, but I would imagine his arm isn’t stretched out like it normally would be. Plus, I couldn’t imagine Young, an extreme fly ball pitcher, to see any action in Toronto, New York, or even Arlington or Houston’s ballparks. Those ballparks are pretty much all hitter’s parks, or in other words a nightmare for a guy who gives up lots of fly balls. So the only action Young would see would probably be at Kauffman Stadium and that cuts down how often you could use him. But then Guthrie looked atrocious on Tuesday night against Seattle and pretty much assured that he would be left off of any and all playoff rosters. Great guy, but Guthrie has had an awful season that isn’t getting better. So Young gets the nod over Guthrie, but hopefully there won’t be much of a need for him come October.
So there you go, my guess as to what the Royals first round playoff roster will look like. Like I said, there could be a few slight changes to this and with a week and a half left in the season there is the possibility someone else could get hurt or there could be a need for a bit more depth in an area I hadn’t thought of. At the end of the day it is great to even be able to have this conversation, no matter how much bickering goes on about which player stays or goes. With September being a rough month, I think I speak for lots of Royals fans by saying “let’s just start the playoffs already”. Trust me, it will be here soon enough, as we get to engulf ourselves in another ‘Blue October’.
Sure, there are series’ that are ho-hum and feel like just another day at the office. Then there are ones that are more important, or at least important to the mind. As we speak the Detroit Tigers are in last place in the American League Central, a once strong powerhouse now turned into a tamed kitty. Over the last five years we have seen the Tigers spank the Royals on such a regular basis that most of us got used to the routine. But the last two years have been a different story, as Kansas City has held their own and even taken a number of important games from the Tigers. So to say it felt good this week to see the Royals take two of three from Detroit would be an understatement. To see Kansas City pound the ‘Boys from Motown’ well, that felt great. Two blowouts of a division rival is enough to put the biggest smile on any fans face. So how did we get here? All it took was some solid all around baseball to get to your answer.
Series MVP: Kendrys Morales
There was some tough competition for this honor, as Lorenzo Cain and Ben Zobrist both put up some hefty numbers in these last three games. But Kendrys Morales was an offensive juggernaut against Detroit, going 8 for 14 with 2 home runs, 8 RBI’s, a BAbip of .600 and raised his OPS over 20 points. The first of his two home runs was hit on Tuesday night, in the Royals one loss in this series:
Morales would get another deep blast on Wednesday night, driving in 3 runs that night.
Statcast had that Kendrys Morlaes blast at 421 feet with 107 mph exit velocity. #Royals
He came just a few feet short of a third home run in this series on Thursday, but had to settle for a double and 4 RBI’s. Morales is currently sitting at 98 RBI’s with four weeks left in the season but I can almost guarantee he won’t reach the all-time leader for RBI’s by a Royals designated hitter. Hal McRae owns that honor, driving in 133 runs back in 1982. Morales has shown this year that he still has some gas left in the tank(I will fess up to being one that thought he had begun his regression) and has been a vital cog in the middle of this Royals batting order. Morales has been hot as of late(.327/.417/.635 over these last two weeks) and hopefully he can continue this hot streak all the way into October.
Pitching Performance of the Series: Yordano Ventura
Most concerns about Yordano Ventura were alleviated with his start on Wednesday night, a start that showcased just how dominate he can be. Ventura went 7 innings, giving up 5 hits and 1 run while walking 1 and striking out 11. That is two consecutive starts that ‘Ace’ has struck out 11, a feat only duplicated by a few other Royals:
Ventura at 11K for 2nd straight game. Joins Kevin Appier (1996) and Bret Saberhagen (1989) as only Royals with back to back 11 or more K
In fact Ventura has looked more like the pitcher we envisioned he would be this year over his last five starts, stringing together some numbers that can put a smile on even the most pessimistic fan’s face:
Over his last 5 starts, Ventura: 32.0 IP, 20 H, 4 ER, 13 BB, 43 K. 1.13 ERA, 3-0 record + tonight. #Royals
The most impressive part of his outing was how Ventura was able to mix his curveball and change-up in with his electric fastball. In fact, Ventura used his fastball only 57% of the time, while his curve was used 25% and the change-up 16%. Going back to the end of July and Ventura was using his fastball more(62%) while only using his curve sparingly(14%), even throwing in a few cutter’s. When Yordano has a good feel for his off-speed pitches he can set batters up with his fastball and then get them by throwing something off-speed. He has been able to do that a lot more this past month and if this is the Ventura we see the rest of the season, he easily locks down a spot in the postseason rotation.
Down Goes Detroit! Down Goes Detroit!
The Royals offense is a curious thing. It’s not nearly as bi-polar as in year’s past, but it still has their moments. Then there are games like Wednesday and Thursday, where the Royals bats were so hot that I expected to see smoke rising off of them. Kansas City was able to get Detroit’s starters out of both games early, leaving the Tigers bullpen to try and stop the bleeding. Problem is, the Tigers pen is one of the worst in baseball. The Tigers pen has a -0.3 WAR so far this year(28th in baseball), 2nd highest FIP, 71% LOB percentage(26th in baseball) and an ERA of 4.76, the 2nd highest in baseball and highest in the American League.
There's a reason the Tigers bullpen has the worst ERA in the American League. 15 runs now on the night for the Royals, 9 vs Detroit's pen
So you can see why the Royals eyes got larger and feasted on this atrocity of a bullpen. It should be no surprise why Morales, Cain, Cuthbert, Orlando and Zobrist all contributed with home runs in this series and why the offensive numbers were off the table for these three games. In years past Detroit has been able to get away with a creaky bullpen due to their solid rotation and aggressive hitting. Now that some of those key parts have been traded and the team has had to deal with injuries, that pen becomes a giant bullseye for all teams to target. Knock out the Tigers starters and you have a good chance of picking up a ‘W’.
Plenty of more goodness coming from this series win for the Royals. Brace yourself; time to spill out some news and notes from this first week of September:
Alex Gordon was activated on Tuesday, which was great news for those of us that worried Gordon would be lost for the rest of the season when he went down back in July. Instead, he made a quick recovery and got a heroes ovation in his first at bat back:
He would get a sac fly in that at bat, helping put Kansas City on the board. Gordon is a big part of this Royals team and having his back is nothing but a plus. It appears he will be batting 6th most of the time this month, but don’t be surprised if we see him hitting leadoff come October:
Ned says Esky stays at leadoff for now but when Gordon gets up to speed he will be considered. He likes Zobrist hitting second. #Royals
It’s almost like the Royals didn’t miss a beat. It does appear as if Alex will be rested fairly often, as he has been in the lineup about every other day since Tuesday. I am totally on board with this, as we want him as rested as possible before October rolls around. So yes, I am excited Gordon is back. But I’m not the only one:
Good acquisition by Dayton Moore, as Gomes could be a solid bat off the bench in the playoffs. It also appears as if this trade was made because of the uncertainty of Alex Rios’ condition. Speaking of…
Word trickled out on Tuesday that Rios and Kelvin Herrera both came down with a case of chickenpox:
Ned confirms that Rios and Herrera have chicken pox. Rest of clubhouse Ok. Out 1-2 weeks. #Royals
It’s a little unclear how this affects the team going forward. It looks like both players will be cleared to return in about another week, but chickenpox is much worse if you get it as an adult:
So it will be interesting to see if there is a period where Rios and Herrera play at not quite full speed. The good news is that it appears no one else on the team came down with the illness. It also appears as if we don’t have to worry about Morales and Gomes:
I've seen Kendrys Morales play defense and I'm telling you, there's no way he can catch chickenpox.
There is a good chance we see quite a bit out of these guys, as manager Ned Yost rests his regulars throughout this month. It also appears this could be all we see of players recalled from the minors:
I don't expect to see Kyle Zimmer among the Royals' Sept. additions. Don't really have the need with massive division lead.
It also helps when you blow the other team out of the water for two straight nights. Just saying.
Justin Verlander started against the Royals Tuesday and was coming off of his one-hit effort against the Angels last week. But Verlander has a history with Kansas City:
Justin Verlander faces Royals tonight. Has allowed 1ER in 29 IP over his last 4 starts. Gave up 10 hits & 5ER vs Royals in start before that
Verlander went 6.2 innings, giving up 7 hits and 4 runs(2 earned) while walking 1 and striking out 4. The Royals didn’t dominate him but you could also say the same about Verlander. Maybe it’s because the two teams play each other so much, but it definitely seems like the Royals are not fooled by Verlander. Verlander might look more like the Verlander of old, but the Royals are not impressed.
The Royals celebrated their ‘Franchise Four’, which was selected by the fans before the All-Star game this summer. George Brett, Frank White, Bret Saberhagen and Dan Quisenberry were chosen for this honor and it was great to see three of the honorees on the field this week:
All four men hold a special place in my fandom, as they were all prevalent stars when I began watching baseball in the 1980’s. It was also great to see Frank White out there, as he has been at odds with Royals management over the years and has only been at a few games since his firing a few years ago. I had been asked when this voting was going on who my four would be, and this was who I chose. I think there are legitimate arguments for the likes of Willie Wilson, Kevin Appier and Amos Otis, but I think the fans chose the right four. Hopefully we get to see White return next month to throw out a first pitch before a playoff game. Yes, fingers are crossed.
Finally, Johnny Cueto struggled in his start on Tuesday, the third straight start he has had issues. There was lots of concern about Cueto, but I’m not one of them. If he looked like he was compensating on the mound for an injury, or even had a loss of velocity I would have my worries. But it appears his problems are purely location:
Cueto missing his spots. Look where Sal Perez' glove started/finished on Kinsler RBI single: pic.twitter.com/mh3IdtJRJn
Dave Eiland has already worked with Cueto and they think they have fixed an issue with his arm slot. Remember, three starts is a small sample size and while it is a bit concerning, we are talking about one of the best pitchers of the last four years:
Most of us have been in a playoff frame of mind for awhile now, but Kansas City not only has to lock down the Central, but also home field advantage in the playoffs. Regulars will be rested during this month, but they also need to keep their eyes on the prize. The White Sox are headed into Kauffman Stadium this weekend to take on the Royals and while they haven’t performed up to expectations this year, they have given the Royals fits throughout the year. Kind of like that gnat that lingers and won’t go away, no matter how often you shoo it away. So by no means will this be an easy series. At this point, every win is another game closer to lowering that magic number. There will also be a battle for the 4th starter spot for the playoffs, which at this point looks to be between Kris Medlen and Danny Duffy. Three games up, hopefully at least two go in the win column. Steady wins the race, as has been the case all year for the Kansas City Royals.
In the old days, you would play all the teams in your designated league the same amount of times. It didn’t matter whether you were a Central division team or an East team, you play each other the same amount of times as the teams within your own division. That was changed a few years ago and teams now play the teams within your division the majority of the time. That means a team like the Kansas City Royals only play the teams in the “other” division twice per year(one at home, one on the road). So this series with the Tampa Bay Rays wrapped up the two teams time together this year, as the Royals won the previous series at Kauffman Stadium. That series saw the Royals sweep Tampa Bay; this one saw the Royals take two of three. This put the Royals at 80 wins with 32 games remaining and leads to a number of varying topics coming out of this series at ‘The Trop’.
Series MVP: Lorenzo Cain
This section felt like it could be a toss-up, with both Kendrys Morales and Mike Moustakas getting heavy consideration. But the more consistent hitter in this series was Lorenzo Cain, who went 3 for 9 with 2 runs, 2 RBI’s, 4 walks and 2 stolen bases. Cain did what he has done for most of this year, which is basically a little bit of everything. I decided to take a deeper look into just how good Cain has been and I have had a hard time finding something that Cain has done worse this year than last. Walk percentage? Up. Strikeout percentage? Down. Slugging and On Base percentage are both up as is his wRC+ and WAR. He is hitting the ball harder and hitting the ball more consistently to all fields than ever before in his career. Literally the only thing that is down from last year is Cain’s BAbip, which is at .357 from last year’s .380. But the argument there can even be made that this is due almost entirely to his increased home run numbers. There has been a lot of discussion about what the Royals will do once Alex Gordon is activated and just how the lineup will shake out. I’m pretty sure that no matter the changes in the batting order, Cain will remain in the third spot, his home for this entire 2015 campaign. It’s even conceivable at this point that Cain will end up in the top five of the voting for the American League MVP race, as he should:
It has been a marquee season for a player who at one time we just worried he wouldn’t be able to stay healthy, let along put up numbers that would put him into consideration for the highest honor in the league.
Pitching Performance of the Series: Edinson Volquez
When the season wraps up, I am going to go back and check just how many times Volquez got this honor, since it seems to happen quite frequently. Volquez spun another good game on Friday night, going 6.2 innings, giving up 6 hits and 2 runs(1 earned) while walking 2 and striking out 5. It was another quality start for ‘Easy Eddie’ and gave him a game score of 59. At this point Volquez is probably in line to be the #2 or #3 starter in the rotation in the playoffs and has earned that right this year. I’ve asked the question before ‘which Dayton Moore signing has been more important this offseason, Kendrys Morales or Volquez?’ and as great of an impact as Morales has had on the Royals lineup(and it has been a big impact), I tend to lean toward Volquez. Earlier in the season(before the Johnny Cueto trade), Volquez was the only consistent starter in the rotation as Yordano Ventura, Danny Duffy and Jeremy Guthrie all struggled. Volquez has been the stopper for this rotation, a guy who holds the other team in check and allows his team to win, thwarting off any threats or long losing streaks. Without Volquez being a steady force in the rotation, I’m not sure the Royals sit here right before September with the biggest division lead in the league. Without Volquez, this very well could be a much tighter race that what lingers in front of them.
(AP Photo/Mike Carlson)
TOOTBLAN or Foul Ball?
Sure, the Royals won this series. But most of what has been discussed has been a pivotal play in Sunday’s game that Kansas City lost. The Royals are down in the Top of the 8th inning, 3-2, with runners on 1st and 3rd and 1 out. Morales hits a little chopper down the first base line and then…
On first instinct I felt that was a TOOTBLAN(Thrown Out On The Basepaths Like A Nincompoop) on Morales’ part and one of the worst plays I have seen this year. But the more I watch the play I tend to think even though it is bad, there were a number of issues that should be pointed out. First off, the ball appeared to be foul once James Loney grabbed it. In fact I am assuming that is why Morales didn’t run. There was also no definite call from the home plate umpire, who had the best view of that ball. The first base ump called the ball fair, which I believe is what the home plate ump went off of. I should probably point out here that the play is non-reviewable, which is a bigger conundrum for Kansas City. Saying all that, some blame falls on Morales. He had to have seen the first base umpire call the ball fair, which meant he should have run. Even if he didn’t see it, you should assume it is fair unless otherwise called. I get he thought it was foul and in the postgame manager Ned Yost said “we don’t run out foul balls”. That is fine, except in a scenario like that you run and ask questions later. That major flaw is on Morales as he should have ran no matter what. It looks really bad when a rally is snuffed out while you are just standing at home plate, an easy out for the catcher to make. This might not be a TOOTBLAN at the end of the day, but it is still bad fundamental baseball, which is a shock since the Royals don’t make many fundamental errors. This probably cost the Royals at least a chance of tying up the game and maybe even costing them a victory. Hopefully it is remembered and next time the batter runs to first, foul or not.
(AP Photo/Steve Nesius)
It was an exciting three games at Tropicana Field and much more went on than just what is above this line. For more on the Royals and Rays series, read on:
The Rays played a tribute video to former Ray and current Royal Ben Zobrist before Friday night’s game. It was a great gesture to a guy who played many years in Tampa and had become just as synonomous to the team as Evan Longoria. The Rays even acknowledged his greatness with some sabermetric love:
As part of their video tribute to Ben Zobrist, the Rays noted that he led MLB in WAR from 2009 to 2012.
One can only hope that Kansas City has made a great impression on Zobrist and makes his decision this offseason a little bit easier. It would help though if Zobrist doesn’t make any enemies:
Ben Zobrist hasn't bought Rusty Kuntz that leafblower. Rusty picked out the one he wanted, but he's worried it's unmanageable for his wife.
There is also his ability to hit a home run in the catwalk at ‘The Trop’:
You always hear how each stadium has their own set of quirky rules. Wrigley Field has the ivy, Houston has Tal’s Hill(for now), and Tropicana has those catwalks. Luckily the call went Kansas City’s way and Morales came away with a homer. Folks, that stadium is ugly. Let’s hope they get a new one before MLB decides to ship them up to Montreal.
The Royals bullpen as of late feels like the walking wounded. Wade Davis had back issues, Greg Holland has been dealing with a cranky elbow(I have to feel that has been going on most of this season) and now Ryan Madson has a dead arm:
Ryan Madson is dealing with a wicked case of dead arm. He hasn't pitched since Aug. 22, and his right arm is still sore to the touch.
This was to be expected. Madson hadn’t pitched in the big leagues since 2011 and has thrown 51 innings so far this year. Hopefully a little rest will help keep him healthy and available for the playoffs. Now if only the Royals could find a cure for Jeremy Guthrie’s “Longball-itis”.
Speaking of Guthrie, he held a little bit of a friendly competition with the Tampa Bay ballboy this weekend:
I often feel like Major League Baseball isn’t always the best at promoting their players and why they are so great. Guthrie might be relegated to long reliever status and might not appear in very many games going forward, but he still managed to have fun and put a smile on that kid’s face. THIS is the stuff you promote about your game. THIS is just one of many examples about what is so great about this game and it’s players.
Yet another good series for Mike Moustakas this weekend, as he compiled another accomplishment to his long list of new career hights this season:
.@Mooose_8 has 10 extra-base hits in his last 9 games. He also has hit 5th 2-double game of 2015 after 6 in career entering season.
A lot of praise this season will go to Lorenzo Cain and Eric Hosmer, but Mike Moustakas has put together a season he should be proud of. Lets hope he finishes strong and shows that early season surge was not a fluke.
Danny Duffy had some good and some bad in his outing this past Sunday. On the positive, Duffy figured out early that the umpire was calling the low strike and took advantage of it, striking out six in his 5 innings of work. Craig Brown of Royals Authority went into greater detail about Duffy’s outing, and like him I still cringe at Duffy’s pitch count. Duffy threw 99 pitches in those 5 innings when the Royals probably would have preferred he go 6 or 7 innings. The difference in this start was not balls thrown by Duffy but the foul balls. Duffy had 22 pitches fouled off in this game and overall this season batters have fouled off 19% of pitches he throws. I think we all would like to see a more efficient Danny Duffy, but for that to happen he has to limit his pitch count to go deeper into the game. Because of this there is a good chance he could be pitching out of the bullpen come October rather than as a starter. At this point, it would appear Kris Medlen could be taking Duffy’s spot in the rotation come playoff time.
Finally, it appears the Platinum Glove Award winner will be returning this week:
It is "reasonable" to expect Alex Gordon will be recalled next week, Ned Yost says. I bet you see him in KC on Tuesday.
The big question now is where will Gordon bat in the lineup upon his return? The 6th spot where he was hitting earlier in the year is now inhabited by Mike Moustakas, who has been hitting lights out as of late. Honestly, the best idea is to bat him leadoff, sending Alcides Escobar down in the lineup, especially considering his hitting throughout August:
Worst hitters in August (wRC+) J. Bruce (-6) K. Wong (26) J. Segura (29) T. Saladino (31) A. Rodriguez (34) A. Escobar (39) J. Lowrie (42)
Batting Gordon and Zobrist at the top of the lineup makes the most sense, since those are your two best OBP hitters. If the Royals really want to maximize their offense, placing Gordon near the top of the lineup would be the wisest move. I guess we will find out Tuesday what Ned Yost has in mind when it comes to lineup construction going forward.
The beginning of that journey begins on Tuesday, as the Tigers stroll into town for three games at ‘The K’, followed by three against the White Sox. Tuesday night’s game could be fun, as Johnny Cueto faces off against Justin Verlander, who will be making his first start since he almost no-hit the Angels. Tuesday should also be fun, as it looks to be the return of Alex Gordon. The Royals are in the driver’s seat as the playoffs loom and it is the pole position we have all yearned to be in this spot for the last 30 years. Buckle up, kiddos; we are getting ready to go on a fantastic ride.
Going into this series in ‘Beantown’ we all knew what loomed in front of the Kansas City Royals. The Royals had gone 7-10 against Boston the last three seasons, including 1-2 against the Red Sox earlier this year at Kauffman Stadium. Logic would tell you that with Boston holding down the American League East cellar(and it’s not even close) and Kansas City dominating the American League Central, well, it seemed like everything would come up blue this series. But that is why they play the games, right? The Royals were able to get out of town splitting the series 2-2 which after Friday seemed like a minor miracle. But this series wasn’t all tea parties and marathons. Nope, we also got some big league baseball in. Trust me, read on.
(AP Photo/Winslow Townson)
Series MVP: Mike Moustakas
If I was going purely off of batting average(and no one should do that), I might have picked Alex Rios for this honor. No, really. But after Sunday’s game, there was only one player who deserves this. Moustakas was 5 for 12 this series with 2 doubles, 2 home runs, 5 RBI’s, a walk and 4 runs scored. But the bigger story from this series was how impactful he was to the Royals victories on both Saturday and Sunday. On Saturday, Moustakas would sharply single to left in the 6th inning after a Kendrys Morales walk to keep the rally going. Salvador Perez would then line a 3-run homer to the right field bullpen to take a 5-0 lead. Moustakas has become pull-happy again the last couple months and it was a nice sign to see him take the ball the other way, which was the main reason for his success in the first few months of the season. Then on Sunday, he would hit an ‘Oppo Taco’ in the 6th inning over the Green Monster, another pitch taken the opposite way. If you are wondering why all of a sudden he has returned to this new-old approach, it is all thanks to hitting coach Dale Sveum. Sveum has been working with Moose as of late to start hitting the ball the opposite way, as Moustakas had been trying to add some power to his game that was missing those first few months. The best thing would be for Moose to meld these two things, which is kind of what Lorenzo Cain has done this year with better pitch recognition. But this is a new road that Moustakas is venturing down, so it could take some time to mix both into his game. That being said, his at bat in the 9th inning on Sunday was the crown jewel of his work this series. The bases were loaded in the 9th with the score tied and Moustakas at the plate:
The at bat would go 9 pitches, as Moustakas would foul off numerous pitches before getting the one he could drive, which turned into a 2-run double into right center that would end up being the game winner.
It was a fabulous at bat and one that only a couple of Royals(Gordon, Zobrist) would probably have been capable of having. Moose would get 3 hits in this game, driving in 4 and continuing his improvement from his woeful 2014 season. It would turn out to be a great series for the ‘Man Called Moose’, both offensively and defensively.
Pitching Performance of the Series: Yordano Ventura
Since the early parts of this season we have wondered ‘which Yordano Ventura are we getting this start?’. Are we getting the one who could dominate hitters last year with his mix of triple digit heat and off-speed magic? Or the Ventura that leaves the ball out over the middle of the plate? Or the one who can’t find the strike zone? In a lot of his starts this year we’ve gotten some hybrid of all of these things. On Saturday though we got an efficient and quality style start from Yordano. Ventura went 6 innings, giving up 6 hits and 1 run while walking 1 and striking out 6. It was another quality start for ‘Ace'(his third in a row) and helped push him to a game score of 61.
.@YordanoVentura_ in a nice groove his last 3 starts. 1.42 ERA and a huge key, opponents are just .111 with runners on base.
The best part of the start was his improvement the last few starts to get himself out of jams with very little if any runners crossing the plate. It also appears as if Ventura is getting more confidence with his off-speed pitches, which is a must for him. Sure, he can dial up the 100 MPH heater and try to blow it past hitters. But a big league hitter can time a fastball and will sit on it, as they have been this year. But if he has confidence in his change-up and curve, that makes one more weapon in his arsenal and make the batter less comfortable in the batters box. He still isn’t quite back to old form, but like Ned said after the game:
“Looks to me like he’s starting to get his swagger back. He’s executing his pitches and getting his confidence back.”
The Strike Zone(And Bad Defense) And the Damage Done
Thursday night was not a good game for the boys in blue. Early on it was evident that the strike zone from the last series might have creeped over into Boston:
Duffy almost at 30 pitches in 1st inning. Ump looks to be more in favor with the low strike tonight. #Royals
Now, part of this wasn’t on Danny Duffy. Obviously the umpire had a smaller strike zone than normal and was causing some problems for Duffy. But he was also favoring the low strike and Duffy didn’t adjust. After sitting through Wednesday’s abomination, I wasn’t in the mood for another long, drawn out ‘Ump Show’:
I don't complain about umps, but these last 2 nights have not been quality umping. A bigger strike zone is a better strike zone. #Royals
It didn’t help any that the Royals defense was not on point like they normally are. Paulo Orlando misplayed a few balls in left field and overall the Royals just didn’t look like themselves. By the time it was all said and done, Duffy was able to go 5 innings(which I didn’t imagine would happen early on in the game), giving up 7 hits, all 4 Boston runs while walking 2 and striking out 3. It felt like a step back for Duffy, who had been trending upwards over his last few starts. It was bad enough that for about an inning and a half Denny Matthews and Ryan Lefebvre discussed Toronto, Kansas, a small town about half an hour from where I grew up. Trust me when I say that Toronto is not worth an inning and a half of discussion. Just trust me on this one.
Time now for the Good, the Bad and the Ugly from the four game set in Boston:
One of the big reasons that Boston is in last place and why Kansas City is in first in their division is defense. The Royals are the best defensive team in the league. Boston is not:
Pablo Sandoval and Hanley Ramirez combine for a staggering -30 Defensive Runs Saved.
I remember before the season started MLB Network claimed Hanley Ramirez was the best left fielder in baseball. Offensively we all knew he could be a force. But you have to factor defense in there and he has looked even worse than Manny Ramirez did out there. Offense is good but a great defense is good for the long haul.
It was announced when we would finally see Kris Medlen start a game for the Royals:
Jeremy Guthrie has been moved to the pen, as Medlen will take his spot in the rotation. This has to be a move to see if Medlen can contribute as a starter in postseason play. I think it’s a good move, since Medlen has pitched good in relief and he has shown he can be a top shelf starter in the past. Hopefully all goes well and we are talking about Kris starting a game in October.
Omar Infante went 0 for 31 before getting a hit on Sunday:
Omar Infante is at 31 consecutive at-bats without a hit. The Royals franchise record for position players is 44, set by Joe Keough in 1969.
Infante would try for an inside the park home run in the top of the 9th of that game, but would get thrown out at home thanks to a nice throw from left fielder Jackie Bradley, Jr. It was not a pretty slide at home. Mud will stop a man.
Speaking of Omar, him and Alex Rios finally found out how long their leash would extend:
Ned Yost, at last, acknowledged the obvious today: Both Infante and Rios need to produce to prove they belong in the starting lineup.
Rios would contribute by getting back to back multiple hit games while Infante would contribute with 2 hits on Sunday. Yost seemed to have lit a fire under their butts; let’s hope they continue to play above what they have done up to this point in 2015.
I mentioned earlier that Salvador Perez hit a big home run in Saturday night’s game at Fenway. It was not only a crucial blow to the Red Sox, but also a milestone for Perez:
Salvy HR!! He sets a career high with his 18th HR of the season! #Royals
Personally, I loved the fact the ball was jacked to right field, which means Salvy went oppo. Like Moustakas, Perez has become very pull-happy, although this goes back a couple of years now. It would be nice to see Perez start using the opposite field a bit more, since it would help his declining offensive numbers over the last few years. Even a little bit would make a big difference.
Finally, Johnny Cueto easily had his worst start in a Royals uniform on Friday night and his worst start of 2015. Cueto went 6 innings, giving up 13 hits and 7 runs(6 earned) while walking none and striking out 3. This lead to a game score of only 23(his previous worse game score was 35 back in May against Atlanta) in a game that Boston dominated. The bottom line is that starts like this happen; as long as they aren’t the norm there is nothing to worry about. But what everyone wanted to talk about when it came to Cueto this weekend was a radio interview where he said he would be interested in signing with Boston in the offseason because he wants to play with a “championship caliber team”. First, I don’t worry too much about players who will be free agents discussing possible destinations. It is a part of the game at this point and most players are fairly used to it. Hardly any player stays with one team for the duration of their career in this day and age. Second, Cueto is still new to the Royals so he isn’t heavily ingrained into the fabric of the Royals team chemistry. Third and finally, yes it was dumb of him to say Boston was a championship team, forgetting that Boston is in last place and Kansas City is in first. Yes, ignoring what the Royals have done this year is dumb. But we all knew when he was traded to the Royals he wouldn’t return to Kansas City next year. This is just him keeping his options open. Nothing to see here. Move on.
So the magic number now sits at 27 with with 39 games remaining this season. It seems like almost a guarantee that the Royals will wrap up the division and do that fairly soon. Kansas City has no time to rest, as the Baltimore Orioles are headed to town for a four game rematch of last year’s ALCS. We all remember what happened the last time Baltimore was at ‘The K’:
Sorry, just wanted to watch it again. I’m sure the Orioles remember this very clearly and will looking to gain back a pound a flesh in the form of a few victories. The Orioles are currently fighting for a wild card spot in the American League, as they are about a game a half out of the spot and about six games back in the American League East. It should be a fun series with lots of defensive action, as the Orioles are near the top of the defensive leader-board with Kansas City and Tampa Bay. I don’t normally predict anything before the series, but I will go ahead and do it here: Royals will take 3 out of 4 from the Orioles. If I am wrong I’m sure I will hear about it…and be forced to watch hours of Jonah Hill movies, which would be my own personal hell.
Sometimes a little competition is nice. With the Royals soundly dominating the American League Central and with the regular season winding down to about six weeks left, it seemed as good a time as any to have the Los Angeles Angels stroll into town. The Angels are currently in second place in the American League West and are in the conversation for one of the wild card spots in the league. Plus, the Angels have the best player in baseball, that wily veteran Mike Trout. So on paper this looked like a good matchup with the possibility of some very good baseball…and very good baseball is what we got.
(Photo by Ed Zurga/Getty Images)
Series MVP: Eric Hosmer
Eric Hosmer has been on fire. I don’t know what magic potion he took during the All-Star break, but since coming back he has been a dominant force. In these four games, Hosmer went 6 for 15, with 2 home runs, 6 RBI’s, a double, 4 walks and my adulation. First, there was this single plating a run on Thursday:
There was also this blast on Thursday night; just listen to the sound of the ball off the bat!
Statcast, by the way, had the Hoz homer at 410 feet with an exit velocity of 111 mph. #Royals
Hosmer is hitting right now like most of us felt he would when he first got the call to the big leagues. Since the start of the second half, he has a line of .397/.457/.655, driving in 26 runs in 31 games and has raised his wRC+ to 142(16th best in MLB). He has also driven in a run in 10 consecutive games:
Eric Hosmer is the 3rd player in Royals history to drive in a run in 10 straight games, joining Mike Sweeney (13) & Frank White (11)
There are so many things to gush about right now when it comes to Hosmer that I almost don’t know where to start. His patience at the plate, quiet hands, driving the ball and understanding the situation of the game have all been elevated in the last month and has turned him from a solid bat and glove at first base to a middle of the order basher. In fact, he is just punishing the ball right now:
Most batted balls 100 MPH+ in August: Hosmer 20 Zimmerman 18 Daniel Murphy 18 Chris Davis 17 David Ortiz 16http://t.co/P8B6r9g6V6
I had mentioned 4 years ago how I felt Hosmer could one day be an MVP candidate in the very near future. He seemed to have taken the long way there, but he might have finally arrived at his expected destination. He also has great hair:
Pitching Performance of the Series: Johnny Cueto
It shouldn’t be a surprise that Cueto has taken this category for two straight series. The funny thing is the Royals got quality starts out of all four of their starters this series and their game scores reflected that. Cueto’s line was most impressive: 8 innings, 8 hits and 1 run while hitting a batter and striking out 4. This lead to a game score of 66, which was just one point higher than Yordano Ventura’s on Sunday. This start was another example of why the Royals acquired Cueto; they needed a starter at the top of the rotation who can shut down an offense and give the bullpen a rest from time to time. Cueto accomplished all of those things on Saturday and with his last two starts has shown what he is capable come October.
Walk-Off Wonders
Up until July 3rd, the Royals had not gotten a walk-off win all year. Since then, they have piled up a number of memorable walk-off’s, none more memorable than Sunday night’s victory. One reason why it will probably stay etched in my brain for awhile is the fact that after the 1st inning the Royals didn’t get another hit until the 10th inning(33 batters in that span). Even in the bottom of the 9th inning, where the Royals rallied to tie the game on an Alex Rios sac fly, the Royals cobbled together three walks(more on that in a bit) but no hits. So finally the Royals broke through in the bottom of the 10th, as Ben Zobrist singled to right. That was followed a few batters later by a walk to Eric Hosmer(who had 3 walks in this game!) before Kendrys Morales ended the proceedings:
I almost wanted to yell at the players to Leave.Morales.Alone. He just has a bad history of celebrating walk-offs(no, I will not post that video here). These two teams dueled for 10 innings, turning the final game of this series into a nice pitchers duel for the most part. Even more, a chance for Morales to get the recognition he deserves for a great season so far:
5th career walk-off hit for Kendrys Morales– 1st with the Royals
Outside of maybe Zobrist or Hosmer, there is no one else on that team I would rather have up in that situation. Morales had a chance in the 9th to win, but hit a dribbler in front of the plate. An inning later, he redeemed himself and put another memory into what has been a magical season for these Kansas City Royals.
This four game set was chalked full of nice little tidbits. Let’s dive into the rest of what happened over the weekend in Kansas City:
After the Royals bullpen lost the game on Wednesday night against Detroit, the pen would lose another the next night against the Angels. Greg Holland, making his first appearance in five days, looked less than sharp and gave up 4 runs while not even getting a batter out:
The last time Greg Holland gave up more than 3 Runs in a game? August 27…… 2010. His 7th ever appearance. And it was over 2.1 IP.
Now, Holland has not looked like his normal dominating self for most of this season. But as of late his velocity has been on the incline and his arm slot has seemed a bit more consistent. There was a belief amongst the Royals coaches that part of the problem was Holland needs regular work to be consistent:
All of Greg Holland's blowups this season have come with four or more days rest. #Royals
There was a lot of talk this past weekend about the Royals bullpen and how it might be cracking. I’m not totally for sure I buy into that, if for no other reason than the fact that Holland hasn’t been his normal self all season. Add in that no team is going to hold a “perfect” pen and you have a few days where the bullpen under-performed. It happens. Like Greg Holland, lets move on and not worry about this until it becomes a weekly thing.
Salvador Perez returned to the lineup on Saturday and proceeded to hit a home run in his first at bat back:
His ejection might have actually been a godsend, as Drew Butera would come in and draw a walk in the 9th inning that helped prolong the inning and allow the Royals to tie up the score. I’m glad Salvy is back, but I also felt like the rest was good for him.
The Royals have been doing something recently that we are not accustomed to them doing:
.@Royals with 3 walks tonight. 33 in last 9 games. 1st time since August of 2013 KC has walked 2+ times in 9 straight games.
I am a big proponent of walks, since it does two things; it puts a runner on base and it also drives up the pitch count of the pitcher(and leave the pitcher more likely to make a mistake). I have long wanted this team to walk more, but for the most part had given up any hope of this becoming an arsenal in their offensive game. It does appear in some non-connected way that Ben Zobrist is rubbing off onto his new teammates:
Since debuting for KC on July 30, Ben Zobrist has 10 of the Royals' 40 walks.
I don’t want to give Zobrist all the credit, but he has lead the charge. It would be wise for this team to continue this philosophy, since it plays well in the postseason.
I mentioned earlier about the great starts by the rotation this series, as all four starters achieved quality starts. Guthrie and Duffy went 6 innings apiece while Ventura would go 7 innings, to go with Cueto’s eight. It has been nice to see both Duffy and Ventura improve from start to start, as they are a key part of this team when it comes to the playoffs. Cueto has been a nice influence on Ventura, as Ventura’s only real concern at this point is working on his location. These guys might not have quality starts every outing, but if they can compile numbers close to what they did this weekend they will help this team win more often than not.
Mike Sweeney was inducted into the Royals Hall of Fame on Saturday and there really couldn’t be a more deserving player to be given this honor:
As far back as BBRef has records, only 25 hitters were better with two outs and RISP than Mike Sweeney. He was as clutch as they came.
Unfortunately for Sweeney he played on some awful Royals teams, so he didn’t get to experience postseason play until after he left Kansas City. There is no one who was more deserving of getting to experience the Royals return to the playoffs than Sweeney. He bleeds Royal blue, folks. Here is clips from his Hall of Fame ceremony:
Jarrod Dyson celebrated his 31st birthday on Saturday the best way possible. Dyson went 3 for 4, drove in 3 runs and stole 2 bases. Dyson probably will never be a fulltime starter, but as a 4th outfielder and injury replacement he is perfect. If he could only hit lefties…
Speaking of Dyson, there has been a push as of late to replace right fielder Alex Rios with a Dyson/Paulo Orlando platoon, especially once the playoffs come around:
It's too early for postseason roster projections, but this evening bodes well for those advocating a Dyson/Orlando RF platoon.
I don’t know if it is the thumb and/or wrist injury, or just the normal regression of a player his age, but Rios is at a point in his career where he has zero power and his defense is average at best. Dyson and Orlando are both much superior defenders and offensively they won’t be a major upgrade, but they tend to get on base more than Rios. I say make the move before October; we will see if that happens or if Yost rides Rios through the rest of the regular season.
Finally, the Royals added depth to their pitching staff in AAA:
The Royals signed Wandy Rodriguez and Joba Chamberlain to minor-league deals. Both will report to Omaha.
I doubt either makes a serious impact with the big league club, but you can never have enough depth. Plus, they could eat some innings in September, letting some of the other pitchers get some rest. Chamberlain in particular could see some serious time out of the pen, if necessary.
Tweets of Royalty
Lorenzo Cain is on pace to finish the year w/ 40 2B, 9 3B, 17 HR & 30 SB. He would be the sixth to do so since 1901. http://t.co/K8v5ZCFOoQ
Only 45 games are left in the season and at this point it feels like the Royals will spend September loading up and getting all their ducks in a row for the playoffs. This week the Royals will have two games against Cincinnati, then wrap up the week with a four game series with Boston. The offense, defense and pitching all clicked for Kansas City this past weekend and they will need that to continue this week. Sure, the Reds and Red Sox are out of the race, but both teams can still cause problems. I really like of late that Ned Yost has been resting his starters on a regular basis, even if he always seems to rest Lorenzo Cain when I go to a game! There is a game plan in place and it looks to be unfolding as expected. It’s been a magical season in Kansas City this summer, but there is still some leg-work left to do before another ‘Blue October’!
Coming off of a ten game road trip that saw the Kansas City go 4-6, the Royals returned home this past weekend to take on division rivals the Chicago White Sox. The Royals last played Chicago in the second city to kick off the second half of the season, a series the Royals won. Would the same happen in Kansas City? Would the Royals bounce back from a rough series in Detroit? Would Salvador Perez get a Gatorade sponsorship? And would the Royals need Jedi help in their rotation this past weekend? All these answers lie ahead(well, most of them anyway!).
Series MVP: Lorenzo Cain
Friday night was a spotlight stealing night for Lorenzo Cain, as he would get a double, a triple and an RBI to help pace the Royals to a victory. Big night for Cain, but overall he would put forth a stellar series, going 3 for 7, while also scoring a run, stealing a base and slugging at an .857 clip. It really shouldn’t have been a surprise that Cain would step up this weekend:
Lorenzo Cain is hitting .419 with nine extra base hits in 11 games against the White Sox this year.
Looking at Lorenzo’s numbers this season breaks it down even more how much he has improved the last few years. Strikeouts are down, walks are up, average still sitting above .300 while already setting a career high in triples and home runs. Add in 20 stolen bases and a career high WAR of 5.9 and OPS+ of 133 and you have the making of an all around above average player. I think sometimes we take what guys like Cain and Hosmer do on defense as just daily plays that are the norm. They are the norm, but that does not mean they are ho-hum. Cain has elevated his game so much this year that it’s not hard to see him take the mantle of ‘best player on the Royals’ once Alex Gordon is no longer in Kansas City. Actually that day could come sooner than that, much sooner. The good part is that Cain isn’t eligible for free agency until 2018; the bad part is he could be quite expensive by then. Trust me, it is a good problem to have.
Pitching Performance of the Series: Kris Medlen
With credit going to Edinson Volquez’s great outing on Friday night, I was overjoyed with the performance of Kris Medlen on Sunday afternoon. After Danny Duffy left the game in the fourth inning, Medlen would come in for his first outing since Thursday(although in that contest he would face only one batter and throw only three pitches) and would shut down the White Sox. Medlen would go 3.2 innings, giving up no hits, and no runs while walking 1 and striking out 3. Medlen threw 69% strikes on Sunday and looked like the former ace he was in Atlanta. As much as we would all love to have Medlen in the rotation, we do have to remember he is coming off of Tommy John Surgery and at this point should just be thankful that he is healthy and able to pitch for the team. In a dream world, Medlen would be in the rotation come October, and we are not alone in that thinking:
Ned Yost says he would like to see Kris Medlen make a start before the end of the season. #Royals
I was just happy with how good he looked this weekend. He seemed to have good velocity on his fastball and he seemed to have a good feel for his off-speed pitches. We can’t expect Medlen to pitch like this every outing, but if this is what we see the majority of the time, then the rotation has sunnier day’s in their future.
Thanks For the Hugs, Melky
If you remember early in the season, whenever Melky Cabrera would get on base, he would hug some of his former teammates. Didn’t matter if it was Eric Hosmer, Alcides Escobar or Salvador Perez, Melky would proceed to embrace his friends. It was not only amusing to watch a grown man act like a child and show his affection, but it also seemed to drive Rex Hudler bonkers(calm down, Rex; the game has changed since you played). But while watching Melky this past weekend I started thinking about how much he loves these guys and I started pondering how much fun he would have if he was still with Kansas City. The thing is, he could have been a Royal again. This past winter, the Royals were on the hunt for a new right fielder to take the place of Nori Aoki. They had tried Torii Hunter but he returned to Minnesota. They had also talked to Melky about coming in, even offering him a contract fairly similar to what he got from Chicago. Chicago eventually won the Melky sweepstakes, but I found it interesting why he chose the White Sox over the Royals:
Cabrera “really wanted to win,” Rick Hahn, White Sox GM recalled. “(He said) ‘But with all due respect are you guys really in a position to win and am I really a difference maker for you?’ ”
So Chicago’s winter moves swayed Melky, or at least he felt like they had a better chance to win. The funny thing is, the Royals offered a deal somewhat similar to what Chicago gave him. I believe it was one less year, and possibly a few million less. But here was my thought this weekend: with the Royals in about the same situation as Chicago, at least when pertaining to their chance of winning, why would he not take a little less money to be around a bunch of guys that he really enjoys playing with? Now, Seattle did offer Cabrera an extra year, so maybe the years weren’t as big a deal but with the Royals offering something in the same ballpark, I just find it odd that he wouldn’t try to come back to Kansas City. I’m sure that White Sox locker room is full of quality guys; I don’t doubt that a bit. But the chance to win a championship and do that with a bunch of guys you think fondly of? I tend to think you can’t beat that. But obviously it was not meant to be, and instead the Royals end up with Alex Rios who looks about the same as the Alex Rios that was sapped of power last year in Texas. We can only imagine how much better this Royals team would have been with Melky roaming right field…
Seriously, Melky's face on the Diamond Vision looked sooo sad. Maybe he should have signed with KC. #Royals#ForeverRoyal
Time to slide on over and review some news and notes from this weekend sweep for Kansas City:
So Yordano Ventura has been an enigma this year. How has the guy who dominated the Giants in Game 6 of the World Series now have issues facing even lower level teams in the American League? Well, we might have finally have gotten a peak into what has been plaguing Yordano:
Yordano Ventura, 2015, opponents hitting: No runners on: .211/.289/.326 Runners on: .356/.394/.589
The entire article is here and it definitely goes into some major detail as to what ails “Ace”. It’s been noticeable that with runners on Ventura has been leaving more pitches out over the middle of the plate. His Babip has also been crazy this year, .309 to last year’s .288. The biggest obstacle Ventura is going to run into is figuring out how to get hitters to quit sitting on his fastball and forcing them to swing at the off-speed stuff. As frustrating as it has been, he is still young and has plenty of time to adjust and return to form. It would just be nice if that could happen before October.
Good news on the Alex Gordon front; he is now taking batting practice:
Just imagine a September lineup with Gordon back in left field and Ben Zobrist at second base. Yep, hard not to get excited about what we could see in October with this team.
Over the years, John Danks has confused Kansas City hitters. Before this year, Danks was 9-0 against Kansas City and had only given up 28 runs in 104 innings against the Royals. So far this season, Danks is 2-2 against the Royals, giving up 10 runs over 23 innings. The Royals haven’t completely solved Danks, but it’s no longer a guarantee that he will put up a ‘W’ whenever throwing against Kansas City like it used to be.
Wade Davis did not pitch in this series as his back continues to give him problems:
Yost says Wade Davis unavailable again w/ stiff back. Could've pitched but with lead in division, don't want to push or risk further injury
If this was last year, Davis would probably be asked to pitch through it and increase the chances of injuring himself even further. Instead, with a big lead in the American League Central, Davis can sit out and heal. Davis, at this point, is more important in October than August.
Saturday night, Greg Holland looked like the “Dirty South” of old. His breaking pitches had proper dive and his fastball was popping, reaching 97 mph on the radar gun. Holland has been hovering around 93 mph most of this year, so seeing the uptick in velocity is a definite plus. It’s been rumored most of this season that Holland had an injury(and he still might), but Kansas City management has to breathe easier knowing Holland seems to be pitching more like his old self as we reach the last few months of the season.
On Sunday, Kendrys Morales would hit his 13th home run of the season, while also driving in RBI’s 79 and 80. This puts him 3rd in the American League in RBI’s and tied for second in doubles. I feel like I can’t stress enough how valuable Morales has been to this Kansas City team. He drives in runs in the middle of the order and as much as most of us loved Billy Butler, he had really quit doing that last year. I don’t even want to imagine where Kansas City would be without Morales’ bat in the middle of this lineup.
Sunday was ‘Star Wars Day at the K’, as the Royals finally dipped their toes into what has become a popular promotion over the years for most other major league teams. There was no way I was going to miss this, since the two things I am most passionate about are baseball and Star Wars. This also led to scenes like this at Kauffman Stadium:
Sure, the in-between skits on the field were hokey and it felt like it would have been nice to have more Star Wars characters floating around all sections of the stadium, but it was still a fun time and I was just happy Kansas City finally took the plunge. Here’s to hoping this becomes a regular promotion for the Royals!
Just returned from #StarWarsDayAtTheK . No pics, unfortunately, but we had a fun time & got to see another win. Plus, Melky hugs. #Royals
Finally, let’s go back to Sunday afternoon’s game. The Royals have runners on second and third with one out and Omar Infante at the plate in a tied game. On an 0-1 count, Infante would flair the ball in between the pitcher and first baseman:
Yes, it wasn’t the farthest hit ball Omar has ever had. But here is the thing; it was a difficult play for the defense to make, which hurt the White Sox chances of making the play. To further that thought, Alex Rios took off at contact. If he doesn’t do that he probably doesn’t score in that situation. It wasn’t the most dramatic hit but was the perfect description of how the Royals season has gone to date. They just find a way to win. At the end of the day, that is all that matters.
Tweets of Royalty
Current odds to win 2015 World Series, from @fangraphs
So with the White Sox in the rear-view mirror, the Royals look ahead to a three game series against Detroit. Last week, the Tigers were able to beat the Royals 2 out of 3 in the ‘Motor City’, and one has wonder if things will be different this time at Kauffman Stadium. The Royals have an 11.5 game lead in the Central, which is just mind blowing if you have watched this team the last few years. This hasn’t been done by a Royals team since 1980, and it conjures up memories of those late 70’s team that were ousted in the playoffs by the Yankees. In some ways this big lead gives them a chance to rest regulars on a consistent basis or guys who are injured(like Wade Davis); you just hope they don’t become complacent before they get to October. We are in uncharted territory but this isn’t a bad thing; in a lot of ways we have earned this as Royals fans since we sat through a lot of awful baseball for all those years. The rewards have now become a regular occurrence; let’s just hope this team is as hungry as they were before the season started.
Bleeding Royal Blue 