On Thursday, I attended my fourth-straight Opening Day at Kauffman Stadium. It was a beautiful day at the Truman Sports Complex, packed to capacity.
(The image above was the parking lot just over three hours before the first pitch.)
Despite all the hoopla about the stadium vote on April 2nd and the tension between KC Metro residents on both sides of the vote, it was nice to see the whole city come together clad in blue and white to cheer on a Royals club that is coming off a 56-106 campaign in 2023.
The Royals’ Opening Day in 2024 ended much like the one from a season ago: a loss to Pablo Lopez and the Minnesota Twins. This time, the Royals had a much better pitcher going against the Minnesota Cy Young candidate (Zack Greinke is a Royals legend, but he certainly didn’t pitch like one in 2023, which explains why he is not on any MLB roster right now).
A dark-horse Cy Young candidate himself, Ragans pitched six innings and struck out nine batters, allowing only two runs on five hits and three walks. Even though he did give up a first-inning home run to Royce Lewis (who ended up leaving the game due to a quad injury), the former Rangers pitcher was able to dazzle Royals fans and frustrate Twins hitters, thanks to some impressive movement on many of his pitches, especially compared to a season ago.
Even though Ragans did his part to help the Royals, it was all for naught, which has seemed to be the Royals’ MO over the last couple of seasons (i.e., not taking advantage of good starts from Royals pitchers). Lopez handled the Royals lineup efficiently, as he allowed only one run on four hits and no walks while striking out seven in seven innings of work. Furthermore, he only threw 84 pitches, which shows how efficient and dominant Lopez was in his first outing of the 2024 season.
On a positive note, the Royals were able to score their lone run early off of Lopez, thanks to a bomb from Maikel Garcia, who is looking to surpass his four-home run total from his rookie season a year ago.
The Royals are 0-1, which is the second straight season the Royals have dropped Opening Day at the K. While it’s easy for Royals fans to panic, especially after an offseason where they outspent their division rivals (including the Twins), it’s only one game, and Opening Day wins in 2021, and 2022 didn’t necessarily translate to successful seasons either.
In addition, there were some positive takeaways from Thursday afternoon’s contest.
Let’s examine a few of those takeaways and consider what Royals fans could expect as the season picks up again on Saturday afternoon.
The Pitching Already Looks Better Than It Did in 2023
The Royals gave up 10 hits and four runs in the loss, but their pitching didn’t look bad overall, especially compared to a year ago.
When looking at the pitching breakdown via Savant, the Royals’ pitching staff gave up more hard hits than the Twins staff, which explains the higher hit-and-run total. On the other hand, though, the Royals struck out more batters and limited the barrels, which is an encouraging sign since the Royals pitchers struggled in both categories a year ago.
A significant difference between the two pitching staffs was that Twins hitters had a .263 average compared to the Royals’ .161 average on Thursday. Thus, the Royals hitters couldn’t find as many gaps as the Twins yesterday, even though they weren’t far off from Minnesota when it came to making hard contact and barreling balls.
Even though Ragans stole the show, the Royals got decent production from the bullpen.
Nick Anderson and Angel Zerpa combined to go two innings and allowed zero runs on three hits while striking out two. The biggest positive was that neither Anderson nor Zerpa walked a batter, which was a struggle for this bullpen in 2023.
In terms of their pitch chart, Anderson and Zerpa left some pitches in hittable areas of the strike zone (which explains the three hits allowed). However, they generally did an excellent job of living on the edges, which explains why they were able to produce scoreless appearances.
Stratton had the worst game on paper. He allowed two runs on two hits and two walks in an inning of work. Despite the high number of hits and walks, he only threw 23 pitches, which is efficient for an inning with that much activity.
A big issue for Stratton was his struggle to throw strikes consistently, especially with his slider. Here’s a look at his pitch type and pitch description charts in a slide comparison. Notice how his slider was outside the strike zone on the arm side frequently against the Twins on Thursday.
The only slider Stratton threw for a strike was hit by Carlos Correa for an infield single that only had an exit velocity of 62.7 MPH (and honestly, it should’ve been an out, but the combo of a poor throw and bad scoop by Vinnie didn’t help).
For the game, Stratton didn’t produce a called or swinging strike with the slider, which was concerning considering he threw the pitch six times (his most thrown pitch). The four-seamer also proved ineffective on a CSW end, producing a 0% CSW% on 5 pitches.
Conversely, the changeup and sinker proved to be compelling pitches, as they produced 67% and 75% CSW%, respectively. His curveball also sported a 67% CSW%, which helped Stratton produce an overall CSW% of 35% for the game. So, while Stratton wasn’t great, his strike metrics demonstrate that his outing wasn’t as bad as the box score indicates.
I have a concern with Stratton: according to Savant’s player breakdown data, his velocity was down significantly on all of his pitches compared to a year ago.
Those are all significant drops and make one wonder what Stratton’s velocity looked like in the spring.
His Cactus League numbers were pretty underwhelming for a veteran, so it’ll be interesting to see if Stratton is still getting ramped up or if something else lingering could contribute to more outings in the future like this one.
Some Hope With Hitting, But Concerns Remain
The Royals only managed one run on five hits, so it’s easy to look at the box score and say, “Great, we’re going to get shut out again by the Twins like the Opening Series last year!”
That said, the Royals’ offense provided many more signs of optimism on Thursday, especially when looking at the Statcast box scores from this year and 2023.
Let’s compare some key metrics:
- 2023 Opening Day: 0 R; 2 H; .131 xBA (.271 opponent xBA); 42.9% HH% (41.2% opponent HH%)
- 2024 Opening Day: 1 R; 5 H; .226 xBA (.268 opponent xBA); 48% HH% (39.1 opponent HH%)
As Royals fans can see, the Royals were 95 points better in xBA and 5.1% better in hard-hit rate (and the Royals pitching also held the Twins to lower numbers in those categories from a year ago). On last year’s Opening Day, the Royals were lucky to be so close based on their advanced metrics. In this one, it could be argued that it should’ve been closer (and it really was), and the Royals had their opportunities to win it.
Two hitters primarily stood out to me as guys to be optimistic about going forward, even though they had different days based on the box score.
The first one is Garcia, who’s been the talk of the baseball world after being only the second Royal in franchise history to hit a leadoff home run on Opening Day.
His leadoff home run was his only hit of the day, and he struck out once. He hit the ball hard all afternoon, as seen in his exit velocity charts via Savant.
It’s crazy that Garcia’s worst batted ball on an xBA end was his home run. For those concerned that Garcia will see a regression, the batted ball data from Thursday shows that he may be moving in the right direction regarding building his power tool.
Another hitter that stood out to me was Hunter Renfroe, who went 0-for-3 with a strikeout.
Renfroe was a bit of an unpopular signing this offseason due to him affecting Nelson Velazquez (more on him later) and Drew Waters (who was optioned to Omaha to begin the year). Even though he didn’t get a hit, Renfroe hit the ball hard on Thursday. He just hit it on the ground and right at Correa.
As a fan in the stands, I thought Renfroe connected but didn’t launch either ball enough. Furthermore, if they had been pulled slightly more, his two groundouts would’ve likely been singles. Renfroe was acquired to keep the line moving and drive runners in. I think he’ll do that, especially after he gets more plate appearances (remember, he started the spring late due to injury).
Two hitters who seemed to be pressing were Vinnie and Velazquez, who were 0-for-7 combined on Thursday. Vinnie didn’t strike out, but he uncharacteristically chased a lot and produced weak contact on the balls he did connect with, which can be seen via Savant.
Velazquez’s inclusion in the starting lineup on Opening Day was a bit controversial, especially after Nick Pratto’s scorching Cactus League campaign. Twins pitchers attacked him up and inside, and Velazquez chased after those pitches, which produced lackluster results.
Vinnie and Velazquez must be critical hitters for the Royals if they want to improve upon their 56-win total from a season ago. Hopefully, Opening Day was more of a blip on the radar for both players and not a sign of things to come.
Kauffman Undergoing Some Nice Changes, Despite Stadium Vote Distractions
I was curious to see how the experience at the K would be, especially with the Jackson County Stadium Sales Tax vote set to take place next Tuesday. As expected, plenty of advocates on both sides supported their stance at the game.
Kansas City Chiefs owner Clark Hunt had on a “Vote Yes” stick during the pregame ceremony.
On the flip side, KC Tenants representatives in the stadium dropped down a “Vote No” banner during the game (to be fair, I’m not sure when that happened as I wouldn’t have seen it from my seats anyway).
I am not going to get into which side to “support.” However, growing up in Northern California and seeing how the Oakland Athletics situation unfolded, I was curious to see if the stadium experience at the K would deteriorate like it did at Oakland Alameda County Stadium when it was obvious that it wouldn’t be a long-term option.
I’m not talking just about the last few years, which has been a mess of epic proportions (and Rob Manfred deserves some heat for it, honestly). Even as far back as 2015, my last visit to the stadium (against the Royals, ironically), the experience had gone down significantly from what I remembered as a kid when I would go to a couple of A’s games every summer with my family.
That certainly wasn’t the case at the K on Thursday.
I plan to take more time to explore the stadium on Sunday for the Twins series finale, but many of the changes I saw on Opening Day were for the better.
The stadium itself looked to be in solid shape. The concession experience was much better this Opening Day than a year ago. Including more local vendors was also a cheerful sight, especially the new Quik Trip sign next to the Boulevard Brewery smokestack.
I also saw many reports about new “value” sections that would make things easier on the wallet on game day. A positive I did experience was that the ticket price for parking is much lower for season ticket holders than a year ago. Last year, parking passes for reserved were 20 bucks. This year, it was a few dollars lower for the same pass, which is a fantastic incentive to go to more games, especially during the summer.
I will do more research on Sunday, as Opening Day, with all the tailgating and massive crowds, can make it challenging to get a true “sense” of the stadium experience at the K.
That said, the Kauffman experience in 2024 is off to a great start, even if time may be limited for the Kansas City landmark.