It was a great start to the road trip for the Royals, much needed after brutally losing a series to the Phillies at Kauffman over the weekend. Kansas City swept the Monday doubleheader in Cleveland, winning 4-3 in the first game and 9-4 in the evening slate.
The pair of victories on Monday improved the Royals’ record to 74-58 for the season. That puts them six games ahead of the Red Sox in the AL Wild Card race and has helped them come within a game of the Guardians in the AL Central with over a month left to go in the season.
The win had some classic “Royals” characteristics. Bobby Witt, Jr. played the hero in game one, hitting the go-ahead home run after the Royals relinquished the lead in the prior inning.
In game two, it was the Salvy show. The Royals captain hit two home runs and had six RBI in the evening contest. One of his home runs was a grand slam off of lefty Tim Herrin that essentially sealed the game for the Royals.
Other than that, though, unlikely sources led the Royals to two victories on Monday.
The bullpen carried the Royals pitching staff in both games after Cole Ragans and Alec Marsh failed to go five innings each. James McArthur, Kris Bubic, John Schreiber, and Lucas Erceg allowed only one run in five innings of work in game one, while Sam Long and Daniel Lynch combined for 4.1 IP and allowed zero runs and two hits in the second contest.
MJ Melendez, who was looking like a Omaha-bound player in June, was one of the significant position players who stood out from game one, thanks to his three-run home run and defensive heroics.
Much to the chagrin of Royals fans, Maikel Garcia hit leadoff in game two and collected three hits, his first three-hit game since late May. Furthermore, Dairon Blanco and Garrett Hampson provided punch at the bottom of the lineup, as they combined to collect three hits and score two runs in the evening contest.
The Royals were reeling a bit after being thrashed by the Phillies at home on Saturday and Sunday in front of the Kauffman faithful. However, in one day, the Royals are back in the division race, with a chance to take the Central lead by Wednesday if they can take the next two games in the series.
A lot of credit needs to go to JJ Picollo and his efforts to rebuild the Major League squad and farm system after losing 106 games in 2023. Picollo has proved that he is no Dayton Moore clone, and the fact that he’s on his way to a winning season in year two demonstrates that point (it took seven years for Moore to get to that mark).
However, this Royals team and their surprising success reflects the hard work of manager Matt Quatraro in two years.
Quatraro’s Patience and Commitment Paying Off
There’s no question that Quatraro was the right hire when the Royals snagged him from Tampa Bay after the 2022 season. Owner John Sherman and Picollo claimed they wanted to build a long-term small-market winner in the mold of Cleveland, Tampa Bay, and Milwaukee. What better way to do it than by hiring the bench coach from the Rays as manager?
However, the early returns were not promising in 2023.
It wasn’t that the Royals lost 106 games in 2023, which tied a franchise record. It was how they lost.
The Royals in 2023 looked like an overwhelmed group, especially at the start of the season.
Their young hitters struggled out of the gate, and the pitching didn’t exactly respond to the new pitching coaches Quatraro had hired (Brian Sweeney, Zach Bove, and Mitch Stetter). The Royals tried crazy strategies that didn’t work. (Remember the crazy outfield shift they tried for two weeks?) Lastly, the team seemed to struggle to play consistent baseball on the baserunning and defensive end, which drove many impatient Royals fans insane.
It would have been easy for a manager to stay pessimistic about this group. We certainly have seen that with manager Pedro Grifol, whose lack of consistency in handling his press conference and clubhouse contributed to being canned during a record-setting losing season on the South Side.
However, Quatraro seemed to be an even keel in the clubhouse with the Royals in 2023.
He supported the young players, giving them opportunities to prove themselves during the “evaluation” season. He opted for a deep bench where multiple guys played in a given week. He mixed up relievers in different spots to ensure his best pitchers pitched in the best situations. It didn’t always work, especially at the beginning of the season, but the club got better and didn’t fully implode, though it was undoubtedly on the cusp of doing so at many points last season.
Quatraro’s hard work and commitment paid off in September last year, as the Royals finished with a 14-12 record that month. Many fans shrugged it off as just one of those classic “Royals good months” at the end. However, they won with a core of young players, a budding ace in Ragans, and a defense rated as one of the best in the league.
Quatraro helped build that “winning environment” in September. Luckily, Sherman and Picollo spent the money and made the necessary moves in the offseason to build on that “winning September” and turn it into a “winning season” in 2024.
As Royals fans can see, the Royals are 74-58 through 132 games. Their 74 wins tie the number of wins they had in 2021, which was the highest number of wins the club had had since 2017 when they went 80-82.
Can Quatraro Help the Royals Take the Next Step
Quatraro has built something special in Kansas City that had been missing during the second Moore rebuild.
Ned Yost or Mike Matheny lacked Quatraro’s calm clubhouse presence, making them unsuitable as managers in “rebuilding” situations. However, the most significant change under Quatraro has been creating a clubhouse that values data and applies it appropriately.
Not every club can do both.
For example, the Angels acquired and employed a lot of data in their organization, especially initially under GM Perry Minasian. However, the clubhouse struggled to apply it effectively, creating a culture of the “R&D department” vs. “the coaches.” As a result, the Angels shifted away from investing in their analytics department recently, which has had mixed results for their organization.
The Royals haven’t done that under Picollo and Quatraro, even though the club had a reputation for being “old school” to a fault under Moore and previous owner David Glass.
Quatraro still utilizes the analytics and data from a beefed-up Royals Research & Development department led by Daniel Mack. However, he has built solid relationships with his players and coaches. That allows him to seamlessly integrate analytics into lineup and pitching decisions because he has built that trust with his players and staff.
As a result, Quatraro has become one of the most widely respected managers in the league. That was confirmed in an interview today with first-year manager Stephen Vogt, who has been having quite a season in Cleveland since taking over for Terry Francona this year.
Quatraro has done a phenomenal job thus far and should win AL Manager of the Year, regardless of whether the Royals win the division. The Royals were expected to make “incremental” progress this year as PECOTA projected them to win around 70 games. And yet, the Royals have already surpassed that mark, and we’re not even in September yet.
There’s no doubt that Quatraro has turned around this club, and they are in a better situation in both the short and long term. However, can Quatraro help the Royals solidify a postseason berth and make a run in October like the Diamondbacks and Rangers last season?
That’s a more challenging question to answer right now.
After all, they are 33-38 against clubs with records over .500. While this doubleheader sweep of the Guardians helps, the Royals still have to shake the reputation that they can’t beat “good” teams.
They will have a chance to prove that moniker is “wrong” with upcoming contests against the Astros, Guardians (again), Twins, and Yankees.
Can Quatraro manage this group of players, with the help of Picollo in the front office, to finally be “effective” against winning teams? Can they build the necessary momentum in September to harness that “postseason magic” in 2014 and 2015 that captured the city in October?
Quatraro certainly doesn’t have the track record yet in that category. Then again, though, he didn’t have the track record of “turning a club around” as a manager before hiring after the 2022 season.
This all started with Quatraro locking this squad in during September 2023, finally achieving a winning month.
Maybe Quatraro can get this club to succeed again in September.
Only this time, the Royals’ accomplishment in 2024 will hopefully be a winning campaign that will secure a postseason berth and a deep run in the playoffs.
Photo Credit: Jason Hanna/Kansas City Royals
[…] There’s no doubt that Q earned that extra guaranteed season in Kansas City, especially after turning around the club from his first season in 2023, when they lost 106 games. Even though there were some rumblings among pessimistic Royals fans last offseason about whether Quatraro was the right man for the job, he proved those naysayers wrong in 2024. […]
[…] Quatraro is a calm presence in the Royals’ clubhouse who will manage the same way game after game, whether this team has lost six in a row or wins six in a row. […]