In a big series-opening game on Friday night against the Minnesota Twins, Cole Ragans put on a masterful performance on national TV (Apple TV, to be specific).
Ragans was masterful in six innings of shutout ball. He only allowed four hits and one walk while striking out seven on 95 pitches. His performance lowered his ERA to 3.33 for the season.
A quality start was much-needed for a Royals team that’s been reeling a bit since the injury to Vinnie Pasquantino at the end of August. In addition to Ragans giving Kansas City the kind of outing they desperately needed, Ragans also hit a vital strikeout benchmark for the season.
Rgans becomes the first pitcher since Zack Greinke in 2009 to hit the 200-strikeout mark in a single season. He is the fifth Royals pitcher in club history to hit the historic strikeout number in a single season, and he is also the first left-handed pitcher in Royals history to touch 200 strikeouts in a season as well.
Ragans has a few starts remaining in 2024. Thus, he will likely surpass Kevin Appier’s 1996 (207) mark and Bob Johnson’s in 1970 (206). Catching Greinke’s 242 mark (2009) or Leonard’s 244 (1977) feels unlikely, but one can never know with a strikeout artist like Ragans.
With Ragans on the verge of cementing his 2024 campaign in the Royals history books, let’s look at how he looked on Friday night and what Royals fans can expect down the stretch this season and in 2025.
Ragans Leans on Fastball and Breaking Balls on Friday
Ragans has primarily relied on his four-seamer and changeup this season.
According to Savant, he throws his four-seamer 41.3% of the time and his changeup 24.3% of the time. He generates a 28.7% CSW on the four-seamer and a 35.2% CSW on the changeup, which ranks in the 62nd and 99th percentiles, respectively. Furthermore, based on PLV pitch quality, his four-seamer and changeup rank as two of the best pitches in his arsenal.
On Friday night against the rival Twins, however, he opted for a different approach arsenal-wise.
His four-seamer was still his primary pitch, but he relied on it more than usual and threw more breaking pitches. His knuckle curve and slider were thrown more often than his changeup in his most recent outing.
Thankfully for the Royals, the new pitch mix succeeded against Minnesota at Kauffman Stadium.
The four-seamer saw nearly a 10% increase in usage on Friday night. He only produced a whiff rate of 15% on it, down from the 24.1% rate for the season. On the other hand, he did make eight called strikes with the pitch, which is an improvement from what he’s typically done with the pitch this season in that particular category. He only had a CS% of 16.4% on the four-seamer this year, which ranks in the 34th percentile.
Even though the four-seamer wasn’t impressive, it kept Twins batters off balance, especially with the increase in breaking ball usage tonight. He threw his knuckle curve 19% of the time, which generated a 28% CSW. He also threw his slider 13% of the time, and it sported a respectable CSW of 25%.
Ragans’ command of his four-seamer and breaking offerings, seen in his pitch chart and description chart below via Savant, is a big reason he posted solid CSW numbers on those three pitches.
Ragans followed the “Blake Snell Blueprint” tonight, a phrase coined by Pitcher List founder Nick Pollack.
He kept his four-seam up and his breaking balls down, mainly his knuckle curve. It didn’t produce many swinging strikes, but he got a lot of foul balls and benefited from a big strike zone (especially with his fastballs). Additionally, he caught hitters off guard in the middle of the zone with his four-seamer and slider, which can be seen in the number of called-strike dots in the description chart.
He got those called strikes because hitters were looking for four-seamers up and curve balls down, and when they got those four-seamers and sliders more in the middle, they were unprepared and unable to take advantage.
Here’s an example from Pitching Ninja’s clip compilation of Ragans succeeding with his “Snell-esque” repertoire tonight (i.e., strikeouts with his curve and four-seamer).
Even though Ragans didn’t rely on his changeup as much as usual, that didn’t stop him from effectively commanding the pitch on Friday.
Despite throwing the pitch only 13% of the time, he generated a 50% CSW on the changeup, his best mark of any pitches he threw against the Twins. The command wasn’t impeccable with the offspeed offering, but he seemed to sequence it well, which produced sterling results.
He probably left the changeup more than he would have liked, especially when looking at his changeup pitch heatmap for the season.
On the flip side, he found success when he hit those “typical” areas tonight. He had three swinging strikes in the heatmap’s lower arm side area with a dark red dot. When Ragans can hit that area and sequence it properly with his offerings, he can be challenging to hit against.
He got that swinging strikeout with his changeup on his fourth strikeout of the night against the Twins. Royals fans should also notice how hard it is to adapt to the changeup, especially when paired with his four-seamer.
Safe to say, Ragans proved tonight why he was the Royals’ Opening Day starter and an All-Star selection.
Looking Forward With Ragans
Going into tonight’s start, Ragans ranked as the fifth-best starter in the league with a 4.3 fWAR. His fWAR was 0.3 better than fellow Royals starter Seth Lugo, who is coming off a solid outing on Wednesday night against the Guardians.
Even though Lugo is also an All-Star and one of the league leaders in innings, Ragans likely distanced himself from his teammate in fWAR after the lefty’s stellar outing against the Twins. Ragans will probably be ahead of Philadelphia’s Zack Wheeler and/or Christopher Sanchez by Saturday morning.
Ragans will likely make four more starts this season with six series remaining after the Twins slate. Ragans has thrown 167.1 innings, a career-high at the Major League level. His previous career-high was 96.1 IP in 2023 between the Rangers and Royals. Thus, he likely will have thrown double the number of his innings from 2023, which is a tremendous toll on his arm in one year.
That said, it didn’t seem like Ragans was laboring at all tonight, as seen in the pitch velocity chart data via Savant.
For anyone worrying about Ragans’ velocity dip in the middle of the year, he seems to have put those worries to rest, as punctuated by his 97 MPH four-seamer on the last pitch of his outing.
Manager Matt Quatraro will use Ragans judiciously in September over the next three weeks. Yes, the Royals need a solid Ragans to clinch a playoff spot, especially with the Detroit Tigers recently surging in the Wild Card race (the Royals play the Tigers at home from September 16-18 at Kauffman). That said, Q also wants to preserve his health, especially since Ragans will likely be the Opening Day starter and the anchor of this rotation in 2025.
Ragans is making the proper adjustments with his pitch mix at the right time of the season. He’s keeping opponents guessing and developing his breaking pitches, which could help make him even more effective in 2025.
If there’s one issue with Ragans, he’s not the most efficient starting pitcher on this Royals staff. One could argue that Lugo, Brady Singer, and perhaps even Michael Wacha have been more successful, especially in the second half. That’s why Ragans hasn’t fully been embraced as the “ace” of this rotation by those outside the Royals organization (though we, as Royals fans, certainly know he is).
That inconsistency in efficiency will keep him from winning a Cy Young award this season. However, he will likely get some runner-up votes behind Detroit’s Tarik Skubal and Lugo, depending on the 34-year-old righty’s finish to the season.
If Ragans continues to hone the four-seam command and breaking-ball quality a bit in his September starts?
Then, it isn’t out of the question to imagine Ragans not only being an All-Star again but perhaps adding a Cy Young trophy to his mantle in 2025.
Photo Credit: AP Photo/Charlie Riedel