The Royals had a winning homestand this week, going 4-2 against the Guardians and Twins, both division foes.
How Kansas City got to that winning homestand was atypical, especially considering they were coming off getting swept in a four-game series last weekend in Houston.
The Royals started the homestand poorly, losing the series’ first two games to the Guardians by a combined score of 11-3. Those two losses extended their losing streak to seven, a season-high.
On Wednesday, though, they won 4-1 to snap their losing streak, thanks to Tommy Pham’s first home run as a Royal.
The victory seemed inconsequential in the moment. After all, they lost the series to the Guardians, which put some distance between them and Cleveland for first place in the AL Central. The Guardians still hold a three-game lead over the Royals in the division as of Sunday.
However, the much-needed victory seemed to give the Royals club a sigh of relief and helped build much-needed momentum for their weekend series against Minnesota, which the Royals have had trouble with this season.
On Opening Weekend, the Twins took two of three from the Royals at Kauffman Stadium. Going into this weekend’s series, the Royals were 3-7 against the Twins for the year. My wife and I were able to visit Target Field during our honeymoon weekend when the Royals were visiting Minneapolis for a four-game set. The Royals won the game we were in attendance for, but they lost the other three contests.
Safe to say, Minnesota has had the Royals’ number recently, going back to even last season. In 2023, the Twins went 9-4 against the Royals.
Thus, this was a crucial series for Kansas City, trying to rebound after Vinnie Pasquantino’s injury.
Thankfully, the Royals found the juice they needed this weekend, fueled explicitly by the pitching, which kept the Twins hitters at bay all weekend.
The Royals’ offense didn’t necessarily make much of a dent against the Twins’ pitching in this series. They only scored 11 runs in the three-game set, and most came in spurts, especially on Saturday and Sunday.
Kansas City scored four runs in the bottom of the eighth on Saturday after being shut out for seven innings by Bailey Ober, whom the Royals have had tremendous success against this season.
On Sunday, they scored both of their runs in the bottom of the 5th, thanks to a Garrett Hampson sac fly and Salvador Perez infield single (yes, you read that right).
The Royals offense still has questions to answer. However, those questions didn’t need to be thoroughly answered this weekend because the Kansas City pitching stepped up.
Cole Ragans was masterful on Friday night in a 5-0 shutout win. Alec Marsh and Daniel Lynch IV combined to only allow five hits and two runs in eight innings of work on Saturday. And today, in the series finale, Michael Wacha was brilliant, striking out seven in seven innings of work while allowing zero runs, four hits, and only one walk.
That strong performance led to the Royals sweeping the Twins on Sunday afternoon, helping him collect win number 100 for his career.
The Royals starting rotation deserves a lot of credit for stepping up this weekend, especially in their season’s final series against a division rival. However, they were not alone in their standout performance.
The bullpen, maligned for much of the season, also stepped up, as highlighted by Royals broadcaster Jake Eisenberg after Sunday’s victory.
For the Royals bullpen to not just shut out the Twins but allow no walks is a tremendous sign of progress. Furthermore, it seems like the Royals bullpen mix is getting more apparent as we reach the end of the season.
Lucas Erceg has bounced back since the Houston series to lock down two saves this weekend. Kris Bubic has emerged as the Royals’ go-to setup man. Lastly, James McArthur, Sam Long, and John Schreiber have performed much better in key but lower-leverage roles since the Trade Deadline.
The Royals have gotten a boost from Pham at the top of the batting order, but the rest of the lineup remains shaky around Bobby Witt, Jr. and Salvador Perez, who have plateaued a bit since the Vinnie injury. Hopefully, on this road trip, especially in a more hitter-friendly ballpark in the Bronx, some Royals hitters can snap out of their slumber and give the club some much-needed production down the stretch in September.
At least the Royals’ pitching is hitting the road in a good place.
Salvy Making Huge Strides in Framing
On “Farm to Fountains” on Saturday, I wrote a post about Salvy’s framing improvement this season, which has been a revelation and key to his and the Royals’ success in 2024.
Since the metric was introduced (around 2016), Salvy has long been one of the most maligned framers in the league at the catcher position. His framing has weighed down his fWAR over his career and seems to be the primary roadblock to his candidacy for Cooperstown.
This season, though, thanks to his work with Royals bench coach Paul Hoover (who primarily works with catchers and did so in Tampa Bay), Salvy has taken a significant step forward in his framing. Here’s what I say about that improvement in my “Farm to Fountains” post.
Over his career, he’s been 89 runs below average in the framing category. On the flip side, he’s been one run above average in blocking and 18 runs above average in the stealing category. Thus, if Salvy were a slightly below-average framer in his career, his Hall of Fame candidacy wouldn’t be discussed.
However, as Royals fans can see in the table above, he’s seen remarkable improvement in 2024 in the area of framing. He’s been precisely average, with a zero-run mark, a seven-run improvement from 2023, an eight-run improvement from 2022, and an 18-run improvement from 2021.
As a result, he’s been two catcher runs ABOVE average this season, the second time he’s been above-average in Statcast Catcher Runs since 2016 (and in 2020, it was only a 37-game sample).
How has Salvy improved so much? A big reason can be credited to bench coach Paul Hoover and Salvy’s work the past couple of seasons, which focused on getting Salvy closer to the pitcher in his catching setup.
Check out the post in the embedded Tweet for more in my piece on what Hoover and Salvy did to improve over the past two years and whether or not this sudden framing improvement could be a long-term trend or simply a flash in the pan.
With Salvy possibly being a free agent after 2025, his newfound framing ability could be the difference in whether or not Salvy finishes his MLB career in Kansas City.
Can the Royals Shake Off the Ghosts of the Yankees?
The Royals and Yankees had long considered each other rivals, though it tends to come more from the Royals side and with older fans who remember the 70s and 80s when Kansas City and New York used to duke it out regularly for the AL Pennant.
The Royals and Yankees have been on two different plains as organizations in the post-lockout era.
The Yankees are one of baseball’s best and most famous clubs, while the Royals are one of the league’s least successful ones. The Royals have won the same number of World Series titles as the Yankees since 2009, but that’s the only bragging point they have over the Bronx Bombers.
This year, the Yankees’ dominance over the Royals has continued on the field.
The Royals lost three of four against the Yankees at Kauffman Stadium in mid-June, their lone victory coming on a Maikel Garcia walkoff hit, which helped Kansas City avoid the sweep (I was in attendance for that afternoon weekday contest).
It’s tough to go to a Royals-Yankees game at the K as the stadium is often populated by fans in Yankees garb. That has affected the Royals, especially since 2018, when they began their second rebuilding process.
Now, Kansas City visits Yankee Stadium with a lot on the line.
Yes, the Royals need to continue to win to solidify their postseason spot. According to KC Magic Number on Twitter, the Royals sweep and the Red Sox’s loss today to the White Sox helped them inch even closer to clinching a Wild Card spot.
The Royals’ postseason hopes aren’t the only items at stake. The AL MVP race seems to be between Witt and the Yankees’ Aaron Judge. Unfortunately, neither player has fared particularly well over the past week.
Whoever outperforms the other in this series could help catapult them to the top of the AL MVP race by the end of the week. Thanks to his massive HR totals, Judge certainly is the favorite for now. That said, a bounce-back series from Witt individually and a Royals series victory over the Yankees in the Bronx could make Witt the favorite, especially with those baseball writers who tend to be “anti-Yankees.”
A solid three-game series from Witt in Yankee Stadium would be the most memorable moment from a Royals player in Yankee Stadium since George Brett’s “Pine Tar Incident” in 1983.
It would be excellent for the Royals this week to put this incident from 41 years ago behind them and make a new, more positive, and lasting memory at Yankee Stadium.
Which perhaps could recharge the rivalry between the Royals and Yankees again.
Photo Credit: Charlie Riedel | AP