It was a rough last week on Royals social media, which made it tough for me to be optimistic about this team on the blog (though I did my best to do so while still advocating for necessary changes).
Not only did the Royals go 0-6 in last week’s homestand against the Yankees and Athletics, but frustrations seemed to be boiling over even in the clubhouse, as evidenced by the team’s players’ only meeting after Saturday’s 4-0 loss to the Athletics.
After an off day on Monday, the Royals bounced back on Tuesday in the first game of their weeklong road trip to Texas and then San Diego. Against the Rangers, the Royals won 6-1 and were in the driver’s seat most of the game in a comfortable victory.
To further show the Royals’ dominance over the Rangers, the Win Probability chart via Savant was a pretty stable one for Kansas City, especially after it spiked to 91% after Salvy’s double in the fourth inning.
After falling four games under .500, the Royals needed a victory. Not only did they get that on Tuesday night, but they also set a positive tone for the next two games against a Rangers team that is also fighting for an AL Wild Card spot.
Furthermore, Kansas City also secured the victory with some strong performances from players having down seasons in 2025, following All-Star campaigns just a year ago. That is an encouraging sign that the “Boys Are Starting to Play Some Ball” again after a 35-38 start to the season.
Lugo Looked Like an AL Cy Young Finalist On Tuesday
The Royals needed a big game from Seth Lugo, last season’s runner-up to Tarik Skubal in the AL Cy Young race.
Yes, Kansas City needs to improve the offense if it wants to be a playoff contender. However, the pitching staff has seen some regression recently, especially in the wake of Lugo and Cole Ragans‘ stints on the injured list (Ragans is still on the IL).
Safe to say, Lugo delivered tonight in Arlington with one of his best starts of the season (which also was his seventh quality start of the year).
The lack of hits (three), walks (one), and runs (one) allowed by Lugo was impressive. However, what stood out the most in Lugo’s outing today were the strikeouts and whiffs generated.
Over 96 pitches, Lugo generated 14 total swings and misses, suitable for a whiff rate of 31%. He also produced a CSW of 31% and only allowed an average exit velocity of 79.3 MPH. Additionally, his Stuff and other Statcast metrics looked impressive from his TJ Stats summary from Tuesday’s game.
Lugo produced an overall TJ Stuff+ of 100 with his changeup (103), slurve (105), and sweeper (109) producing marks over 100, and his curveball (111) generating a stuff mark over 110. Furthermore, his xwOBACON was only 0.222, thus highlighting the lack of productive contact from Rangers hitters against Lugo in the series opener.
Lugo’s command was as sharp as ever against Texas. According to his zone charts, he stayed out of the middle of the zone and peppered the edges all night long. Add that with a variety of pitches (nine to be specific), and it’s not a stretch to say that Rangers hitters couldn’t get comfortable against the 34-year-old righty.
With Ragan’s timetable uncertain, and with Alec Marsh still on the IL (it’s looking less likely that he’ll contribute this year), the Royals will need this version of Lugo to show up more regularly over the next 89 games to solidify their spot in the postseason.
Lugo’s strong performance on Tuesday also may have shut down any trade rumors regarding him for a bit (though Royals VP of Communication Sam Mellinger certainly did his part to shut it down on Twitter today).
Nice to see Lugo block out the social media noise and deliver the “ace” performance the Royals desperately needed against Texas.
Bowlan Bounce Back
After a disastrous outing on June 6th that resulted in him getting optioned back to Omaha, Jonathan Bowlan has excelled since returning to Kansas City.
In his last three outings (4.0 IP), he has allowed zero runs, one hit, and one walk while striking out two. On Tuesday, he came to relieve Lugo in the seventh. He threw a clean inning, striking out two Rangers hitters on 17 pitches.
As was the case with many Bowlan outings this year, his Stuff looked excellent against Texas, and he also generated some encouraging chase and whiff rates as well, via TJ Stats.
Bowlan struggled a bit finding the strike zone, as evidenced by his 47.1% zone rate. However, because his stuff was popping (103 overall TJ Stuff+), he still generated a 33.3% chase rate and 30% whiff rate. His slider was his most impressive pitch of the night, with a chase of 60% and whiff of 75%.
Here’s an example of Bowlan utilizing his slider effectively to punch out Ezequiel Duran to end the inning.
That is some nasty movement. Furthermore, his slider pitch description chart shows that the Rangers were having a hard time with Bowlan’s breaking offering, as demonstrated by the three swinging strike dots that are located WAY out of the strike zone.
The 28-year-old righty is proving to be a nice option in the middle innings for the Royals, who can step into medium-leverage situations as necessary. He is also another big and powerful arm in the bullpen who not only helps the bullpen this season but could also help form a nice young middle-innings core long term with Steven Curz and James McArthur (who should be ready to go in 2026 and would be better suited in a lower-leverage role).
Vintage Salvy Shows Up in Texas
Salvador Perez has gotten plenty of grief, and understandably so, considering his production at the plate in 2025.
After producing a slash of .271/.330/.456 with a .786 OPS and 27 home runs in 652 plate appearances, Salvy has seen his numbers plummet sharply this season. Going into Tuesday’s game, Salvy was slashing .232/.272/.363 with a .635 OPS.
It’s only one game, but it was a good enough performance to help Royals fans feel hopeful that “old” Salvy is on his way back at the plate.
Against the Rangers, the Royals captain went 3-for-4 with two home runs, a double, and four RBI. After his three-hit outing against Texas, Salvy is now slashing .240/.279/.395 with a .674 OPS and eight home runs in 288 plate appearances. He also saw his wOBA take a sharp spike up, as demonstrated in his rolling wOBA chart via TJ Stats.
The whiff, strikeout, and walk metrics for Salvy have been brutal this season. However, that’s not necessarily surprising, especially since Salvy has been such a free-swinger in his career (his career 57.5% swing rate is 10.2% higher than the league average).
On a positive note, his hard-hit metrics have been solid despite his struggles. His .351 xwOBA is significantly higher than his actual wOBA (.276), hinting that better days and performances are ahead for Salvy at the plate.
Royals fans saw an example of that on Tuesday against Jack Leiter and the rest of the Rangers’ bullpen.
Let’s hope that Salvy has a couple more of those “better days” in the chamber this week. It will be much-needed, especially if the Royals want to return to Kansas City with a winning road trip.
Maikel and Bobby Carry the Royals Lineup at the Top
Manager Matt Quatraro moved Maikel Garcia to the three-hole a couple of weeks ago, and so far, the results have been positive.
In 44 plate appearances in that spot in the batting order, Garcia has a slash of .275/.341/.500 with an .841 OPS. He also has two home runs, six RBI, four walks, and only two strikeouts. Overall, Garcia is slashing .310/.371/.477 with an .848 OPS and seven home runs in 288 plate appearances.
Safe to say, Garcia has not just been the Royals’ best hitter this year, but he is deserving of a spot in the All-Star game in Atlanta.
On Tuesday, Garcia did what he always does: produce hits. He went 2-for-4 with two singles, including one that drove in an RBI in the top of the first.
A promising trend for Garcia from this game was his ability to pull the ball against a high-velocity arm in Leiter. All four of his batted balls were pulled to the right side, with three of them reaching the outfield, as seen below in his spray chart from Tuesday’s game.
For the season, Garcia has improved his overall pull rate from 29.7% last year to 32.3% this season. Furthermore, he’s pulling the ball much more in the air, which can be seen in the table below via Savant.
As Royals fans can see, he’s lowered his pull GB% by 1.2% and increased his pull AIR% by 3.7%. That is substantial, especially because balls pulled in the air have a higher chance of being productive base hits than balls pulled on the ground.
If fans are worried about regression from Garcia, they should look to his pull rates and increases in bat speed (70.8 MPH last year to 71.8 MPH this year) as confirmation that this improvement is legitimate and can be carried throughout the year.
In addition to Garcia, Bobby also had two hits: a double and his ninth home run of the season (which also was his first home run as a professional at Globe Life Field).
Witt has gotten his fair share of grief from frustrated Royals fans, especially after a 1-for-18 stretch from the Yankees series to the first two games of the Athletics series. As a result, Royals Twitter has certainly shied away from expressing their disappointment with Bobby, even though their frustration is a bit dramatic and short-sighted.
After that difficult five-game stretch, Witt finished the Athletics series well with two hits, including a double and an RBI. That puts him at four hits in his last two games, bringing his OPS from .798 after Saturday’s 4-0 loss to the Athletics to .821 after the Royals’ victory on Tuesday.
Witt could’ve had an even bigger day, as he just missed on two hard-hit fly balls (100.3 MPH and 99.7 MPH). They could’ve gone for base hits in other parks with wind factors at play, which can be seen in his spray chart from today’s game.
Witt indeed has regressed a bit from last year’s near-MVP campaign. However, he’s the kind of hitter who can get insanely hot when he’s in a groove and get his stats back up to insane levels (especially when he’s got hitting support around him). His hard-hit and barrel ability, via TJ Stats, remain impressive this season, despite the “down” surface-level results.
Tonight’s strong performance in front of his hometown fans seemed to be the boost of confidence he needed after a rough homestand last week.
Regardless of the slow start, anyone thinking that Witt isn’t one of the most talented shortstops in the American League (and MLB), both offensively and defensively, is out of their minds.
Photo Credit: Vaughn Ridley/Getty Images