The Royals have won two games in a row, clinching their first series win since their June 3rd-5th series in St. Louis.
The Rangers were expected to be a tough challenge due to their pitching (their rotation ranks 2nd in SP ERA and 1st in WHIP). However, the Kansas City offense has woken up on the road after being dormant last week at Kauffman Stadium against the Yankees and Athletics.
The Royals have the chance to go for the sweep with Michael Wacha on the mound. Texas has not released who’s pitching on the mound just yet, but whoever pitches for the Rangers will have a tall task ahead of them on Thursday afternoon (first pitch is at 1:35 p.m.).
Much like Tuesday, the hitting carried the Royals to the victory, as they scored six runs for a second-straight game.
For context, the Royals hadn’t scored six or more runs in a game since June 8th, their series finale against the White Sox (which they staved off a sweep). Unlike Tuesday, the starting pitching was a bit rustier, as Kris Bubic couldn’t quite match the performance Seth Lugo had in game one of the series.
Thankfully, the bullpen closed things out for the Royals. John Schreiber, Lucas Erceg, Steven Cruz, and Carlos Estevez all combined to shut out the Rangers over 3.2 innings. In addition, Estevez earned his 20th save of the season (which leads the American League) with a clean, 12-pitching inning in the ninth.
There were a lot of positive player stories in this Royals win. That is refreshing to say after such a brutal stretch of baseball in Kansas City last week.
However, no player shone more on Wednesday than Maikel Garcia, who is solidifying his case for an appearance in this season’s Mid-Summer Classic in Atlanta.
Maikel: Hitting Machine
Garcia is finally having the career “breakout” season that many Royals fans envisioned for him back in 2023. In his first full season in the Majors, he hit .272 with a .681 OPS and four home runs in 515 plate appearances.
That said, many Royals fans envisioned his “breakout” happening in 2024.
Instead, Garcia struggled at the plate a season ago.
In 626 plate appearances, he hit .231 with a .613 OPS and seven home runs. As a result, many pessimistic Royals fans questioned Garcia’s long-term outlook in Kansas City by the end of the season, with some believing he should’ve been a trade candidate.
This year, the 25-year-old Venezuelan third baseman has done his best to silence those doubters, especially at the plate. Below is a look at how he compares to more “established” third basemen, like Houston’s Isaac Paredes and San Francisco’s Matt Chapman.
When it comes to the metrics, in 292 plate appearances, he has eight home runs, one more than he had in 2024 (in 334 fewer plate appearances). Garcia is also hitting .313 with an .861 OPS and 136 wRC+. The latter leads all Royals hitters with 20 or more plate appearances this season, according to Fangraphs.
Lastly, Garcia is demonstrating excellent plate discipline and budding power, as indicated by TJ Stats, a good sign that his 2025 offensive metrics are sustainable over the long haul this year.
According to TJ Stats, Garcia ranks in the upper percentiles in K rate (13.7%), whiff rate (15.6%), zone contact (89.8%), and out-of-the-zone swing rate (21.9%). Furthermore, he is proving to be more than just a Nicky Lopez-esque contact machine. His barrel rate is up by 2.1%, his average launch angle is up 2.7 degrees, and his hard-hit rate is up by 1.4%.
Even his expected SLG rolling chart has demonstrated to be above-average for most of the year, something that couldn’t reasonably be said for him in 2023 and 2024, based on the xSLG trendlines.
Garcia has reached highs in xSLG that Royals fans have never seen before. There has been some regression, of course (around the 1,350 plate appearance mark). However, that trend has increased again recently, and it is likely to continue rising after today’s three-hit performance.
That’s right, he had another multi-hit game, his second in a row and fourth in five games. Not only did he collect a RBI triple and single, but he also hit a three-run home run off of Patrick Corbin that gave the Royals their first lead of the game.
Here’s a look at how Garcia’s spray chart against Corbin and the Rangers’ bullpen. Once again, much like Tuesday, Garcia showed a propensity to pull the ball with authority (which was demonstrated in his 407-foot bomb).
What’s also interesting about Garcia’s night is where in the strike zone he got his hits.
Yes, he took advantage of a Corbin pitch that was in Garcia’s wheelhouse. However, Corbin was burned by Garcia putting better contact on the Texas pitcher’s “good” offerings (i.e, they were in areas of the zone that are tough to hit).
Here’s a look at the zone chart of Garcia’s pitch results on Tuesday.
Garcia is a patient hitter, but he knows how to make good contact on balls out of the zone. He scooped down to loft a single to left field, and in the 8th against Hoby Milner, he went the other way to collect a big triple that gave the Royals some much-needed insurance.
Garcia has always shown an ability to hit line drives to the opposite field in his brief MLB career. However, he was so oppo-heavy in his batted-ball approach that defenses were easily able to adapt against him.
This year, he’s pulled the ball a bit more, and that has opened up the rest of the field more, as defenses have to play him more straight up. Notice in the spray heatmap comparison below how much more blue shades are on the left field side in 2025 compared to 2024.
Garcia has become a more well-rounded hitter this year, which explains why Matt Quatraro has been able to trust Garcia in the No. 3 spot in the batting order over the past couple of weeks.
After another strong performance at that spot, it’s unlikely that Garcia will be moved off the No.3 spot anytime soon. Additionally, if his strong performance in that key spot in the batting order continues, he should gain more buzz for All-Star consideration, whether it’s through the fan vote or as a reserve.
Regression Comes for Bubic
There’s no question that Kris Bubic has had a phenomenal season. Going into this game, he had a 1.92 ERA and 1.07 WHIP. He was also sporting the lowest road ERA in baseball with a 1.48 mark, as highlighted by FanDuel Sports Network Kansas City today.
Unfortunately, it was a second-straight mediocre start for Bubic. The 27-year-old former Stanford product failed to go into the sixth inning for the second consecutive outing (he only went 4.1 innings against the Yankees on June 11th).
Over 5.1 IP and 101 pitches (a season-high), Bubic gave up three runs on nine hits and one walk. He did strike out six batters and generate 19 swings-and-misses (10 more than Corbin, the Rangers’ starter). However, he wasn’t as crisp with his command as demonstrated in his TJ Stuff+ data below.
Bubic’s zone rate was fine at 51.5%, and his chase (38.8%) and whiff (32.2%) were both impressive rates. However, he did give up a “higher than usual” xwOBACON of .356. That was particularly inflated by hitters batting around his slider, as evidenced by its 0.526 mark.
Even though Bubic didn’t have a ton of “balls” thrown (based on Zone%), his pitch type and description charts from this outing showed a Bubic who didn’t own his “best” command in Arlington.
As Royals fans can see above, Bubic just lived too much in the middle (and not enough up) against Texas. They didn’t make him pay as much as they should’ve, which feels funny to say after he gave up nine hits in less than six innings of work.
That said, there are a lot of green dots in his pitch description chart on pitches in the middle. That means that Rangers hitters were missing on those pitches and letting a lot of hittable pitches get by.
On any other night, those green foul ball dots could’ve been red and brown ones, which was the case for Bubic in his last start against the Yankees.
To succeed on the mound, Bubic needs to locate his four-seamer up. Thankfully, that’s been the case this year, based on his TJ Stats heatmap data. When he’s been locating that pitch properly, it’s been producing results against lefties (36.4% CSW) and righties (30.4% CSW).
On a positive note, he seemed to be maintaining solid pitch velocity on the four-seamer against the Rangers. Unfortunately, the pitch location of the four-seamer was not ideal, which explains the 20% whiff rate, which was lower than usual for Bubic.
It was unrealistic to think that Bubic would’ve maintained a sub-2.00 ERA for the entire season, especially after pitching primarily in the bullpen last year.
However, regression is finally coming for Bubic (as it does for every MLB pitcher), and it’s showing primarily in his command, especially with his four-seamer.
The Royals received an update on the injury status of Cole Ragans, and it appears he will be out for a while (though the news was as positive as it could be, considering the circumstances).
Ragans’ injury news means that the Royals will need to rely on Bubic and the other Royals starters to carry this rotation for at least the next month, maybe two. It will be interesting to see if Bubic can correct his four-seam command issues from this start against the Rangers and become more efficient in his next outing.
If he can become efficient again, Bubic could not just carry the Royals to the postseason, but to AL Cy Young consideration as well.
The Writing May Be On the Wall for Canha
Mark Canha got the expected start against the left-handed Corbin. Unfortunately, he didn’t do much against the Rangers, as he went 0-for-2 and seemed to struggle defensively on balls hit down the line.
After tonight’s zero-hit performance, Canha is now hitting .237 with a .574 OPS in 105 plate appearances, and his Statcast percentiles look as paltry as ever.
The only categories where Canha has been respectable this year are Z-Contact% (68th percentile) and K% (61st percentile). In nearly every other category, he’s been below average. He’s also been significantly below average in batted-ball metrics like hard-hit rate (17th percentile), Barrel% (3rd percentile), and Max EV (3rd percentile).
Canha makes contact and doesn’t strike out a lot. Beyond those two things, however, he’s not bringing much else to the table for the Royals off the bench, even against left-handed pitchers.
While his splits against lefties are better this year, he’s still only slashing .269/.328/.308 with a .636 against left-handed pitchers in 58 plate appearances.
That’s not nearly justifiable enough for a roster spot right now, especially with offense so desperately needed in the middle to bottom of the order. At 36 years old, it’s hard to see a turnaround for Canha, especially with the rolling wOBA chart trending like this below.
It’s too bad Nelson Velazquez isn’t on this roster anymore, because he would’ve been a nice right-handed option against left-handed starting pitchers who could’ve provided a lot more power upside than Canha (even though he would’ve walked less and struck out more than the 10-year veteran).
Regardless, it wouldn’t be surprising to see Canha’s time in Kansas City coming to an end soon, most likely by the end of June at the latest.
Photo Credit: LM Otero | AP
[…] on this road trip, and it would be nice to see them continue that in California. I discussed the hitting performances of Maikel Garcia and Jac Caglianone in recent posts, and the Royals’ lineup needs to continue producing in San […]