The Royals are 2-2 in the second half after a disappointing series in Miami. However, they got off to a strong start in the North Side of Chicago, as they beat the Cubbies 12-4 thanks to 14 hits. Their 12 runs scored was a season high.
Kansas City was primarily helped by four home runs, as well as a big inning in the top of the fifth against Cubs bulk man Ben Brown, thanks to a variety of “fortunate” plays in the Royals’ favor.
Two hitters that stood out from Monday’s game against the Cubs were catcher Salvador Perez and outfielder John Rave.
The pair didn’t stick out just for their performance on Monday night, but also due to what they have done after the All-Star Break. Furthermore, their strong performances have correlated with the Royals scoring seven or more runs in three out of their first four games in the second half.
It seems like the Royals may have gotten the hitting spark they have desperately needed. One was a familiar source. The other? Not so much.
Let’s dive into what Salvy and Rave have brought the Royals recently, and what to look forward to as the Royals continue to fight in the second half, despite their slim playoff chances.
Salvy Es En Fuego (Is On Fire, For Gringos)
It’s pretty incredible to see statistically what Salvy has done after the All-Star Break, especially after not making the squad this season.
The Royals captain has homered in every game after the All-Star Break, including twice tonight on Monday. Going into tonight’s game, he was slashing .500/.545/1.300 with an OPS of 1.845. Safe to say, his numbers will be much higher than that after tonight’s monstrous two-for-four performance with four RBI.
In Salvy’s last seven games and 24 at-bats, he is slashing .375/.444/.958 with four home runs, six RBI, and eight runs scored. In his last 15 games and 54 at-bats, that slash is .352/.397/.870, and he also has eight home runs, 14 RBI, and 13 runs scored.
A positive sign from the past two weeks is that Salvy has not just hit with more power, but he also has demonstrated better pitch recognition and plate discipline. In the past week, he has two walks to three strikeouts, a 0.67 BB/K ratio. Over the past two weeks, his BB/K ratio is 0.29. The latter is not great, but it is better than his season-long mark of 0.23.
Notice how his BB-K% has positively stabilized a bit after hitting a dip earlier in the season (around his 200th plate appearance).
While the BB-K% is an encouraging sign, Salvy is not going to make Royals fans confuse him with Carlos Santana anytime soon. Salvy is a free-swinger, and he likely will remain so, especially if his swing and Statcast data via TJ Stats are any indication.
Salvy has a healthy above-average swing rate (58.2%) and below-average O-Swing% (43.4%) and whiff (27%) rates. Those aren’t exactly recipes for long-term success offensively.
Conversely, his hard-hit metrics in that top category have been outstanding, despite results that haven’t quite been as stellar for Salvy as in years past. Going into this game, he had a 14.3% barrel rate, 38.7% Sweet-Spot%, 46.7% Hard-Hit rate, and .381 xwOBA. The latter was 71 points higher than his actual weighted on-base average (wOBA).
Thankfully, Salvy’s wOBA is starting to trend closer to his xwOBA, which has been pretty solid for most of the season. Based on his rolling wOBA chart via Savant, he has seen a nice spike in his recent 40 plate appearances or so.
There’s no doubt that Salvy is seeing the ball well and taking advantage of the rest he received at the All-Star Break. The home runs he’s hitting now have been no doubters, giving shades of not just last year, but also 2021, when he set the Royals’ single-season home record.
With 17 home runs, Salvy is 10 home runs away from reaching the 300 career HR milestone.
It seems like he may be able to hit it this season, especially if he continues to be this locked in and this hot with the bat for the remainder of the second half (even with some expected batted-ball regression).
Rave Adjustments Paying Off
Salvy has long demonstrated in his illustrious Royals career that he’s had the potential to go on runs like this.
Rave is a different story, as he is a 27-year-old rookie with only 39 games under his belt.
However, other than Salvy, there has been no hotter hitter for the Royals than Rave.
In the past seven games and 18 at-bats, he is slashing .278/.350/.833 with three home runs, eight RBI, and five runs scored. He hit his latest home run against the Cubs on Monday night, in front of many of his hometown family and friends (Rave went to high school in Bloomington, Illinois, and went to college at Illinois State).
While his last week has been scorching, Rave was also showing signs of progress before the All-Star Break.
In his last 15 games and 37 at-bats, he was slashing .243/.333/.514. He also had two stolen bases and five walks to six strikeouts. He was showing much better plate discipline and pitch recognition, something he initially struggled with when he got called up from Omaha.
Rave’s expected wOBA was a lot closer to league average than his wOBA, based on his rolling charts via Savant. That showed that Rave’s numbers weren’t as bad as the initial results demonstrated.
However, he has seen a tremendous spike in his last 20 plate appearances in both charts, an encouraging sign of his progress at the plate.
(Scroll right for expected wOBA; left for actual wOBA.)
The Royals fan side wants to credit Rave’s change of number from 26 (which he had given to Adam Frazier) as a reason for the turnaround. After all, it seems like Rave is channeling great Royals sluggers like Billy Butler and Bo Jackson.
In reality, the real testament to Rave’s surge at the plate can be credited to his hard work during the All-Star Break. Anne Rogers chronicled that progress in a writeup after Rave’s two-homer performance in the first game of the Marlins series.
Rave went to Driveline Baseball in Florida to clean things up with his swing, as illustrated in the segment below from Rogers’ piece.
It wasn’t the only thing that was different about Rave on Friday. He spent the All-Star break across the state in Clearwater, Fla., driving into Tampa for three of the four days to hit at the recently opened Driveline facility. Rave has spent the last two offseasons working with Driveline in Arizona, and he met up with two of the coaches in Tampa over the break: Travis Fitta, who runs the new facility, and Elijah Boyer.
“We wanted a little bit of beach for relaxing, but also, I need to get some things right,” Rave said…
…As the break approached, Rave formed a plan with the Royals’ hitting coaches and flew to Florida to get to work.
“I get a little caught up with lunging toward the plate a little bit, so [I] worked on a coil into my back hip,” Rave said. “That kind of kept me in the zone a little longer. That’s going to be a focus going forward. And then once the game starts, just putting together good at-bats.”
After another two-hit performance, Rave is currently hitting .205 with a .664 OPS in 78 at-bats. He has also demonstrated some promising plate discipline metrics via his TJ Stats summary, which suggests that he may be able to carry this strong performance into the second half of the season.
Rave’s .320 xwOBA going into Monday was 55 points higher than his actual wOBA, a promising sign. He also has a high walk rate (11.5%) and doesn’t whiff (23%) or chase (22.7% O-Swing%) much. However, his hard-hit metrics have left a bit to be desired. His 7.1% barrel rate, 25% Sweet-Spot%, and 39.3% hard-hit rates are all below-average marks.
It’s still a small sample for Rave. It’s tough to take away much from his initial start to his MLB career, much like it’s hard to take much from his four games after the All-Star Break.
Regardless, after tonight, Rave will get plenty more chances to prove if what he’s doing right now in the second half is for real or if it’s just a flash in the pan.
If it’s the former, that could make players like Jonathan India, Michael Massey, and perhaps even Kyle Isbel more expendable by the Trade Deadline.
Photo Credit: AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh
The book on Rave was that he worked his way up. Good athlete, but not a phenom. What I see here is a young professional figuring out the situation and addressing the issue. While Rave is not likely to be an All-Star, I would expect him to continue his adjustment into a very serviceable starting outfielder. I think hitting .260 – .275 with double digits in homers and OBP north of .310 is quite achievable. Not having “God-given-talent”, Rave seems inclined to compensate with “moxie” patience and perseverance…
Somewhere, Drew Waters should be paying attention to him.
I agree about Rave. I wasn’t sure about him when he first debuted, but it seems like he’s settling and making an adjustment. I think a .260/.310/.360 outlook is possible and think he could provide excellent defense and baserunning as well. I also think he could make someone like Kyle Isbel tradeable at the Deadline, since I think Rave could slot in at CF.
Yep. It’s too bad Waters didn’t really make that adjustment quick enough like Rave.