Things seemed to be turning in a positive direction after a series win in Toronto over the weekend. After Sunday’s 7-4 victory over the AL East division winners, the Royals got back to .500 and within 3.5 games of the final AL Wild Card spot.
Unfortunately, Kansas City has hit a roadblock in Boston, losing the first two games of the series, which included a 6-2 loss on Tuesday where the Royals’ bullpen couldn’t hold a solid start by Ryan Bergert, who made his first start with Kansas City after being traded over from San Diego at the Trade Deadline.
The series loss is Kansas City’s seventh-straight series loss against Boston (they lost two in a row this season at Kauffman after winning the first game). Furthermore, it is the Royals’ first since their initial series out of the All-Star Break against the Marlins.
Now, at 56-58 and 4.5 games behind in the Wild Card race, the Royals are hoping to avoid the sweep on Wednesday.
So what has gone wrong for the Royals in Beantown after a successful trip North of the Border? Let’s look at the last two games and what Royals fans can look forward to in the series finale against the Red Sox.
Falter’s Struggles Too Much for Royals
Bailey Falter, who came over from Pittsburgh at the Trade Deadline, struggled in his Royals debut on Monday. Not only did the lefty spot the Red Sox five runs in the bottom of the first, but he ended up with seven runs on eight hits and two walks in only four innings of work.
According to TJ Stats metrics, Falter produced a decent amount of chase and flooded the strike zone. Unfortunately, he gave up a ton of hard contact and generated few whiffs and a low CSW (20%). Those numbers demonstrated that Falter’s arsenal didn’t fool Red Sox hitters in the loss.
Falter’s sinker was arguably his best pitch on Monday, as it not only sported a 100 TJ Stuff+ and 60 grade but also a .225 xwOBACON. He gave up a .489 xwOBACON on his four-seamer, a .701 mark on his four-seamer, and a .591 mark on his curveball. It’s going to be hard for Falter to be successful with the Royals down the stretch if he’s going to have such high marks in xwOBACON on a majority of his pitches.
The 28-year-old lefty doesn’t have overpowering stuff, but he is known for generating decent movement on his pitches. However, those traits don’t do Falter much good when he’s not locating effectively.
Falter struggled overall with his location against Boston, as demonstrated by his pitch type and description charts via Savant.
A pitch that stuck out to me was his four-seamer, which he threw 19.3% of the time in his Royals debut.
Against the Red Sox, Falter’s four-seamer demonstrated good movement (19.2 inches iVB ) and a solid TJ Stuff+ (106). It also generated a 37.5% chase rate and 52.9% zone rate. However, in addition to a high xwOBACON allowed, it only sported a 10% whiff rate.
His location could be credited to the lackluster results on the pitch against the Red Sox, as seen in the pitch charts below.
Falter just left too many fastballs in the zone against Boston, and they took advantage of his lack of command. An early example of that was a single by Rob Refsnyder on a Falter four-seamer in the zone that gave the Red Sox an early 2-0 lead.
It’s only one start for Falter, and it was against an offense that ranks fifth in OPS and fourth in runs scored. Thus, while it’s easy to dwell on how bad Falter’s start was, he shouldn’t be judged just yet, especially considering this Red Sox lineup has been a bad matchup for a lot of pitchers this season.
That said, one has to wonder what the game would’ve been like had Falter not struggled so much.
Taylor Clarke, Sam Long, and Angel Zerpa only allowed three hits and one run in four innings of work, and the Royals ended up scoring five runs on 12 hits. Vinnie Pasquantino and Maikel Garcia both went yard, with Garcia launching his 11th of the season, which is as many as he hit in 2022 and 2023, combined.
The rally was killed in the 8th due to an errant baserunning decision by Nick Loftin, who was thrown out badly by Boston right fielder Wilyer Abreu. While it seemed like a bad send initially by third base coach Vance Wilson, it appeared that Loftin was the one who made the mistake, running through Wilson’s stop sign.
Despite the blunder, for five innings, the Royals showed that they could compete with a playoff-caliber team. Unfortunately, a baseball game is played over nine innings, not five, much to the Royals’ chagrin on Monday.
Bergert Has Solid Debut But Bullpen “Falters”
On Tuesday, it was a bit of an inverse performance from the Royals’ pitching staff in a 6-2 loss.
Bergert, in his Royals debut, went 5.2 innings and only allowed two runs on two walks. He struck out just two Red Sox batters, but he generated a 32% CSW and posted some solid overall metrics via TJ Stats.
Bergert only generated a 19% whiff rate, but he flooded the zone with a 57.6% zone rate, a 36.1% chase rate, and .276 xwOBACON against a good Red Sox lineup. His stuff impressed on Tuesday as well, as evidenced by his overall TJ Stuff+ of 105. He also sported two pitches with 60 grades (four-seamer and sweeper).
The main issue for Bergert against Boston was that his command of his sweeper was a bit spotty, as he left it up high and up in the zone. He located the rest of his offerings fairly well, as shown in his pitch type chart via Savant.
Notice how he located the four-seamer up for the most part and changeup down, which is what one wants to see. Unfortunately, the breaking pitches (slider and sweeper) caught a lot of the strike zone.
It didn’t hurt him too much with the sweeper, as he only allowed a .140 xwOBACON on the pitch. However, it was a much different story for his slider, which allowed a .448 xwOBACON, the highest of any of his offerings on Tuesday.
When looking at his slider zone description chart, Bergert was at least able to generate whiffs with the slider, even if the contact he allowed was loud.
Bergert’s slider not only generated a whiff rate of 35.7%, but a chase rate of 54.5% and zone rate of 50%. With a 105 TJ Stuff+, one has to wonder if Royals pitching coach Brian Sweeney will want Bergert to utilize that offering even more in his next outing, even if it carries the risk of hard contact allowed.
While Bergert kept the Royals in the game for nearly six innings, the wheels came off for the Royals’ bullpen in game two.
Zerpa allowed an inherited runner to score and also gave up an additional run on three hits in 0.1 IP. John Schreiber came in after Zerpa and allowed three runs on three hits and two walks. Zerpa, Schreiber, and Daniel Lynch IV, who pitched 1.1 IP, didn’t record a single strikeout.
The Royals’ bullpen ranks 26th in K/9 and 19th in H/9 this season. Unfortunately, allowing so much contact and striking out a low number of batters overall as a unit makes them susceptible to outings like the one fans saw on Tuesday night.
It’s too bad that it feels like these outings are happening more often lately, especially after the All-Star Break.
Can Michael Wacha Help Stop the Bleeding on Wednesday?
To avoid the sweep, the Royals will need a big performance from Wacha, who is coming off one of his best starts of the season in Toronto.
In a 9-3 win on August 1st against the Blue Jays, the veteran righty went eight innings and allowed only one run on three hits and zero walks while striking out five. It was not only Wacha’s finest start of the season, but it may have been his best start as a Royal.
Wacha has been an interesting pitcher for the Royals this season, as he is having a solid season, but not a spectacular one.
The 34-year-old righty’s ERA looks good at 3.38, and he’s accumulated 125.1 IP, which is valuable considering the injury issues the Royals’ rotation has experienced this season (especially to Cole Ragans and Kris Bubic). However, his xERA is much higher at 3.95, and his strikeout rate is 2.9% lower than a year ago at 18.3%.
Here’s a look at his TJ Stats profile, and notice none of Wacha’s metrics stand out.
Wacha’s overall TJ Stuff+ is 97, which is slightly below average. He also rates as below average in whiff rate at 22.6%. His chase at 28.2% and xwOBACON at .358 are serviceable for now, but that can change with a couple of starts. The only area where Wacha rates as above-average is in zone rate, as demonstrated by his 53.2% mark.
However, will Wacha’s heavy zone-usage and slightly lackluster stuff be taken advantage of by Red Sox hitters? Or will Wacha’s craftiness keep Boston at bay, much like Bergert was able to on Tuesday for over five innings of work?
I guess Royals fans will see on Wednesday, though the offense will have to do better than what they did on Tuesday. Even against an ace like Garrett Crochet, Kansas City has to do better than two runs on five hits (which included only three extra base hits).
Hopefully, the Royals’ offense can have a performance on Wednesday that will be closer to what they did on Monday. A performance like that, coupled with a solid outing from Wacha, could help the Royals build some much-needed momentum for a winnable series in Minneapolis against the Twins.
Photo Credit: Brian Fluharty/Getty Images