Game 7: Power

The Royals successfully navigated the first six games of this most important homestand, winning five. With the Texas Rangers coming to town for the final four games of this set, the stakes elevated quite a bit.

For one thing, the Rangers are better competition than either the Nationals or White Sox would provide. And the Rangers are the team immediately behind the Royals in the Wild Card standings. This series could either pull the Rangers firmly back into the postseason mix, or it could solidify their Royals chances while putting some distance between themselves and one of their rivals for that October spot.

After Monday’s lid-lifter, there are still three games to play, but the Royals got off to a fantastic start, holding off the Rangers and claiming a 4-3 victory. They are now 6-1 on their homestand

They did it with the usual Royals mix: Solid starting pitching, a stellar defensive play and… timely power hitting? Yes, timely power hitting.

When you tuned into the game on Monday and the Royals were up in the bottom of the first, did you think that FanDuel/Ballys/ESPBet360/YourGamblingSiteHere sports network was accidentally airing the game from two nights ago? I mean, who would put it past them?

But it was not a rerun! It was original. It only looked the same.

Mike Yastrzemski saw five pitches, jumping ahead 3-0 before looking at a strike. On the fifth pitch, he did this.

That was his fourth home run as a Royal. It was the third time he’s led off a game for the Royals by leaving the yard. It took until August, but it sure looks like the Royals finally have their leadoff man. At least against a right-handed starter.

Since arriving in KC at the deadline, Yaz is hitting .222/.327/.578, good for a 137 wRC+. He put up 1.1 fWAR in 97 games for the San Francisco Giants. He’s put up 0.7 fWAR for the Royals in just 15 games. In addition to the four home runs, Yaz has also hit four doubles and a pair of singles.

I felt the cost to acquire Yastrzemski at the deadline (right-handed minor leaguer Yunior Marte) was the highest of all the deals General Manager JJ Picollo worked leading up to the deadline, but damn if this hasn’t been the best trade of the bunch up to this point. For a team that struggled to get on the board at just about any point in the first four months of the season, to have a guy at the top of the lineup who can put a jolt in the baseball is huge. We all saw it earlier this season…The Royals would fail to score early, and the offense would just get tight. You know what prevents that from happening? A first inning home run.

Obviously, this is not going to happen every game. (Although it does seem fair to ask, why not?) Still, just the idea that the Royals have a guy at the top of the lineup who is going to work the count and has that kind of power potential is enough. There’s a belief around this offense now, something we did not see earlier this year. Yastrzemski and the other newcomers are instrumental in providing that.

The defensive play of the night came in the second inning, an inning fraught with danger for starter Michael Wacha and the Royals. At this moment, the Rangers had collected three singles against Wacha, allowing them to tie the game at one. Runners were on the corners with one out and Josh Smith lofted a fly ball to what I would term average depth in right field. It was close to the foul line, but it was high enough that right fielder John Rave had plenty of time to circle under it and set up for a throw.

The Rangers runner at third was Joc Pederson. He took off when the ball hit Rave’s glove, looking to give the Rangers a lead. And then Rave uncorked a perfect throw to home.

It was also a great pick at home by Luke Maile, who applied the tag. But did Pederson beat the throw? It was close. Very close. The Rangers challenged. I thought this was the definitive frame on the myriad replays we saw.

It’s definitive in that who the hell knows what we’re seeing. Maile’s tag hits Pederson’s knee, but there was not an angle that shows both the tag and when Pederson’s foot touches the plate. Is Maile applying the tag in this frame? Dunno. Is Pederson’s spike on the corner of home plate? Dunno. Replay is total garbage, man. But if it’s inconclusive, it’s inconclusive. Had the home plate umpire called Pederson safe and the Royals had challenged, that call would’ve held and the Royals would’ve been behind. So chalk one up for the Royals.

I think Pederson was out on what I like to call general principles. It was a perfect route by Rave to set himself up to make a perfect throw. It was a great catch by Maile, who had placed himself in a great position to snare the short-hop and make the tag. A fantastic play all around to even make it close.

Of course Pederson was out.

Also instrumental in the belief of the offense is an anchor in the middle of the order who can provide some thump. That’s exactly what Vinnie Pasquantino has given the Royals of late. If you look at the numbers as a whole for Pasquantino in the month of August, they’re not that great. He’s hitting just .194/.239/.484, which translates to an 85 wRC+, meaning he’s been around 15 percent worse than the average major league hitter for the month. This would be his second-worst offensive month this season, behind only his horrific April.

Heresy, you say! Look, I agree. Especially when he does things like this:

That ball had a launch angle of 19 degrees. It was just the second time in Pasquantino’s career that he’s hit one over the wall with a launch angle below 21 degrees. His all-time low launch angle is 17 degrees, which he did in 2022 against Michael Pineda and the Detroit Tigers.

This home run came with the score tied 1-1 and followed a leadoff walk to Bobby Witt Jr. Witt had gone to second on a wild pitch. I’m going to posit here that we’re seeing the benefits of Pasquantino hitting behind Witt, who has shown improvement in his base-stealing game this year. Pitchers are increasingly distracted with Witt on the bases. They’re going to make mistakes. And they’ve been making them to Pasquantino of late.

That was Pasquantino’s eighth home run in the second half. It was home run number 23, which gives him the outright team lead over Salvador Perez at 22 home runs. It was the 13th time one of Pasquantino’s home runs had given his team the lead.

The final home run of the game was perhaps the most impressive.

While I beg you not to use the strike zone drawn on the broadcast to render judgment on the home plate umpire, the plot where the pitch finishes is usually decent. Plus, I mean you can also use your eyes. That pitch Maikel Garcia hit out to left was waaaaaay inside. For him to pull in his hands and generate that kind of power and loft to get it over the fence is damn impressive.

Look where this pitch ended up:

What??? If I had told you Maikel Garcia hit a home run in the game and presented you with the plot above, you would probably ask where the third pitch was. Because he’s not doing damage to either of the two above. At least, he shouldn’t be.

One of the things I love about Baseball Savant is that it can give us some serious context. The pitch that Garcia hit was 1.23 feet in off the center of the plate. That is tied for the third-furthest inside a pitch has come to a right-handed batter this season that has been hit out of the park. The furthest? Ramón Laureano hit one that was 1.3 feet inside.

This extended the Royals’ lead to 4-1 in the bottom of the fifth. They would need all four runs.

Some interesting things happened in the Wild Card race last night: Both the Mariners and Red Sox lost. The Yankees did not play. That bunches the top teams even tighter together since the two teams just outside qualification, the Guardians and the Royals, both picked up victories.

And while I’m cutting off the Wild Card contenders at the .500 mark, don’t sleep on the fact that, as I wrote above, these games against the Rangers carry extra importance as Texas is the team immediately behind the Royals in the current Wild Card standings. As such, Monday’s victory means the Royals have opened a 2.5 game lead on the Rangers.

There’s still a long way to go in this race, but the Royals playoff odds are the highest they’ve been since June 23.