Game 8: 100

When this homestand started last week, and I stated my intention of tracking this team through all 10 games as this was very much a make-or-break stretch, I hoped like hell this team would make the games competitive. The minimum expectation if the Royals were to get back in the mix for a Wild Card was a 7-3 record. Ideally, they would go 8-2. That seemed the best-case scenario.

Honestly, had they done something stupid like lost two of three to the Nationals and the White Sox, I probably just would’ve shifted focus and pretended this whole exercise never happened as we counted down the days to the off-season.

And now, after Tuesday’s 5-2 win over the Texas Rangers, the Royals have won five in a row and are 7-1 through the first eight games of this homestand.

There is still work to do. Two games remain. Yet up to this point, they have held up their end of the bargain.

The boys are playing some ball.

Let’s open today with a massive sigh of relief. Seth Lugo looked sharp in his 6.1 innings of work. Like in his last start (the only Royals loss on this homestand), where he rode his four-seamer and curve as his primary offerings, he did the same in his outing on Tuesday. He mixed in a few more cutters and slurves than his previous outing, but Lugo has been doing things like that with his arsenal all season long. Hitters really can’t go up there expecting to see more of one particular pitch because he’s been mixing things up so much.

The main difference that I could see was that there was some life on his four-seamer that was missing from his previous outing. After averaging 90.7 mph on his fastball last week, he was at 91.7 mph on Tuesday. That velocity is right in line with his average on the season. The curve was quite a bit firmer than we’ve seen this season. It was coming in a couple mph hotter than normal and with a higher spin rate. The result was a little less drag and drop on the pitch. It wasn’t really fooling anyone as hitters chased it only 20 percent of the time and made contact on six of seven swings they took against the pitch.

Overall, the Rangers weren’t expanding the zone against Lugo. They only chased on 22 percent of the pitches outside the zone. They also swung and missed just six times on Lugo’s 102 pitches. But the contact the Rangers made wasn’t as loud as it had been against the Nationals, and prior to that, the Twins.

I’m not sold that Lugo is back. He kept the Rangers in check but the underlying data suggests some luck was in play there. It’s a promising outing, absolutely, but I’ll need to see more.

The Royals have hit 16 home runs in these eight games at The K. Four of them belong to Vinnie Pasquantino. Yes, the man hit another laser shot over the wall on Tuesday.

That’s a little more in Mike Yastrzemski territory than where Pasquantino has been hitting them of late. But remember yesterday how I noted that Pasquantino’s Monday home run was with a launch angle of 19 degrees, which was the second lowest of his career? (Of course you do. Thank you, loyal subscriber!) Would you be shocked if I told you that this Pasquantino home run was also at 19 degrees? I don’t think it says much, but it’s undeniable that the dude is locked in.

What does illustrate how Pasquantino is locked in are the plot points of the pitches he’s hit out of the park in this homestand.

Aside from the meatball changeup, the other three are hard pitches on the inner half that he’s turning on and absolutely ripping. He’s handling everything at the moment. Tuesday’s home run was on the sinker.

Long may it continue.

The Pasquantino dinger came in the first and was the Royals answer to the Rangers Corey Seager first inning home run.

Texas jumped back on top a couple of innings later with a Joc Pederson home run. (My goodness…The K is playing like Coors Field now.) The Royals countered with, yes, another home run.

Your turn, Yaz.

I like how this home run went into what I would call Pasquantino territory. It’s as if the hitters are both paying homage to the other. Teamwork!

After hitting eight home runs in 97 games for the Giants, that was Yastrzemski’s fifth home run in 16 games with the Royals. It was also Yaz’s fifth career dinger against Rangers starter Merrill Kelly.

Fair is fair so these are the pitches Yastrzemski has crushed out of the yard in this homestand.

A little more of the center-cut variety than those inside pitches Pasquantino is turning on, which provides a bit of a fun contrast. Tuesday’s home run was the changeup.

Tell me how this makes sense…

With the score tied at two in the seventh inning, the Royals loaded the bases with a Pasquantino double and singles by Maikel Garcia and Randal Grichuk. Both singles stayed on the infield, by the way.

That brought up Jonathan India. India has become something akin to a human bruise. The guy is constantly getting banged up one way or another. He’s been hit by a pitch 11 times, the most on team by a wide margin. Make that 12 times.

Yes, in a series where the Royals have scored nine runs in two games with eight of those runs coming courtesy of the home run ball, the Royals took the lead late on Tuesday night when India was plunked between the shoulder blades by a slider from Rangers reliever Cole Winn.

Seriously, the dude is like a piñata for opposing pitchers, but score runs by any means necessary. I’m sure India would prefer the whole thing to be less painful, but that’s what ice packs are for.

For all the good these Royals have done in this homestand, there are still moments that confound and frustrate. After India was hit by the pitch and the Royals took the lead. The bases were still loaded and there was nobody out. The stage is set for a massive inning and for the Royals to truly grab this game and stuff it away. Then John Rave went down swinging for the first out. That was followed by Kyle Isbel hitting a ground ball to first that turned into a 3-2-3 double play to end the inning.

One of those innings where you can feel good that the Royals grabbed the lead, but still feel that familar dread that comes with squandering an opportunity to plate a few more runs.

A few more runs? Why, that’s Bobby Witt Jr.’s music!

This was home run number 100 in Witt’s career. It came with a runner on in the eighth inning, so it was a little extra cushion for the Royals to close out the win. It traveled 449 feet.

Here’s a fun Statcast nugget: Witt’s swing on this blast registered at 80.1 mph. That was a full 2 mph faster than anyone else swung the bat in Tuesday’s game. Although I should point out that Witt also had the second and third fastest swings of the game. He’s in attack mode.

The home run also came on the ninth pitch of the at bat, a turn where Whitt saw a steady diet of cutters and four-seamers. Winn was pitching Witt away, but left that final cutter a little too centered in the nitro zone.

That’s a helluva outcome for a helluva at bat.

I’m sure you’ve heard all of the superlatives about how Witt is the youngest player in Royals history to hit 100 home runs and all of that. My favorite is the fact that he’s only the fourth player in Major League history to hit at least 100 home runs and steal at least 100 bases in his first four seasons. That just underscores what a complete player Witt is. The others who have accomplished this? Julio Rodríguez, Darryl Strawberry and Bobby Bonds.

We are truly in the presence of baseball greatness.

The Red Sox lost in 11 innings to the Orioles. That was despite a game-tying home run by Nathaniel Lowe for the Red Sox. The same Nathaniel Lowe who hit a grand slam against the Royals last week for their only loss in this homestand. Unreal. Whatever. The Red Sox lost. So too did the Mariners, who have now dropped four in a row. Of the top three teams, only the Yankees won. You can’t have everything.

However, the Guardians also lost, dropping one to the Diamondbacks, so the Wild Card standings look like this:

That’s the Royals surging past the Guardians for the first spot just outside the top three. Remember how I’ve written all year that it’s important for the Royals to get past the other teams fighting it out for a playoff spot? Well, they opened this homestand a week ago a game and a half behind the Rangers and three and a half in back of the Guardians. So, mission accomplished on that front.

With seven wins out of eight, this has been a wildly successful homestand, exactly what the Royals needed. Two more to go.