Game 1: Twice the fun

Before we begin, a note about today’s headline. After Sunday’s debacle in Minnesota—and it was, quite simply, a debacle—the Royals return to Kauffman Stadium where they will play their next 10 games. They opened play on Monday four game back in the Wild Card. For the Royals to get into Wild Card contention, they must win at least seven of their next 10. That’s how I’ll be framing these games over this stretch.

First up is three games against the Washington Nationals. That will be followed by three with the White Sox. It’s absolutely criticial the Royals take advantage of this soft part of the schedule. After that, it’s four next week with the Texas Rangers, a team they’re fighting with for one of the Wild Card spots.

The Royals need to go 8-2 on this home stand. They can maybe afford to go 7-3. Among their enemies at this point is the schedule. The Royals are running out of games. If they’re going to make a move, the time is now.

In the spirit of Sesame Street, the opening game of this important 10-game stretch was brought to you by the number two. As in two, two-run home runs. For both teams.

The Royals rode their pair of two-run home runs in the sixth inning on Monday to a 7-4 win against the Nationals. They survived another wobbly outing from starter Bailey Falter but the offense was able to chip away and come back from two-run deficits not once, but twice. Of course.

That erases any hangover lingering from the disaster series in Minnesota. The Royals found their footing and got a critical victory in what is this crucial 10-game stretch. As I’ll be tracking these next 10 games, they are now 1-0.

Let’s open today with the Royals two two-run home runs. Because that’s how we roll at this newsletter.

The first two-run bomb for the Royals was off the bat of The Captain. Are you surprised when Salvador Perez does a little yard work? I don’t think you should be. In this instance against Nationals starter Cade Cavalli, Perez yanked a 1-1 sinker that was down and in.

This blast knotted the game at four-all. Massive to get back level with the Nationals.

Even though we think of Perez as a guy who goes fishing on pitches away all too often, he will hunt for something speeding on the inner edge of the plate. That was his fourth home run out of 21 he has hit this year that were located in that general area. This is the plot for the previous 20:

While Perez is a guy who is something of a bad ball hitter, he, like most hitters, does the most extreme damage on mistake pitches that find too much of the plate. Yet there’s that little inside cluster. Turns out, the margins on pitching to Perez in that general vicinity are extremely thin. Locate in that bottom inside quadrant and, this year at least, Perez isn’t going to hit with much power. Miss inside, though, and he’s capable of doing some yardwork.

The next two-run home run came a few batters later. Adam Frazier singled—he had three hits in the game and drove in a run in the second—but was erased when Randall Grichuk grounded into a double play. However Nick Loftin singled to keep the inning alive, which was important because Kyle Isbel then did this:

That was two-run home run number two in the inning. This one, coming after Perez tied the game, untied it and gave the Royals a 6-4 lead.

Goodness, is Kyle Isbel locked in or what? In his last 21 games, he’s hitting .333/.389/.455 with a wRC+ of 135. He’s providing some balance at the bottom of the order the Royals have so desperately needed this year. If you want to discuss hot Royals hitters, by all means begin with Perez and roll on with Maikel Garcia, but do not omit Isbel from the discussion. The man is on a tear.

The above home run came on a 2-1 sinker from Jackson Rutledge. Rutledge is a sinker/slider kind of guy who will mix in a four-seamer or cutter from time to time. This is how he approached Isbel.

Look, I’m no pitching guru. I’m just a guy with an internet connection who writes about ball. But I do not, under any circumstances, think it’s a good idea to show four of the exact same pitches to a hitter as locked-in as Isbel. Honestly, what’s the difference here? The horizontal plane? Isbel watched three pitches sail past, got a read on the temperature of said pitches and then promptly punished the fourth.

A huge swing in a huge moment that gave the Royals a lead they would not relinquish.

Falter did not make a good first impression on the Kauffman Stadium faithful. After his subpar debut last week in Boston, Falter arrived in Kansas City and promptly walked the first batter he faced. Yeah, he probably got squeezed by home plate umpire Lance Barksdale, but a walk is a walk is a walk. Falter fought back, though and caught the next two Nationals batters looking. The fourth batter of the inning, Josh Bell, was not up there to watch. He hammered a 0-1 hanging slider into the fountains in left to stake Washington to an early 2-0 lead. It was exactly the kind of start the Royals did not want to face.

Falter pitched around a one-out double in the second and a two-out single in the third. He then opened the fourth by issuing back-to-back free passes. He was visibly frustrated in this inning, as was everyone at The K. He wriggled out of the danger, though, by retiring the next three batters with no further damage. Falter’s night concluded after that fourth inning. He finished allowing three hits, three walks and five strikeouts, those two runs in the first on the Bell home run and a lot of loud contact. A lot.

Of the 10 balls put in play against Falter, nine of them were classified by Statcast as Hard-Hit. Nine of ten!

Still, there were glimmers of possibility in Falter’s outing. He took a couple of mph off his slider and subsequently added about five inches of vertical drop to the pitch. The curve came in a little hotter than usual, but with a higher spin rate that allowed Falter to record three whiffs on seven swings. He really pounded the zone with his sinker.

Falter’s two sinkers that were the furthest outside of the zone were chased. He got squeezed on a couple of the others. And he got a handful of called strikes on the pitch.

It wasn’t a great outing. It certainly wasn’t a quality start. It was, as Matt Quatraro called it, “a grind.” But credit to Falter for hanging in there, dodging the bullets the Nationals were spraying all over the park and working around the baserunners. This can be a springboard type of start.

After falling behind early, it was imperative that the Royals answer quickly. They couldn’t let the Nationals hold the lead for long. They couldn’t let the outs pile up without putting runs on the board. They especially couldn’t allow Washington to consolidate their lead.

The Royals got to work in the second, firing up the good ‘ole Singles Train. Maikel Garcia, Salvador Perez and Adam Fraizer strung together three in a row to plate the first run. Randall Grichuk drew a walk to load the bases and the Royals were threatening to break the game in their favor. Come on, though. You know how this season has gone for the Royals…Tantalizing opportunities and not much to show. In this case, they at least posted the tying run on a Nick Loftin sacrifice fly. Keep your expectations in check and you won’t be disappointed.

After that, the potential rally fizzled out.

The Nationals climbed back on top three innings later, thanks yet again to a two-run home run. This was off the bat of Paul DeJong off of Daniel Lynch IV. Really? Paul DeJong? I guess he did hit 24 home runs last year, including six during his brief stint with the Royals at the end of the season. Still, coming into Monday’s game, he had hit just three out of the park all season. Maybe he’s just getting warm now with three of his now four home runs this year coming in August. Pitchers beware, I suppose.

For Lynch, that was the second consecutive outing where he pitched two innings and allowed five hits and two runs. Strange.

I wish I had more confidence in his ability to get through an outing without allowing any damage.

As I like to say, the Royals aren’t contesting a Wild Card in a vacuum. Trying to come from four back means they’ll require some assistance from the teams in front of them. Monday wasn’t a great night on that front.

The Yankees beat the Twins, as they usually do, 6-2. New York has been sprialing, but who among us would be surprised that, after taking two of three from the Royals, the Twins bow to the pinstripes again. Ugh. The Rangers staged a late comeback against the Diamondbacks, tying the game in the ninth and scoring their Manfred Man in the 10th to capture a 7-6 win. And the Astros held off a late rally from the Red Sox and pushed their own 7-6 win across the finish line.

This is how things stack up in the Wild Card race.

One game down. One win in the books. Nine more to go.