Breaking the spell

Take that, Etsy Witch!

The Royals jumped out to a first inning lead behind the fire of Cole Ragans and a thunderous blast from Salvador Perez. The Mariners chipped away and seized control late. For a moment, it looked as though Seattle would take their 11th win in a row and the Royals would be dealt another bad loss in a string of September disappointment.

Then the Royals went off in the eighth, scoring four times and rolling to a 7-5 win.

I was going to write that the victory was “much-needed” or something like that, but I’m not certain that’s the case anymore. The Royals are seven back with 12 to play. Maybe I just don’t know where to look but now that Major League Baseball has made their playoff system as complicated as the NFL, it would sure be nice if standings posted magic numbers or elimination numbers. They probably can’t due to bizarre tiebreakers. But I did some calculating on my own and I believe the Royals elimination number currently stands at four. That means any combination of Royals wins and Mariners losses (due to the fact they are ultimately trying to get the position Seattle currently occupies in the standings) that matches four, will see the Royals off. It sounds right, at least.

And wouldn’t you know it, the Royals and Mariners play one more time on Thursday. And the winner of that game will have the tiebreaker as the season series is currently tied 3-3. I have no idea what that would do to a magic number.

Somewhere, Rob Manfred is having a fever dream with 15 divisions of two teams each…Where 24 teams make the playoffs.

You’re not here to read my old man rants, you’re here to read about baseball. So, enough of my yakkin’. What do you say? Let’s boogie.

Let’s begin with Ragans because his first inning was straight-up insane. The lefty came back throwing fire. Literally. Ragans touched 98 mph in the first inning and averaged around 97 mph with a four-seamer he delivered 10 times. He recorded one foul ball on the pitch…and nine whiffs. Nine whiffs!

The lone slider he threw was a 1-2 pitch to Cal Raleigh that was down and out of the zone. And The Big Dumper swung and missed for strike three. The other two batters, Randy Arozarena and Julio Rodríguez, saw just three pitches. They swung at all three. And they missed on all three.

That was the sexiest inning I’ve seen from a starting pitcher in, I don’t know…forever.

Straight gas.

Pick a pitch to GIF…any pitch will do.

That was the final pitch of the inning at 98 mph on the black. On an 0-2 count, that’s an absolutely filthy pitch. If Rodríguez takes, it’s a called strike. If he swings…well, you see what happens.

No hyperbole, people. I will be thinking about that inning pretty much all winter long.

The second inning was pretty much the polar opposite, though. Ragans walked the leadoff batter and then served up a belt-high four-seamer on the outer half that Eugenio Suárez launched into the left-center bleachers. That broke an 0-32 skid for Suárez because of course it did.

Ragans lost a bit of velocity between the first and second innings. After living around 97 mph in the first, he settled into the mid-90s in the second frame. Looking at his velocity chart, it’s obvious when the second inning started.

Ragans has always been an interesting dude to chart this way because he has that extra gear as he’s approaching the finish line. He bumped back up with velocity in the third inning for a moment. He only threw one four-seamer in his abbreviated fourth.

After that rocky second inning, Ragans steadied himself. He was nowhere near as dominant as he was in the first, but he finished his night at 62 pitches with 42 of them for strikes. The Suárez home run was the only damage. It was an encouraging outing from the lefty who would be the ace.

As the game unfolded, it felt like it was going to be one of those nights, offensively speaking. You know what I’m talking about…A tidy first inning rally thanks to a home run, followed by eight innings of relative silence.

The Royals were, once again, first off the mark as Vinnie Pasquantino and Maikel Garcia both singled with two outs in the bottom half of that first inning. That was followed by another Salvador Perez home run and just like that, the Royals held a 3-0 lead.

I’m in a bit of a bad spot as a writer because I’ve run out of things to say about this dude. Every home run he hits is impressive in its own right. That was a four-seamer on the black. For The Captain to get the extension required and then loft it and drive it so it clears the fence…This is just power in its purest form. Brute strength.

After that, it was another edition of Missed Opportunity Theater. The Royals left the bases loaded in the third. They had Pasquantino thrown out by about 60 feet at home in the fifth. For real, I have absolutely no idea what third base coach Vance Wilson was doing in that situation. Earlier in the season in Boston, he threw up a very subdued stop sign that Nick Loftin ran through. On Wednesday, there was no stop sign. There was no windmill, either. Just Wilson moving down the third base line. In what world would Pasquantino be sent home in that situation? But he wasn’t looking to the outfield in that moment. He was motoring as fast as a man nicknamed Pasquatch can motor.

There’s usually too much focus on a third base coach, especially when things go wrong. In this case, I have no idea what Wilson was thinking, not throwing up both hands and ordering Pasquantino to stop.

I would classify that entire sequence as a WTF TOOTBLAN.

The Royals bullpen could not hold the lead as that man Suárez hit a leadoff double against Angel Zerpa and scored on a pair of productive outs to tie the game at three in the seventh. The Mariners grabbed the lead in the eighth on a J.P. Crawford home run against Lucas Erceg.

With the Royals propensity for packing up the offense after a productive first inning and whatever the Mariners are riding with an Etsy Witch on their side, it sure felt as if this one was a fait accompli.

Not so fast!

One of the more enjoyable things about our game is the way the most unexpected outcomes can happen in a way that can totally alter a game. Take the bottom of the eighth. Perez led off the inning and drew a six-pitch walk against reliever Matt Brash.

Just under four percent of Perez’s plate appearances have ended in a walk this season. And when it’s against a right-hander spinning sliders off the dish, it’s even more noteworthy. The Captain, for all his free swinging ways, knew the assignment: Get on base to give the team a chance.

That brought up Adam Frazier. Coming into Wednesday’s game, Frazier had hit 66 home runs in his career. If you’re into percentages, Frazier hits a home run in 1.5 percent of his plate appearances. So we can say Sal Perez is more likely to draw a walk than Adam Frazier is to hit a home run.

Then, this happened:

Remember how I wrote about Carter Jensen and how opposite field power is a true measure of someone’s power potential. Yeah, forget that. At least when it comes to Adam Frazier. Still…we’ll take it!

Of the now 67 home runs in Frazier’s career, just five of them have gone to the left side of dead center. And that one was the furthest to the left.

That may be the funniest home run scatter plot I’ve ever looked up.

Officially, it tracked at 338 feet. It almost didn’t clear the fence. The ball hit the top of the railing just to the right of the foul pole.

According to Statcast, that is tied with a Freddy Fermin home run for the second-shortest out-of-the-park home run in Kauffman Stadium history. Danny Valencia hit one 337 feet back in 2017.

That tremendous feat of strength put the Royals back on top. And it seemed to break the rest of the lineup out of the offensive funk that had hovered since the end of the first. After the Frazier home run, Jac Caglianone doubled, Carter Jensen drove him home with a single and two batters later, Bobby Witt Jr. doubled in Jensen.

After the game, Matt Quataro said starter Ryan Bergert felt some forearm tightness while throwing a regular bullpen. He had been the probable starter for Friday. Instead, he will likely go on the IL. If that’s the case, his season comes to a close. Michael Lorenzen, who threw a scoreless inning, will make the start against the Blue Jays.

This will likely get Luinder Avila back to the big leagues after a day detour to the minor leagues. He was optioned to Triple-A as the roster move to get Ragans off the injured list. Normally, a player has to spend 10 days in the minors after getting optioned, but if an injury occurs, that rule is waived.

If Bergert does go on the IL as expected, that will be the end of his season. He finishes his rookie campaign making 19 appearances and 15 starts, covering 76.1 innings. He posted a 3.66 ERA with a 23 percent strikeout rate and 11 percent walk rate. With the Royals, Bergert made eight starts, throwing 40.2 innings with a 4.43 ERA. He had a 22 percent strikeout rate and 10 percent walk rate. His last two outings where he surrendered 11 earned runs in 7.1 innings against Cleveland and Philadelphia, really elevated that ERA.

Shame that his season ends in this fashion, but it’s easy to be optimistic about his future in the Royals rotation.