Walking the plank

The bullpen has been a rough patch all season long. They doubled down on those issues in all three games in Pittsburgh over the weekend. They were tied at 5 on Friday going into the seventh. They lost 8-5. They were ahead 5-4 going into the eighth on Saturday. They lost 6-5. And they were ahead 3-2 going into the eighth on Sunday. They lost 4-3. All winnable games. All losses.

It was a fitting homage to an underwhelming season.

There is no comfortable way to watch a bullpen squander a game. If anyone knows this, it’s Royals fans. But my god…Nate Pearson put two runners on and moved them to scoring position via a wild pitch on Friday. He then got the next two outs. Tantalizingly close to an escape, he then went single, walk and single to provide the final margin of defeat.

I’ve written at length this season about the inability of the relievers to get that third out with minimal damage. If Friday was just another example of that, Saturday and Sunday were a bit more…immediate.

On Saturday, Steven Cruz allowed a leadoff single and then a home run to Brandon Lowe to give the Pirates the lead. A center-cut cutter to a 30-home run hitter? That baseball was doomed from the minute Lowe started his hands.

Sunday’s defeat was a carbon copy of Saturday’s. Pearson was the victim once again. He gave up a leadoff single to Ryan O’Hearn and then Rafael Flores Jr. golfed a 1-2 slider over the wall in left. Unlike Cruz’s meatball offering on Saturday, Pearson’s location wasn’t poor on Sunday. It was at the bottom of the zone, but given that Flores went fishing for a slider in the dirt earlier, maybe Pearson could’ve been a little lower. All academic.

Pearson has stumbled after a bright start to his Royals career. He allowed just one run in his first 20 appearances covering 21 innings. He’s surrendered runs in each of his last four outings. The raw numbers: Four innings and eight runs allowed. That…will not play. Turns out this bullpen will eventually come for all relievers.

So the Royals tumbled out of Pittsburgh as losers. They have all but assured themselves last place in the AL Central and are likewise certain for 90-plus losses. The whole season gone sideways.

Jac Caglianone was not in the Royals starting lineup on Friday night for the series opener against the Pirates. Not an especially notable deal as the Royals are playing out the string and manager Matt Quatraro seems to be rotating guys in and out of the lineup. There was also the fact that he had missed several games earlier this month with elbow soreness and had, when played, gone 0-10 with eight strikeouts.

Then, news filtered out that Caglianone was out of the lineup because of an incident that happened on Thursday in the dugout after one of his at bats and he would be addressing the situation on Saturday. Uh-oh.

From John Perrotto at MLB.com:

Manager Matt Quatraro benched Caglianone in Friday night’s loss to the Pirates at PNC Park for disciplinary reasons. Caglianone suffered a cut on his left hand during Thursday’s loss to the Astros in Houston, when he punched a dugout wall after striking out.

“It was a very selfish and immature move on my part,” Caglianone said prior to going 2-for-3 with two runs scored, including an RBI single in Saturday's 6-5 loss. “These guys [in the clubhouse] hold me to a higher standard. I hold myself to a higher standard. It’s definitely a learning experience, something that I want to grow from.”

We know from watching him scuffle last year that Caglianone wears his emotions on the outside. Now we know that sometimes those emotions can bubble over into ways that aren’t helpful for him or the team. The cliché says that baseball is a game of failure, so it would be a good thing if Caglianone can figure a way to channel those feelings that don’t include his left hand and the dugout wall.

We also know that Caglianone has some talent for this game. He’s quietly having a really, really strong offensive season. Given where he was this time last year, there are quite a few positives to take from his performance. Going forward, I’m not super concerned about what happened in Houston. Not only did he hear from Quatraro, I’m sure he heard from a few of his teammates. The Royals may be out of the picture in 2026, but they need Caglianone whenever they decide to start winning again.

I’m going to look at this as an incident like Carter Jensen oversleeping and getting held out of that game in early April. It’s a dumb mistake by a young player that cannot happen again. I appreciated his statement because it was a selfish and immature act, something that could hurt both the player and the team. Don’t do it again. Learn from it and move on.

Besides, he needs someone to council him that, should he ever have the opportunity to become a two-way player, that when you throw a punch you don’t do it with your pitching hand. That’s according to the gospel of Crash Davis.

The Royals return home for the final six games of the season with three against the Chicago White Sox and three versus the Cleveland Guardians to close out the 2026 slate. Given that just a game separates the Sox and the Guardians for the AL Central title, with the team that comes up short in the division with an inside track for the third AL Wild Card, the Royals have an opportunity to put their thumb on the postseason scales. Minor consolation.

I don’t know about you, but I’m having a difficult time getting amped for any kind of postseason baseball this year. Disappointment of the Royals season aside, there’s usually some fun in tracking these playoff races. Yet I’m finding that given the excess of medoicrity, especially in the American League, who can care about that sixth postseason team? And what kind of entertainment is it to watch a couple of teams puff and wheeze their way to .500 and a division title as happening in the AL West? I don’t mean to be a downer, but there are a slew of uncompeling teams lining up for the playoffs.

Things are a little better in the National League as the Brewers continue to be a model franchise. They have a legit shot for 100 wins. Maybe this is their year? At least until they run into the Dodger juggernaut. There isn’t really a race on the NL side as the division winners are settled and the three Wild Card teams are all but decided. All to play for is the first round home field advantage. There are too many teams that qualify for this tournament.

I may check out until the League Championship Series.