By any measure, Sunday’s game against the Orioles was a success. The Royals won the game. The Royals won the series. And the Royals closed out a 4-2 homestand.
Fire Was Thrown
Yordano Ventura wobbled in the first inning. That’s just a fact. He required 28 pitches to find his first three outs and the Orioles dinged him for a run on a pair of hits and a walk. It was just an inefficient inning.
You could have been excused if you spent the next several minutes fretting over how long Ventura could last. I mean, if he’s going to throw around 100 pitches, it’s not inconceivable to think he could be lucky to get through five. After all, he had just burned through about a quarter of his allotment.
Not so fast. This isn’t 2015 vintage Ventura. This is a new year and a new Ventura. A more mature pitcher. One who returns to the mound and needs just 25 pitches to get the next nine outs. Once he got beyond the first inning, Ventura was flat brilliant. He was around the plate, the Orioles made contact, and he was still able to get his share of whiffs.
The best news (in my opinion) was the way he was able to manage his energy. His velocity chart is exceptional for the number of early pitches he threw.
Ventura didn’t start showing his curve until late in the first and it was his most effective pitch of the game. He generated five of his 11 swings and misses on the curve.
Ventura ended up giving the Royals seven innings, allowing just three hits and two walks. Don’t forget, three of those five baserunners were in the first. He exited with a Game Score of 69, his best showing of the year.
Powering The Way To The WPA Play Of The Game
The first home run of the day belonged to Alex Gordon and knotted the game at one run apiece.
The Gordon home run is notable for a couple of reasons. For one, it had an exit velocity of 99 mph. Gordon is still struggling to have an elevated velocity when bat meets ball. Going into Sunday’s game, his average launch speed was around 85 mph, well below league average of 89 mph. So it was good to see him put some muscle behind the contact.
Secondly, it was an opposite field bomb. That’s like a Ned Yost pinch hitter. We’re talking super rare. Here are Gordon’s landing spots for home runs in his career.
Like most hitters, Gordon’s power comes from pulling the baseball. There’s some opposite field power here, but not much. And especially not down the line like we saw on Sunday. This was only the eighth home run in Gordon’s career that was hit to left field. Certainly, you can’t read anything into this beyond a single home run, but it’s always good to see one of the Royals key bats crush one the opposite way.
The second bomb was to the other side of the stadium, down the right field corner, and was courtesy Eric Hosmer.
The pitch was a 77 mph curve that caught middle-middle. Hosmer did what good hitters are supposed to do to a pitch like that. He sent it out of the yard at 100 mph and a launch angle of 24 degrees. Here’s a nice still of the moment bat met ball.
I mean, that’s just a perfect swing on a meaty pitch. The extension, the hip rotation, his head in line with his shoulders… Everything you want to see from a middle of the order hitter.
Obviously, a huge home run because it broke the tie in the sixth inning, so that’s the WPA Play of the Game. It moved the Royals Win Expectancy 19 percent to the positive.
Breaking It Open
The game was salted away in the seventh. A Gordon infield single, complete with headfirst slide into first (stop that!) was followed by a Christian Colon double on a hit and run. That allowed Gordon to headfirst slide again into home with some insurance for the Royals. A Drew Butera double and Mike Moustakas and Lorenzo Cain singles padded the lead to the final margin.
Don’t know about you, but I feel tons of confidence when Colon is at the plate. Probably misguided, and probably warped by the small sample of the Wild Card game and Game Five. What can you do?
Up Next
It’s only April, but the Royals final West Coast swing starts Monday as they visit Anaheim for a three game series. Ian Kennedy takes the mound for the Royals against Garrett Richards in the opener.