All these stats are from the incomparable Baseball Savant.

Exit Velocity Allowed

So yeah, that’s not great. If you’re getting strikeouts, you can live with getting hit a little harder because you’re getting hit less frequently, but for guys like Skoglund and Hammel and Lively, that’s not great. It’s also not great to have two pitchers below the MLB average. If you’re looking for some optimism, well, look elsewhere.

Hard Hit %

So here’s what I’m learning. Tim Hill limits good contact pretty well. I was pretty hard on him because I just didn’t see it and a guy who isn’t good against righties should be better than he is against lefties. But he gets an awful lot of weak contact and he’s capable of getting the strikeout. Maybe I’m underestimating him. Also, Keller had a really nice season.

Barrel %

I kind of felt like Sparkman never really got squared up, even when he struggled, and he did allow the lowest percentage of barrels of anyone. It’s also no surprise that the top of the list has Adam, who I love and hope he can turn it around, but woof. Again, man, Brad Keller had a really nice season.

Launch Angle

So the biggest takeaway here is that Hill is a ground ball monster, which we knew. He’s no Scott Alexander who was at -5.8° this year, but to be negative at all is pretty impressive as he was one of just seven pitchers with 140 batted ball events or more with a negative average launch angle. And, hey, look at that. McCarthy was there too. Oh and there’s another Keller sighting on a positive leaderboard.

Whiff %

The Royals offense swings and misses too much and their pitchers don’t get enough swings and misses. You can live with some guys who get a ton of grounders like Keller, Hill and McCarthy, but there are just too many guys on this list who are either too close to or below league average. If the Royals are going to be good again, they need to get their swing and miss bullpen back first and then find a starter or two who can be above average because this just isn’t going to work in this era of baseball.

Weak Contact %

They don’t get many swings and misses and didn’t have many pitchers who elicited weak contact either. If you’re not going to do one, you need to do the other. And they didn’t in 2018. It’s probably no surprise to see Peralta at the top with his heavy fastball, but I would have thought Keller would be a little higher on this list. To see Adam near the top tells me he needs to find a middle ground more often, though him toward the top of the list says more about the Royals than him probably.

So yeah, the pitching isn’t what you’d call good. There is some hope for improvement as the team posted a 4.26 ERA from August 1^st on and struck out hitters on par with their season average, but walked fewer and gave up way fewer homers per game. And even more optimism comes from a 3.79 September ERA, though that came with a decreased strikeout total, so maybe there shouldn’t be the same optimism there. Either way, expect some new faces in that bullpen and maybe even the rotation to help turn things around in 2019, but it might be a couple years before we see a real change there.

• Clint has written a couple really interesting pieces looking at the 2009 system vs. the 2019 system and the comparisons (pitchers here and hitters here). One thing that stands out to me is that I do believe there is additional depth in the system at the expense of star power right now as compared to a decade ago. But given the changes the organization has made in those 10 years, I’d actually bet on the depth coming through and maybe putting a more sustained winner on the field than what we saw from that last group that came from the best farm system anyone had ever seen to that point. You certainly can’t argue with a world championship and two AL pennants, but I think an argument can be made (and I’ve made it) that they still underachieved individually. Eric Hosmer never became a star. Neither did Mike Moustakas. They didn’t get an ace out of the system, though with the tragic passing of Yordano Ventura, maybe that was taken away too soon. I believe that their development is so different today than it was 10 years ago that they have an opportunity to turn their additional depth into more winning. Maybe they don’t have the marquee prospect right now, but they should after the June draft and likely should get another one in the 2020 draft with a relatively high pick. We’ve already seen the system working much better in churning out guys like Jakob Junis and Whit Merrifield. Maybe I’m wrong and nothing will be different, but they just do such a better job today in development than a decade ago that I’d actually bet on the depth maybe even putting up better numbers than the star prospects they once had. The biggest thing for me is the pitching development has gone from archaic to much more open-minded, and I will all but guarantee they’ll be rewarded for that in the near future.
• It seems like a lot of people are down on Brett Phillips. And I get it to some extent because he was underwhelming offensively after coming over in the July trade. That might be an understatement. He hit .188/.252/.313 and struck out an astonishing 50 times in 123 plate appearances. So yeah, it was bad. But I find it odd that some of what I’ve seen has people so sure that he can’t hit. He hit .279/.360/.475 in the minors in 2,760 plate appearances. He hit .276/.351/.448 in 98 plate appearances in the big leagues in 2017. He had a 10.5 percent minor league walk rate and is at 8.2 percent in his limited big league action. He swings and misses way too much, and that will be a problem, but I just think it’s pretty silly to write him off. He wasn’t exactly hitting well before he hurt his shoulder, but he went 3 for 23 with no extra base hits and 10 strikeouts after he came back and admitted he wasn’t playing at 100 percent. I honestly don’t know why they insisted on playing him when they had plenty of other outfield options available. I think all that last three weeks did was hurt the perception of him among fans and put him in a position to fail. I’m not saying Phillips is a surefire star or anything, but we have to remember the Royals picked him up in exchange for two months of a guy who had to wait until March to sign because there was so little demand for him. I still like him and if he can be a .240/.300/.410 hitter even, there’s a place for him in the big leagues. I get maybe being a little disappointed in his start with the Royals, but to write him off now seems pretty silly to me.
• As the Royals look to build back up to a World Series contender, one thing they’ve mentioned quite a bit is speed and defense, which I believe will be a hallmark of every good Royals team ever. They’ve got some work to do on the defense side. I did mention a few weeks ago that the outfield could be near elite next season with the right pieces in the right spots, but looking at Fielding Runs Above Average (FRAA), there’s definitely room for growth. Mike Moustakas was the team’s best defender by that metric with Jon Jay third best and Lucas Duda amazingly eighth best. The positive is that Phllips was worth 4.6 runs while Whit Merrifield, Alex Gordon, Adalberto Mondesi (in half a season) and Ryan O’Hearn all rated positively. I’m a little surprised on O’Hearn as he looked stiff and indecisive at first base, but the metrics say otherwise. Alcides Escobar ranked near the bottom for the team, so him hopefully going elsewhere will help, but the big concern for me is Hunter Dozier. He was worth -13.3 runs last season between mostly first and third. You can’t be that rough defensively and hit .229/.278/.395. And even with the optimism over his last couple months, he still hit just .256/.293/.467 in his final 48 games. Dozier is in a big time important season in 2019 for him if he wants to have a big league career, with the Royals or elsewhere. He did look smoother at third as the season went on, but defense is very important to the Royals and their infield defense appears to be more important than ever before as they began getting more and more groundballs from their pitching staff. He’s in the crosshairs this year.
• And finally, just something a little quirky to look at. I wanted to see the Royals record by run differential to see if they had a winning record at any run differential this season. If you predicted they did not, you are correct. They were 1-1 when the difference was 10. You might recall they beat the Mariners in April by a 10-0 score back when they could only win when they threw a shutout. But, alas, the Blue Jays beat them 15-5, so there went that. The next closest they came to a winning record was going 11-14 when the margin of victory was two runs. So yeah. Just another way to look back at the 2018 club and realize just how bad they were.

Early on, it looked like they made a terrible mistake. Maybe moving on from Eiland wasn’t necessarily wrong, but Eldred didn’t appear to be a positive influence on the staff as they appeared unprepared for opposing offenses at times and unwilling to adjust. I know that’s an odd thing to say about a guy who never threw a pitch for the team, but I sort of felt like that was on him and I questioned his ability to do his job. Obviously the lack of talent in the bullpen was a problem, but even so, established pitchers were struggling as well, which is a bit concerning.

It was pretty much a struggle through July. The offense got more fun when Ryan O’Hearn came up and Adalberto Mondesi really got going, but it’s pretty easy to see why the team got better after July 31st. The pitching improved a great deal. After starting 33-73 with a 5.30 ERA, they went 25-31 with a 4.26 ERA the rest of the way. August wasn’t stellar, but the starters had an ERA of 4.90 while the bullpen’s was down to 4.52, their second lowest mark of the season to that point. In September, the starters really kicked it up with a 3.49 ERA and the bullpen posted a 4.39 mark, their new second best. Take a look at the starter and reliever ERAs by month here:

I guess the question is whether or not that was just noise or if there’s something to it. I think simply not having Blaine Boyer and Justin Grimm helped and limiting the innings of Jason Hammel helped quite a bit too. And overall, the numbers weren’t really that much better. There was a spike in strikeout percentage in August, but that dropped significantly in September as well as the swinging strike rate, so maybe the September numbers are a bit of a mirage. I’ll get back to that in a second on an individual basis, but here are their numbers month-by-month.

And finally, before I get into the individuals, I found it very interesting that the team ground ball percentage as a staff in the first half was 41.7 percent, which ranked fifth lowest in baseball. The fly ball percentage of 37 percent was fifth highest. In the second half, the ground ball percentage was 45.3 percent (third highest) and the fly ball percentage was 33.1 percent (fourth lowest). Here’s a look at the ground ball and fly ball numbers by month followed by the home run per nine numbers:

Now let’s talk individuals because it’s one thing to look at team numbers, but they include guys like Boyer, Grimm and Hammel and a bunch of pitchers who don’t really matter to both the future of the team and even a cursory evaluation of Eldred in his new role. The young guys are who Eldred was brought in to work with, so I actually want to see how they did throughout the season. Let’s start with the success stories and move into the…others.

Brad Keller

It’s hard to fully evaluate Keller’s season on a month-by-month basis because the first two months were mostly spent in the bullpen and then he had to evolve a bit as a pitcher, which he absolutely did. This is an Eldred success story if you pin that on a coach. He saw his strikeout percentage jump up in the last two months and his swinging strike percentage go way up in his final month with his walk rate taking a tumble. It all kind of came together for him in September as you can see his ground ball rate jumped back up to where it was early in the year as well. All in all, this is a fun one to look at.

Heath Fillmyer

Fillmyer is a massive success story even if he never becomes a solid big league pitcher. Maybe it’s just my perception because I believed he was a big nothing burger, but he just kept getting better as the season went on. When he first came up, he was a ground ball machine, as you can see below, but after settling into a starting role, he wasn’t quiet that. Still, in September, like Keller, he put together is best effort with season highs in strikeout percentage, swinging strike percentage, walk percentage (well, low there, but that’s good) and a solid enough ground ball rate. His slider is a legitimately quality big league pitch, limiting opponents to a .242 average and .318 SLG with a 35.3 percent whiff rate. The surprise is that his changeup and curve both were solid as well. He may need to pitch backward a bit, but I think there might actually be a future on a big league club for him.

Jakob Junis

It was a truly odd year for Junis, who started off looking like he was going to way outperform projections, then his season took a dark turn and then he ended up about where everyone thought he would. The key for him is keeping the ball out of the air a little better. Through June, he’d allowed 22 homers in 96.1 innings, which is decidedly not good. And he had a fly ball rate of 43.8 percent. From July through the end of the year, he allowed 10 home runs in 80.2 innings. That’s decidedly much better. And his fly ball rate then was down to 29.2 percent. His home run per fly ball wasn’t drastically different. It was good to see him continuing to keep the ball in the park even while throwing a ton of strikes. Just look at those walk rates.

Kevin McCarthy

The reason I think McCarthy was a success for the coaching staff isn’t so much the performance on the surface because he was relatively steady all year. What gets me excited about McCarthy is that he’s an extreme ground ball pitcher (64.3 percent on the year), but he started getting swings and misses in August and September. Look at those rising swinging strikes rate (11.6 percent and 12.2 percent respectively after not topping 9.6 percent in any month). If he can do that while maintaining a fantastic walk rate and his ground ball rate, he might be more than a middle reliever moving forward. It’s at least worth watching.

Danny Duffy

Duffy isn’t young, but he is a part of the future, and his season cannot be classified as anything but disappointing. Injuries played a big role here, so I don’t want to put this on Eldred, but it was a rough go. We know the baseball card numbers, but in August, his swinging strike percentage was down to just 7 percent, which is well below his average. I’m guessing this was injury, but look at this chart. He was just all over the place. I’m not sure it tells us anything, but he had a weird year. You can probably ignore September given that it’s just two-thirds of an inning and seven batters worth of work.

Brandon Maurer

Please help me. There’s something about Maurer that makes me wonder if he can be something next year. After some adjustments, his strikeout percentage jumped from 8.8 percent in July to 25 percent in August and 25.8 percent in September. He still walks too many and he’s terrible, but this is exactly the reason why he’ll get chances until he’s 112. Anyway, I just wanted to throw him in because I’m mean.

Burch Smith

He’s not good. He’s not a big leaguer. He didn’t get better. He’s just not good. But hey, he walked fewer batters in July and August. So there’s that.

I thought about throwing in Tim Hill and Jorge Lopez, but they weren’t especially interesting, though it is worth noting that Hill saw his walk rate cut in half from the first half to the second and his strikeout rate remain mostly the same. He doesn’t get a ton of swings and misses, but his ground ball rate is so good that you’re okay with that as a LOOGY. The big win for him was cutting that walk rate because he was putting way too many guys on early. Lopez is tough to gauge because the sample is tiny, but also because he was in a different role with the Royals than he had been in the big leagues before.

One other player who was of interest was Eric Skoglund. I was pretty adamant he wasn’t a big leaguer, and I might have been wrong about that. He came back in September and the back of the card numbers were very good with a 1.33 ERA and just 11 hits allowed in 20.1 innings, but the underlying numbers were not great. The sample was obviously very small, but he’s worth watching to see if that was a mirage or the improvement was for real.

In all, I really liked the trend of a fair amount of young pitchers. I’m not sure this is the best way to evaluate Eldred as a coach, but is there really a great way to evaluate coaches? It’s kind of on the players. I’d say the improvements throughout the year at least reflect well on him and seeing guys like Junis, McCarthy, Keller, Fillmyer and some others improve in various ways as the season progressed makes me hopeful for him to be able to continue to make an impact as the pitching staff theoretically skews younger over the next few seasons. I’m not sold on him, but I do feel much better about him than I did early in the season

• Speaking of managers, Dayton Moore announced prior to the final game of the season that Ned Yost would be back for the 2019 season. I’m sure some people won’t like that, but whatever. I think it’s a prudent move, especially if the next manager truly is in the organization right now, which I believe to be true. The 2019 Royals, no matter what you’re hoping for after that strong finish, are not likely to be good, but there is a brighter future ahead than what anyone likely saw at this time last year when there was just so much uncertainty around the team. Yost staying to absorb some of those losses and to help get the initial growing pains out of the way makes a lot of sense for the Royals and shows that Yost has the best interest of his successor in mind. That’s another reason why I believe the manager is in house. It sure seems like Yost cares enough about whoever’s fate. Personally, I think Pedro Grifol is the guy. I know a lot have speculated Dale Sveum and Vance Wilson, and I can’t argue with them, but I’ve heard whispers too often that Grifol is the next man in charge for me to shy away from making that prediction now (and on Twitter a few days ago, I guess I’m pretty transparent). And I think it’d be a good fit as he’s bilingual and mixes the analytics with the scouting extremely well. He seems to have a good relationship with Moore and the team obviously knows him well. Plus, it’s pretty clear the Royals, and maybe Yost specifically, have fought to keep him around even when he lost his job as hitting coach. Take it for what it’s worth. That’s my two cents.
• The sample is small for everything Adalberto Mondesi did in 2018, but the trend is somewhat interesting to me. There’s been some talk on the interwebs about how he’s laying off pitches better than before and all that, and this is just an extension of that. Prior to the break, he hit .250/.270/.444, which showed good power, but not nearly enough in the way of getting on base to show off his wheels. And he had a .306 BABIP, so without diving too deep into the back end numbers, he wasn’t especially unlucky. After walking twice in 74 plate appearances before the break, he walked nine times in 217 after. No, that’s still not good. But going from a 2.7 percent rate to a 4.2 percent rate is noteworthy to me. But even moreso, he began coming on strong on August 25th when he really started playing basically every day, and in his final 30 games, he walked seven times in 135 plate appearances. Nope, still not special, but 5.2 percent is much, much closer to acceptable. He hit .312/.351/.624 in that time with 10 home runs and 16 steals and a .354 BABIP, which honestly isn’t outrageous given his speed. He’s never going to walk a ton, but with his pop and his ability to add extra bases after the fact, he doesn’t need to have a 10 percent walk rate to be a star (though it’d be nice). I think he’s on the right track. I’m curious to see how things go in 2019, especially if he doesn’t get off to a hot start, but he’s one of the most exciting storylines of 2019.
• I’ve thought a lot about how pitching and roles are changing in baseball thanks in large part to the Rays sort of having to go on the fly with their opener strategy. And I know I’ve talked a little bit about how the Royals might go about that. As it stands right now, making the silly assumption of health, the Royals have four guys who will enter the season in the rotation – Danny Duffy, Jakob Junis, Brad Keller and Ian Kennedy – and then have a fifth starter spot that’ll be open for some competition among Jorge Lopez, Heath Fillmyer, Trevor Oaks, Scott Barlow and maybe even a couple other guys like Foster Griffin or Scott Blewett if they’re added to the roster. So the Royals aren’t likely to be too innovative given what they have, but they could really benefit from using the opener for a couple of their pitchers. Junis stands out to me as a guy who would really benefit from getting to start his day with the fifth or sixth place hitter and only face the top four or five twice in a game. His third time through the order penalty isn’t crazy stiff, but his .306/.353/.529 is bad enough that it’s worth him not having to get there. Keller and Duffy didn’t really have any noteworthy third time through the order splits (in fact Keller still held opponents below a .700 OPS the third time), but Ian Kennedy struggled actually the second time through the order last season, and maybe if the hitters getting a second look at him are the 6-7-8 hitters and in the fifth or sixth inning, that would be helpful to him. It seems unlikely like I said, but I could see Richard Lovelady, Jerry Vasto, Tim Hill, Scott Barlow and Jorge Lopez all as guys who could be really good in that opening role. The lefties for their ability to get through a lefty heavy top of the order and the righties as guys who might be better in two or three inning stints. I imagine that time will come for the Royals once Yost leaves, but he’s surprised us before, so you never know.
• Someone mentioned on Twitter that it would be interesting to see what the Royals have actually lost in the Rule 5 draft in response to my article about what the Royals have gained over the years. Not surprisingly, the answer is that they haven’t lost much. Best I can tell, they’ve lost 15 players over the years with 11 of them seeing big league team. Such great names as Aurelio Monteagudo, Dick Colpaert and Ryan Baerlocher adorn the list of those gone to other teams, and the best they’ve lost is probably Victor Santos who went to the Pirates in the 2005 draft, but that was after five years in the big leagues posting a 4.99 ERA in 423 innings. So I guess he wasn’t really the best after the draft, but he was the best overall, I suppose. Rodney Myers was taken in that same draft by the Cubs and he actually put together some big league seasons, so that’s a plus for him. I guess the moral of this story is that the Royals have certainly gotten way more than they’ve given in the Rule 5 draft throughout their history and that’s a pretty good thing.

And they’ve been this underwhelming even while becoming the first team ever to have four pitchers reach the 200 strikeout mark. Their top four starters are top notch, but a struggling bullpen has led to some issues. The potential is there for true greatness with Brad Hand, Andrew Miller and Cody Allen, but it just hasn’t been there due to both injuries and poor performance. It’s worth noting that these four games will be tune-up games for the Indians, so their starters aren’t likely to go deep into games, though I guess you never know.

Indians Vitals

Royals vs. Indians

Offense

Pitching

Indians Projected Lineup

Projected Pitching Matchups

Thursday – 7:15 pm

This was pretty much inevitable for Tomlin at some point and the fact that it has held off this long says a lot about him. He doesn’t have good stuff and spends so much time in the strike zone, so eventually he was going to bitten by the long ball more than he had before and this season he’s allowed 24 homers in just 65.2 innings, a total that might make Chris Young blush (sorry, Chris). He still has phenomenal control, but he’s just not missing nearly enough bats and he’s getting hit awfully hard with a barrel rate of 11 percent, nearly double the MLB average. It’s bad. He’s been in and out of the rotation in September, so he’s only a few days removed from throwing 76 pitches in a game, which means if they decide to go awhile with him, he can probably do it. But that said, do you really want him to? He’s allowed a .365/.412/.738 line to lefties while Ryan O’Hearn has absolutely mauled righties. If you’re picking up what I’m putting down and you play daily fantasy, you’re welcome. Of course if you didn’t already know that, you probably shouldn’t be wasting your money.

Sparkman will get his third career start in place of Jorge Lopez who was shut down after his rib injury and bad start his last time out. I do believe Sparkman can be a worthwhile reliever and am doubtful of him long-term in the rotation, though, so I guess it’s similar to a Lopez start. He relieved Lopez in his last outing, throwing 55 pitches over four innings and generally being okay, though the lack of swings and misses has me concerned about his future in any role. Still, it’s nice to see the mid-90s fastball and you’d think a secondary pitch could emerge that we just haven’t seen yet from him in the big leagues. This will be his first time going against Cleveland, so it’ll be a nice test for him even if he does only get bits and pieces of the regular lineup.

Friday – 7:15 pm

I feel like a lot of people are surprised at the season Clevinger is having, but if you watched him last year, you shouldn’t be. The stuff plays, and now that he’s got his walk rate under control, it plays even better. He’s deceptive too, which makes him incredibly difficult to hit. So while it’s surprising that he’s gotten to this point, I don’t think it is based on last season. He’s also been hit harder by lefties than righties, though not to the extent of Tomlin. That said, 13 of the 21 homers he’s allowed have been to lefties and 33 of the 58 extra base hits. He’s had some first inning struggles, allowing six home runs and 17 runs in his 31 starts, and the Royals know all about that having scored three in the first against him a few weeks ago at home before getting shut down by him the rest of the way. Including that start, he’s faced the Royals four times this year and gone 2-0 with a 2.33 ERA with just two home runs allowed (to Alex Gordon and Salvador Perez). So my guess here is that the Royals will be happy if they do treat this as a shorter tune-up.

If we’re being honest, I’d have never guessed that Kennedy has thrown more than 100 innings this season. I actually forgot he existed while he was on the disabled list. All that said, it’s hard to argue with the results in his three starts since he’s been back. He’s gone 19 innings, allowed 17 hits, six runs (four earned) with 16 strikeouts and five walks and posted a 1.89 ERA. He’s generally actually been really good. Of course, he’s been facing teams with nothing to play for but the offseason, but still, it’s better to be good in your only sample than bad. He’s faced Cleveland once this year and was outstanding, going six shutout innings and striking out eight to pick up his first win of the season. It was roughly four degrees that day, so that helped, but again, good results are better than bad.

Saturday – 6:15 pm

Kluber probably isn’t going to win another Cy Young, but he definitely belongs in the conversation as he currently leads the American League in innings pitched and has some excellent results. For him, a mid-season funk of sorts probably cost him the award. He went 8-4 with a 3.94 ERA in 15 starts from June 16^th to September 18^th, which bumped his ERA from 2.10 to 2.93. Now, he was outstanding in his last start against the White Sox, going seven shutout inning with 11 strikeouts, but the overall numbers are probably a cut below the other candidates. The question that I think is fair to ask with Kluber is just how worn down he is. Since the start of 2014, he’s thrown 1,127 innings and faced 4,463 batters. That’s a lot. This year against the Royals, he’s 3-1 with a 3.24 ERA in four starts, but he’s been hit hard at Kauffman Stadium where he’s posted a 6.35 ERA and allowed eight runs on 16 hits in 11.1 innings. This game is, in fact, at Kauffman Stadium.

Junis had his first meh start of the year against the Tigers last time out, and it might be part of marring a really strong finish for him after allowing four runs on eight hits in three innings the time out before that one. But no homers allowed is a good thing, given the season he’s had, so he gets one last chance to go into the offseason on a high note. I’ll run the numbers as I do every start for him, but since coming off the DL, he’s gone 3-2 with a 3.38 ERA in 12 starts spanning 69.1 innings with eight home runs allowed. He’s struck out 66 and walked just 14. That’ll play. He’s been hit hard by Cleveland a couple times this year, but his last time out against them earlier this month, he allowed just two hits over seven shutout innings. More of that would be a nice way to finish his year.

Sunday – 2:15 pm

The 2018 season wraps up with the Royals seeing Carlos Carrasco somehow for the first time since April 6^th when he went six innings and gave up two runs on five hits. Now, think back to that time. Giving up two runs against the Royals then was basically like giving up five or six to a real team, so maybe that wasn’t such a great start. Of course, he is a legitimately very good pitcher and has found his way to another fully healthy, very good season. He strikes out a ton of hitters, doesn’t give up a crazy amount of hits and doesn’t walk guys. No, he isn’t an ace, but he’s a heck of a number two. If you’re looking for a weakness, he’s actually been at his worst when he’s first starting a game, though that’s if you can call that his “worst” as he’s given up a .253/.287/.406 line. Still, though, he’s allowed 10 of the 21 homers he’s allowed all season in just 35 percent of the plate appearances. He’s 10-6 with a 3.55 ERA in 23 games against the Royals in his career. Whit Merrifield has really enjoyed hitting against him in 16 plate appearances, putting up a .500/.533/1.000 line. That’ll play.

And the season wraps up with Eric Skoglund throwing the first pitch, so that’s…something. Though I should be fair to say that he’s been really good since he came off the DL and I was actually disappointed that his last start got cut short because of the rain delay in Cincy. In four games, he’s gone 15.1 innings and given up just eight hits and two runs to lower his ERA by 1.3 runs. He’ll be making his third career start against the Indians. The first two were both last year and didn’t go so well. He lasted 3.1 innings combined and allowed 11 runs on 11 hits with three strikeouts and four walks. So yeah. Happy last day of the season!

This is the toughest series of the year to predict because who knows how the Indians are going to play it? Do they want to stay completely fresh and everyone will play or do they want to take the opportunity to rest guys and play their bench a little bit before the postseason? My guess is we don’t see guys for too long unless they need the reps like maybe Josh Donaldson. I’m going to go out on a true limb here and say the Royals take three of four and give us some warm and fuzzy feelings to take into the offseason.

Tigers Vitals

Royals vs. Tigers

Offense

Pitching

Tigers Projected Lineup

Projected Pitching Matchups

Thursday – 6:10 pm

Boyd is having a nice season, getting a good chunk of strikeouts, showing similar to control to his almost solid 2016 season and limiting hits extremely well. He does a lot of his work with his slider, which has been truly outstanding this year. He’s recorded more than half his strikeouts with it and allowed a .165 average with a .263 SLG. It’s interestingly not quite as lethal against lefties, though still good, but he’s allowed a bit more power to same-siders off it. He’s put together this solid year while being surprisingly not great against runners in scoring position, allowing a .286/.333/.473 in those situations compared to .203/.279/.364 with the bases empty. He’s gone 1-3 with a 4.32 ERA against the Royals this year in four starts with just one home run allowed in 25 innings.

Lopez looks like he’s in line to make this start after leaving his last one with a chest contusion after running into Hunter Dozier. He couldn’t quite follow up his near perfect game, going just 4.1 innings before the injury and allowing three runs on nine hits, but he really fell apart after the pain started, so it’s probably not fair to box score scout. He threw four shutout innings to start, and if he has his curve working against the Tigers, that’s a team that hasn’t seen him before and a really bad lineup, so he has an opportunity to put up a fantastic start if it’s working for him. The one thing I’d like to see is the swinging strikes like he got against Baltimore when he had 14 in 99 pitches. This Tigers team seems like one he could absolutely dominate, so it might be fun.

Friday – 6:10 pm

It sure looked like a bounceback season for Liriano after his sixth start of the year when he shut down a terrible Royals team to bring his ERA down to 2.97, but things haven’t gone quite as well since. In his last 19 games (18 starts), he’s gone 2-9 with a 5.18 ERA in 88.2 innings and struck out 75 while walking a whopping 53. Basically this is who he is now, fast start or not. That said, he’s been decent in September, allowing just four earned runs in 18 innings, though he has allowed five unearned runs, so it’s not all roses for him. He hasn’t been too bad early in the games, giving up a .225/.324/.326 line the first time through the order with a 3.86 ERA in the first three innings. But the second time through is a disaster with an .855 OPS allowed and the third time through is slightly worse at .863. It’s a small sample, but Jorge Bonifacio is 3 for 5 with two doubles and a homer against Liriano. I’m guessing he’ll be in the lineup for this one.

I think most people are ready for Ian Kennedy to just be done, but he’s got two more years under contract and it’s worth mentioning that in his first two starts off the DL, he’s been quite good. He’s gone six in both starts and allowed just two earned runs total while striking out 10 and walking five. The biggest thing for him, though, is no home runs allowed. It’ll be his first start against a team other than the Twins since June 29^th, so maybe this is another real test for him. Kennedy, if healthy, is going to be in the rotation next season, so it’s in the Royals best interest for him to pitch well because that’s better than the alternative.

Saturday – 5:10 pm

Given how bad Zimmermann was last season, this year has to be considered some sort of success even if it hasn’t been that great. Of course, he matches Liriano’s 5.18 ERA in his last 11 starts since the All-Star break. He’s not striking hitters out and he’s giving up tons of long balls with 17 allowed in that time. Lefties have crushed him, which I’d think bodes well for Ryan O’Hearn and Adalberto Mondesi, especially considering he’s not only easy to hit, but he’s around the strike zone a lot. Given that the stuff isn’t especially good anymore, he’s been hit hard on the first pitch with a  .400 average allowed and an .833 SLG. That’s six homers in 61 plate appearances that ended there, which isn’t a great number to have. He’s been fine against the Royals, but he struggled in his last start against them in July, going five innings and giving up four runs on seven hits and two homers.

Junis had been so good for awhile since coming off the disabled list, but the home run ball has returned and he couldn’t get out of the fourth inning in his last start against the Twins. He’s now allowed five homers in his last two starts, and even though one was an eight-inning outing, there’s a little reason for concern. Luckily, Junis has purchased the Tigers from the Ilitch family as he’s gone 4-0 with a 1.74 ERA in four starts against them, going 31 innings, allowing 21 hits and striking out 25 while walking just three. It’s been a pretty impressive display and he’ll get the opportunity to go 5-0 against them in this one.

Sunday – 12:10 pm

It wasn’t supposed to be like this for Norris. He finished so strong as a 23-year old in 2016 that it looked like he was about to really emerge as a solid starter for the Tigers for years to come. Now, his fastball velocity is down to 90-91 after averaging nearly 94 in that 2016 season. He’s been mostly a two-pitch pitcher this year, using that (with some horrible results) and a slider (with some much better results). My guess is that if the velocity doesn’t come back, he won’t either, but the Tigers need bodies, so here he is. He is still striking out a ton of hitters with 40 strikeouts in his 34.2 innings, but he’s been a bit homer prone and just generally not all that good. He did pitch reasonably well his last time out against the Twins and he held the Royals to one run over 4.2 innings back in April, so that’s a couple things to build on for him if he’s looking.

Keller picked up his first career hit and run scored in his last outing, but continued to impress on the mound even though it wasn’t a great start for him. Yes, he gave up four runs on 10 hits in six innings, but he struck out seven and got a ridiculous 19 swinging strikes in 109 pitches. His slider was the king in this one with 11 swings and misses out of 17 swings and 31 total thrown. That slider could be a huge difference maker for him as he tries to stick as a starter into next season and beyond. He hasn’t faced the Tigers as a starter, so it’ll be a test for him, but if his slider is working, the success of Junis against them should bode well for Keller.

Like I said at the top, I think the Royals are better, but they’ve got some road woes still and four-game series are notoriously hard to win, so I’ll go with a split here, but at this point, nothing would surprise me.

But those starters are not usually facing the Kansas City Royals who, recent successes aside, have made a habit of gifting opponents several hits and runs of their own in 2018.

Not to tl; dr this thing, but Jakob Junis has had better days. And on his birthday, no less.

Junis got hit early and often, and even though his teammates fought back and even tied the game at one point, it was not quite enough at the end of the day in a 9-5 loss that prevented the Twins from being swept. It was not a day any of the pitcher’s involved will look back on fondly—the teams, THESE teams, combined for 31 hits—but the batters appreciated the extra BP, I’m sure.

The Royals jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first; to update America’s best-loved random stat, Kansas City has outscored opponents 88-79 in the first inning this year and been outscored 697-494 in subsequent innings. Adalberto Mondesi and Alex Gordon slapped back-to-back singles with one out in the frame, although BERTO was thrown out at third on a steal attempt. Ryan O’Hearn doubled home Gordon and found himself crossing the plate when Rosell Herrera doubled three pitches later.

The Twins tied it with single runs in the second (Jorge Polanco RBI single) and third (Max Kepler home run) before breaking the game wide open in the fourth. That’s when Tyler Austin and Johnny Field (a real name, apparently) led off with back-to-back homers to chase Junis, who finished with three innings, eight hits and four earned on his line score. Brian Flynn, who replaced Junis, was greeted by a Chris Gimenez single, followed by a Polanco flyout, Eddie Rosario single and Robbie Grossman single to bring another run across.

The Royals scrapped a run back in the home half of the fourth, with O’Hearn’s leadoff double resulting in a run via Brian Goodwin single. Following Meibrys Viloria’s leadoff single in the fifth, BERTO’s ninth blast of the season tied the game and gave the Royals all the momentum.

And yet Gibson remained in the game. Maybe it was a rest day for the bullpen; Minnesota used five pitchers yesterday, four Friday and seven on Thursday. On the other hand, it’s September and roster expansion should help alleviate that. But on the other, other hand, it’s a Twins-Royals game in September 2018, why not let Kyle Gibson put work in?

Well, it worked out. The game was tied for all of three batters. Jerry Vasto came on for Flynn in the sixth and immediately served up a solo homer to Polanco, the first run Vasto has allowed as a Royal. The second didn’t take nearly as long to register—he served up singles to Eddie Rosario and Logan Forsythe before giving way to Kevin McCarthy, whose pickoff attempt at first was botched by O’Hearn and allowed Rosario to score.

Berto’s seventh-inning single provided Kansas City’s only baserunner after the fifth inning until Viloria’s double with two outs in the ninth, although he did score on Whit Merrifield’s single as the Royals attempt one last, late rally. Minnesota tacked on two in the top of the ninth on a Ehire Adrianza double (scoring Kepler after a walk) and Field single (scoring Adrianza, who moved to third on a wild pitch) to maintain distance from the Royals.

Your Tweet of Despair

Rebuilding this #Chiefs defense is as painful as rebuilding the #Royals

— Dan Holke (@danholke) September 16, 2018

The Bright Spot: O’Hearn and BERTO both had three hits. McCarthy continues to be quietly effective. Brandon Maurer got his ERA below 8.00!

The Nadir: Junis couldn’t find it. Wily Peralta got slapped around. Alcides Escobar took an 0-for.

The Next Step: Because reasons, the Royals will travel to Pittsburgh for a late-season interleague set against the Pirates. I am very old-fashioned and believe that April and September should feature no interleague contests and I invite you to come fight me on David Lesky’s lawn if you disagree. Anyway, Brad Keller goes for the Royals and Joe Musgrove takes the ball for Pittsburgh. Only one player for either team has faced the opposing hurler, and that’s Brett Phillips, who got four at-bats against Musgrove when Maverick was in Milwaukee. Anyway, 6:05 p.m. (CT) for those inclined.

Note: All advanced stats through action on Tuesday.

Twins Vitals

Royals vs. Twins

Offense

Pitching

Twins Projected Lineup

Projected Pitching Matchups

Thursday – 7:15 pm

A quick look at the ERA and DRA difference for Gonsalves shows he’s been a little unlucky in his 12.1 innings at the big league level. Okay fine, so he’s been terrible either way. The royals had their way with him in Minnesota, but unfortunately his opponent then and in this one couldn’t hold a big lead after the Royals got to him in the third. In his big league career, he’s walked 13 and struck out six. I don’t care if you have talent, that doesn’t play. The sample is obviously tiny, but in 16 plate appearances against lefties, he’s allowed a ridiculous .429 ISO. Righties have hit him hard too, but yikes. The stuff just isn’t there for him. He throws his midding fastball a lot and of his secondary pitches, only his slider has been even close to being worth a damn. He didn’t last long last week, so nobody has more than two plate appearances against him, but the hits came from Jorge Bonifacio, Adalberto Modnesi, Alex Gordon and Whit Merrifield. I sort of have a hunch that if Hunter Dozier plays, he’ll have a big game against Gonsalves too.

Fillmyer continues to never allow me to either buy in or sell on him. For the second time in just 10 starts, he was given a big lead that he coughed up relatively quickly. This time, the Royals plated six in the third against these very same Twins and he promptly gave up four and couldn’t escape the third. It was reminiscent of his start against the White Sox where he had a 6-0 lead and couldn’t get out of the fourth before giving that up. The Twins have proven to be a struggle for him with nine runs allowed in just 5.1 innings. Luckily this game is in the comfort of Kauffman Stadium where he’s 2-1 with a 2.54 ERA in seven games and has allowed just 31 hits in 39 innings and only two home runs. Maybe that’ll help him get over the hump against the Twins.

Friday – 7:15 pm

The Royals just saw Berrios a few days ago and he was very good, going six innings and allowing just a run on three hits. Expect to see Alcides Escobar in this one as his .353/.353/.706 line against him will make him a must-start for the Royals…for some reason. Berrios has continued his success against the Royals this year after struggling his first two seasons. He’s now 2-1 with a 1.80 ERA in three starts this year. His last bad start against the Royals was July 1^st last year, so maybe he’s due.

Lopez gets to make his next start following his near-perfect game against the team he almost threw it against. He was magnificent last week against the Twins, obviously, and following that game was one of the greatest highlights of a terrible season. I’ve long been a believer that Lopez is a reliever long-term, as I’ve said before, but he seems to be doing everything he can in his last two starts to get me to change my mind. The big thing for me in the past has been that he just begins to struggle a bit at 50 pitches or so. In his last two starts, opponents have hit .174/.208/.174 against him after the 50^th pitch. Sure that’s arbitrary and it’s a small sample, but it’s encouraging. Now let’s see him do it again.

Saturday – 6:15 pm

De Jong had his first start since last season against the Royals last weekend and looked pretty good, giving up just one hit in four innings, though he walked four. He uses a four-seam fastball that doesn’t have much zip quite often and then mixes in a slider and changeup, both of which were quite effective against the Royals last week. The sample is tiny, but his fastball has been hit around in his career, so if he lives on that too much, a young lineup like the Royals that hunts mediocre fastballs should be able to do some damage. He’s allowed a .300/.394/.483 line to lefties in his career, which seems to be a good sign for guys like Ryan O’Hearn, Alex Gordon, Brian Goodwin and Adalberto Mondesi.

Like it or not, Kennedy is signed up for two more years and will at least be part of the rotation to start next season, so his performance against the Twins on Sunday was really encouraging. I loved the six innings with one run on four hits, but I really loved 14 swinging strikes in just 93 pitches. His fastball, which is so important, was absolutely outstanding. If he’s going to provide value again, he’s going to need that fastball to be doing its thing.

Sunday – 1:15 pm

It’s been a nice season for Gibson with the most strikeouts of his career while his walk rate has remained mostly steady. Between the extra swings and misses and the lack of hits allowed, he’s looking like he might have made some sustainable changes to keep him as a solid number three starter for the next couple years at least. If we’re being honest, given his affordable salary and inconsistent track record, the Twins would probably be wise to shop him this offseason. Gibson has been dynamite when ahead in the count, allowing just a .168/.176/.284 line to opponents with just 12 extra base hits in 194 plate appearances. If you’re looking for a reason to not believe, he’s allowed a .244/.332/.420 line with the bases empty and .191/.258/.255 with runners in scoring position. That bases empty line is pretty much in line with what he’s allowed on the whole in his career, so there’s a decent bet that’s who he is and he’s had some strand luck. I guess we’ll see next year if it can carry over.

Junis is going to earn himself a reputation as a second half master. In 123.2 innings after the break in his young career, he’s 10-3 with a 3.20 ERA. This year, he’s 3-2 with a 2.83 ERA since coming off the DL, which also coincides with the break ending. The 58 strikeouts and 12 walks in 60.1 innings are really encouraging and he’s now gone four straight starts without issuing a walk, with the streak reaching 116 batters. That’s pretty good. He’s been a horse in his last three starts too, going 24 innings with 15 hits allowed and 18 strikeouts. The home runs crept back in a little bit in his last start with two in the third, so that’s something to keep an eye on, but he’s just been so good recently that we’re back to anxiously awaiting each Junis start.

Four game sets are often split, and four-game sets between two teams with nothing to play for probably are even more so (don’t look that up). So yeah, I’ll say a split. I know, I know…boring.

Now, remove any of those elements from the equation and things get a little more squirrely. Fortunately, that didn’t matter this is September and those were the White Sox and Junis was more than able to fend off the White Sox and put the Royals back in the win column at Kauffman Stadium.

And when things got tight late, Ned Yost turned to the one man he knew would come through: Alcides Escobar, who will probably have a three-year extension in front of him before you read this sentence. We’ll cross that bridge some other time.

The Good Guys bought Junis an early lead with a couple of runs early. Very early, in fact—Whit Merrifield deposited the first pitch he saw over the wall in left-center, his season’s 12^th and his seventh career leadoff blast. If the Royals weren’t historically bad, he’d get some downballot MVP consideration this year; as is, he’ll have to content himself with being the lone Royals position player in the top-50 among American League players in fWAR.

(Yeah, you can check on that. Salvador Perez is just outside the top-50. And the offense is the better side of the ball right now. No wonder they’re gonna lose at least 105 games.)

Perez led things off with a single in the second inning and moved up 90 feet on a Lucas Giolito wild pitch. Brian Goodwin singled Salvy to third, and then Escobar scored him with a sac fly. Quite a night for Alcides Escobar, the Patron Saint of Hitting At Or About .220.

Things threatened to come unglued in the White Sox third. Adam Engel led off with a home run, and then Jose Abreu started a two-out rally with a single. Daniel Palka (whose last name Ryan Lefebvre pronounces like, “caca,” which works for the 2018 White Sox on a great many levels) ended said rally with a two-run homer to put the Pale Hose ahead by a run.

A two-out Hunter Dozier triple represented the Royals chance in the third, and after that neither side really enjoyed another quality run-scoring opportunity again until the Royals sixth. That’s when Ryan O’Hearn sejt a Giolito two-seamer screaming into the Kansas City night for his season’s 10^th home run—speaking of fWAR, he’s ranked eighth among Royals, behind two dudes (Mike Moustakas and Jon Jay) who no longer play for Kansas City and another (Jorge Soler) who hasn’t since mid-June.

So… tie game! Junis continued to be electric, sitting down his final 11 on the night. That got the game through eight with a lead, and Wily Peralta held serve in the ninth. The Royals Royal’d for a few innings on offense, so everyone was treated to some free baseball!

Jake Newberry is nobody’s idea of a reliable stopper at this point in his career, but you don’t have to be modern-day Goose Gossage to handle Wellington Castillo, Tim Anderson and Engel (one hopes). But that gave the Royals a chance to put the game away in the ninth, and boy did they! Goodwin led off with a double and Escobar sacrificed him over… only Jeanmar Gomez had other ideas and attempted to get Goodwin at third, only his throw was high and Goodwin scampered home with the game-winning run.

Your Unusually Happy Tweet of the Game

Jakob Junis appears to be done, which will bring his streak of consecutive innings without a walk to 30. He also becomes 1 of 6 #Royals pitchers all-time to toss 4-straight starts without issuing a free pass.

— Dave Holtzman (@DHoltzy) September 11, 2018

The Bright Spot: That tweet largely summed it up; Junis has flashed the same talent and potential in July and August that he did in April and May, and I just hope someday we’re done talking about Jakob Junis in terms of potential. Goodwin collected two hits. So did Alex Gordon, batting third (????) because you can’t just say ‘pass’ in baseball.

The Nadir: Adalberto Mondesi struck out twice in his 0-for-3 performance from the two-spot, if we’re picking nits.

The Next Step: Brad Keller, who is good, takes on either Dylan Covey, who might be but hasn’t really shown it at any point in 2018. Keller displayed a bend-not-break quality in last week’s 11-hit, one-run performance against Cleveland; one hopes things will be simpler against the likes of Nicky Delmonico.

White Sox Vitals

Royals vs. White Sox

Offense

Pitching

White Sox Projected Lineup

Projected Pitching Matchups

Monday – 7:15 pm

Things have generally been going a bit better for Giolito, but he’s still inconsistent. Still, since the start of August, he’s gone 3-2 with a 4.66 ERA, which isn’t the real story. The story is that he’s struck out 43 in 38.2 innings, allowed just 30 hits and walked 14. So yes, he’s definitely been better and has flashed some of the promise that made him a top prospect and made him such an important piece in the return for Adam Eaton. As bad as he’s generally been, he’s really handled the Royals since coming to the White Sox. He’s 3-0 in five starts with a 2.01 ERA in 31.1 innings. He’s struck out just 17, so we’ll see if his improvement is for real in this one. My guess is he handles the Royals, but this young team has surprised some.

Junis is on one now and looking like the guy we were so excited about in spring training and earlier this year. With seven two-hit, shutout innings against the Indians (with no walks, I might add), he’s padded his post-DL stats some more now having gone 52.1 innings in nine starts with 49 hits allowed, 53 strikeouts and a 2.75 ERA. The six unearned runs still loom, but even adding those in, he’s still at just a 3.78 RA, which is perfectly acceptable. I’ll say again what I’ve said a few times since his DL stint as well. With just three home runs allowed, it maybe does lend some credence to the idea that his back was a bigger problem than we originally thought. The White Sox haven’t been a good matchup for him. He’s faced them three times this year and gone 1-1 with a 6.48 ERA with six home runs allowed in 16.2 innings against them. Two of those times were in August and weren’t nearly as bad as the first time, but there’s still a bad track record this season.

Tuesday – 7:15 pm

Dylan Covey isn’t very good, which would be a nice pickup for the Royals offense. Of course I say that and Covey has been decent against the Royals this year at times. He throws a hard sinker that can be very good at times, but other times can be a trainwreck pitch. His changeup has been outstanding this season, holding opponents to a .088 average and .158 slugging percentage with 20 strikeouts on it, so that’s one to watch out for. And on a team of somewhat aggressive young hitters, it could be the difference between getting crushed and getting through six for him. Lefties have hit him much better and he’s fared much better at home than on the road. All that, to me, adds up to a potential big night for guys like Ryan O’Hearn, Adalberto Mondesi and maybe even Brian Goodwin.

There’s every chance in the world that this is the best Keller will ever be, but it’s really encouraging to watch him get hitters out in different ways all the time. He’s still not getting enough whiffs, but he’s done much better recently and does have 45 strikeouts in 57 innings since the break. No, that’s not enough, but it plays with all the ground balls he allows. And since the start of August, his swinging strike rate and 19.8 percent strikeout rate will work. I still would like to see some improvement through his last few starts to make me feel better about his prospects moving forward, but the results have just been so strong for a guy in his position. He struck out 14 in 11.1 innings against the White Sox in August, so maybe we’ll see another big strikeout game for him in this one.

Wednesday – 7:15 pm

A number of things have stopped Rodon from putting it all together, but among them are injuries, and now that he’s healthy this season, he’s been mostly very good. Still, it’s hard not to notice his strikeouts are way down, though so are his hits allowed. His slider is still his best pitch, and he’s allowed a .067 average on it with a .112 SLG in 89 at bats that have ended on it. That’s crazy. Of those 89, 50 have ended with a strikeout. Yikes! As good as he’s been this year, he’s probably due for some regression for a few reasons. One, he has been absolutely unreal with runners in scoring position, allowing a .145/.256/.237 line with runners in scoring position. The sample is small since he hasn’t thrown that many innings, but that seems likely to turn around. Another is that I’m not sure his four-seam fastball is as good as the numbers against it have been. He doesn’t get a ton of swings and misses on it, he doesn’t throw it for strikes nearly enough and it’s not an especially elite spin rate pitch or anything. I don’t know. It just seems like that’s a pitch that can get him in trouble and he’s somewhat lucky it hasn’t yet. The Royals have hit him decently in his career with 35 hits against him in 27.2 innings. Of course, they haven’t faced him since 2016, so the sample isn’t exactly current.

I’m not exactly excited about Skoglund’s return to the rotation because I still don’t believe in him, but I was also sort of disappointed when he got hurt because this is the year to evaluate. He posted about what you’d expect for a AAAA pitcher on a rehab assignment, and now it looks like he’ll get three or four starts before the end of the season to both see what he can do and prove he’s healthy heading into 2019. If you’re looking for a reason for hope, Skoglund’s best start came against the White Sox in April when he went seven innings and gave up one run and just two hits while striking out nine. That was the game that his curve was so outstanding, giving hope that maybe he had a plus pitch to work with. Maybe he’ll flash it again in this one.

The Royals are playing much better at home recently, but the White Sox have the Royals number. I’m going to say that the Royals play well this series, but end up winning just one of three and getting a couple steps closer to their fifth 100-loss season in franchise history.