As written in this space on Tuesday, the Royals needed to deal Duda for myriad reasons. The expectation wasn’t about receiving a prospect. An org guy (as in a PTBNL) or cash was all the Royals could expect. For a contender, Duda represents a platoon option or a decent left-handed bat to deploy off the bench.

Dave O’Brien from the Atlanta branch of The Athletic, reports that the two teams will split the remainder of the contract. As I mentioned on Tuesday, there is still the matter of plate appearance bonus money. He is set to collect another $100,000 after he gets nine more PAs. Since his playing time is now up to Atlanta, I would imagine they are responsible for the bonus money. Except Duda arrives to be a left-handed bat off the bench, so his time is going to be limited. His bonus structure calls for $100k to be paid every 25 plate appearances. Given his new role, it seems unlikely he will cash more than two of those at his new address.

This obviously opens a space on the 25-man roster. As of this writing (Thursday morning) the Royals haven’t announced who will fill the spot. They could call up Paulo Orlando (oof) and platoon first base with Hunter Dozier and Ryan O’Hearn with Rosell Herrera as a super utility man. They could also keep the spot on the 40-man roster open until Jorge Soler is finished with his rehab and recalled from the 60-day DL. Soler will only DH in September, so O’Hearn will need to get most of his reps at first. If the Royals hold to their usual M.O., we should get our answer as to the open roster spot sometime after the lunch hour. 

Whatever move they make, it’s a damn jigsaw puzzle figuring out this roster.

It’s difficult to think of a signature Duda Royals moment. At least with him wearing a Kansas City uniform. Perhaps his Opening Day home run against James Shields and the White Sox to open the scoring for 2018. The problem was, there wasn’t a lot of scoring that followed. Looking back at that Opening Day lineup, a third of the players have been traded (Duda, Jon Jay and Mike Moustakas), two are on the 60-day disabled list (Cheslor Cuthbert and Soler) and two players aren’t regulars (Alcides Escobar and Drew Butera who was subbing for the injured Salvador Perez). That leaves just Alex Gordon and Whit Merrifield. I can’t honestly say that’s surprising.

The Royals did exactly what they needed to do (for the most part) when it came to building their roster for this season. The veterans they signed to one-year contracts were properly showcased and moved at the right time. That also goes for closer Kelvin Herrera. The only roster misstep as far as adding players would be bringing back Alcides Escobar, but we’ve been over that before. (There’s a reason he’s not going to be traded. It’s the same reason no other team besides the Royals offered him a major league contract last winter.) You could make the argument against Justin Grimm or Blaine Boyer, but you have to throw some money at relievers. Those guys represent a crapshoot. It didn’t work out this year.

From the department of time marches on, MLB announced spring training schedules for 2019 on Tuesday. The Royals are slated to play 33 Cactus League games starting February 23. That’s 33 exhibition games.

Winters are too damn long and the gap from the final out of the World Series to the first pitch of Spring Training is interminable. Yet Spring Training just grinds on and on. Of course, the communities, the hotels and the chain restaurants depend on the visitors baseball brings. It’s become its own little cottage industry where you have to pay the freight if you want to watch. The Royals average ticket at Surprise Stadium last March was listed as $30.52. That’s straight larceny. 

Besides, it was a little strange to see MLB release this schedule just a week after unveiling the 2019 regular season slate. And in August as the pennant races should be front and center. Why not follow the NFL model and release these just after the completion of the World Series? November is the worst month for baseball news as the free agent market hasn’t opened up and the Winter Meetings are a few weeks off. Why not keep baseball in the sports conversation of the dead space that comes prior to Thanksgiving? It’s not like you can buy tickets or book your travel for a particular road series now. What could it hurt to wait?

Start with those currently on the 40-man roster. A last-place team can always use a few extra arms and Jason Adam, Glenn Sparkman, Scott Barlow, Trevor Oaks and Eric Stout (though he is on the disabled list) have all logged big league time this summer. All have had varying degrees of success at both levels, but being on the 40-man gives them an edge over someone like Richard Lovelady. Lovelady doesn’t even need to be placed on the 40-man for another year. He’s not Rule 5 eligible until after the 2019 season.

The same thing is happening over on the position player side of the roster. Someone like Nicky Lopez, who is having a fine season split between Double and Triple-A, certainly is making a case for a call-up. Yet he’s not on the 40-man and, like Lovelady, isn’t Rule 5 eligible for another year. Someone who is eligible for the Rule 5 is Frank Schwindel. He was eligible last year, but went undrafted. But all that means is that the Royals will need to find a spot for him on the 40-man in late November.

We will see an exodus from the disabled list. Jorge Soler has reported to Omaha for a rehab assignment. He has been the designated hitter for back to back nights for the Storm Chasers, the role he will fill once he returns to Kansas City. Plus, he’s on the 60-day DL, so someone currently on the roster will have to be moved to get Soler back to active status. Ian Kennedy is likely to make a rehab start this week. He’ll get a few major league innings once he’s ready, but won’t cost anyone their spot on the 40-man. 

The point is, these roster decisions aren’t easy or straightforward, even when the calendar turns to September. It’s not as simple as the Royals releasing guys like Alcides Escobar or Jason Hammel. You may disagree, but stuff like that just isn’t done. You don’t want to be that team that just releases veterans because the rosters are expanding and you want to look at some kids. The time to release guys like Escobar and Hammel, if that’s the road you decide to take, is in July or August. Not now. Appearances matter. The Royals will create 40-man roster space this winter through the sundry offseason moves, but for the moment, the roster is full and the Royals don’t have a lot of room to maneuver.

One way the Royals could find an opening would be if they dealt Lucas Duda. Duda has been a league-average bat overall, but he’s really destroyed right-handed pitching this year. In 239 plate appearances against righties, Duda is hitting .267/.335/.479 with 11 of his 13 home runs. According to MLB Trade Rumors, Duda has cleared waivers, freeing the Royals to deal him to any team interested.

There must not be much of a market at the moment and it takes two to trade. The Royals haven’t been shy about trading their assets this year, and while Duda isn’t as sexy as a Mike Moustakas, he still would provide some value as a platoon bat down the stretch. You have to assume the Royals are actively shopping him at this point. He’s making a base of $3.5 million and has earned $200,000 in plate appearance bonuses so far. (He will cash in another $100k with another nine plate appearances.) If he’s traded, I would assume the new team would be responsible for the pro-rated portion of his base salary (around $550,000 for the season’s final month) and any new plate appearance incentives he reaches. That’s not going to get you any kind of interesting prospect, but still, the Royals need to move him to maybe free up a roster spot for one of those potential September call-ups.

The youngsters and the newcomers need to play, and for the most part, they will. But roster decisions made in January can have an impact in September. The Royals will need to get creative to optimize playing time for their future. The kids are coming. It just may not be happening as quickly as everyone would like.

I get it, every effort should be made to always play all 162 unless there are extenuating circumstances. Players deserve the opportunity to stat-pad for contract purposes. Fans bought tickets. If you have a window, you go for it. It makes sense—baseball and business sense, which are often one and the same.

That said, this game ended far after midnight, in front of several thousand fewer fans than I’m sure either team was expecting. I’m not sure what could be done to prevent this—the only open date they both still have on the schedule is August 27, which would take the Jays from Baltimore to Miami via one-day stop in Kansas City. Maybe build in some extra off days in the MLB schedule to combat this? I don’t know the solution, but it can’t be post-midnight ballgames between two sub-.500 teams in a stadium that’s 92 percent empty. End rant.

Now that I’ve exposed myself as an idiot and charlatan of the highest order, we can get down to business: the Royals won! That’s a split against a real, live American League team! I’m heading out to buy a lottery ticket! Sixteen straight games without an error! I’m very excited, as you can tell from the exclamation points!

After the lengthy delay, the game got started officially at 9:29 p.m. (CT). Starter Glenn Sparkman struck out two in the first inning, while his counterpart Sam Gaviglio punched out Salvador Perez to end the first.

Little did either know, that would be the highpoint.

Sparkman’s problem’s arose in the second inning, when his control deserted him. After old friend Kendrys Morales grounded out, Teoscar Hernandez walked and Kevin Pillar doubled him to third before Danny Jansen’s sac fly scored Hernandez and moved Pillar to third. Sparkman proceeded to hit Aledmys Diaz with a pitch but was bailed out not so much by Perez, who double-clutched his throw, but because Diaz elected not to slide.

The Royals evened the score in the bottom of the second, although there was no Rube Goldbergian mechanisms required to make that happen—Lucas Duda just worked the count full and mashed a hanging slider over the fence. Still pretty amazing no contender wanted a veteran left-handed bat for the price of a couple of high-upside teenagers.

The Blue Jays retook the lead briefly in the fourth thanks to a leadoff single by Justin Smoak, a curveball that missed the mark by feet, not inches, and moved him up 90 feet and then a Morales single to plate Smoak.

Perez and Duda went meekly to open the fourth before a two-out rally yielded three runs that really decided the game. Rosell Herrera got the line moving with a single and scored on a triple by Jorge Bonifacio. Ryan O’Hearn (single) drove in Bonifacio and Hunter Dozier (double) knocked in O’Hearn, who runs with the grace of Cotton Hill on bath salts.

Between the delay and this being his first big-league start, Sparkman was going to be on a short leash and he exited after 75 pitches and four innings of largely disaster-free baseball. But the bullpen—this bullpen!—decided to toss five innings of three-hit ball, striking out six in the process. Back-to-back five-inning outings from the pen have yielded no runs. It’s like we don’t even know these guys anymore!

Meanwhile, the offense added a couple of runs just in case Brandon Maurer, et al., decided they needed to make it interesting. In the fifth, Herrera doubled home Alex Gordon after a one-out walk, and more could’ve been had there—Perez (single), Herrera (double) and Bonifacio (free pass) had loaded the bases with two down, only for O’Hearn to strike out on three pitches in a big spot, or as it’s known in the trade, “To Escobar.”

Old-fashioned small-ball the likes of which we rarely see in the American League helped the Royals pick up their final run. After a Dozier leadoff single in the sixth, Adalberto Mondesi moved him into scoring position with a bunt and Whit Merrifield tagged a single into left to score Dozier. And it’s post-midnight, so this recap is over.

Unusually Happy Tweet of the Game

Don’t look now, but Brandon Maurer has been pitching better. #Royals #MLB

— Mike Gillespie (@MikeGillespieJD) August 17, 2018

The Bright Spot: Is it too late to sell this bullpen—the competent one, not the gasoline-bearing unit from April, May, June and July—to a contender? Oh yeah, and three hits for Herrera and two apiece for Merrifield, Bonifacio and Dozier.

The Nadir: Two hours, fourteen minutes worth of delays for [gestures] THESE two teams. No wonder baseball can’t figure out how to properly market Mike Trout.

The Next Step: 244 strikeouts and a combined record of 10-25 toe the rubber at Guaranteed Rate Field when the Royals embark on a seven-game road trip. Jakob Junis takes the ball for Kansas City, while old friend James Shields gets the call for Chicago. Alex Gordon (.471 all-time) beats Shields like a piñata, so hopefully that continues.

• The Royals have the potential for a very awkward outfield logjam if their injured players actually return. Brian Goodwin could be back any time, including today, so there’ll be a decision to be made soon. Jorge Soler’s slow recovery makes this a little easier because he seems destined to be out until September, but the Royals could potentially have Goodwin, Soler, Alex Gordon, Rosell Herrera, Brett Phillips and Jorge Bonifacio. The concern I have is that Bonifacio is going to end up as the odd man out because of the way he’s played. He’s hit just .209/.293/.336 and that’s after starting by hitting .306/.358/.510 in his first 13 games. He did go two for three with a walk and a double on Wednesday night, so maybe he’s starting to come around again, but he’s looked absolutely lost. The last month and a half or so of the season is really important to basically all the Royals outfielders other than Gordon because they’re fighting for playing time in 2019. We’ve talked about Herrera’s versatility being a big key for them, but even so, that’s six outfielder with Elier Hernandez knocking on the door in Omaha and potentially needing to be added to the 40-man roster this offseason as well as Khalil Lee and Kort Peterson just a couple steps away. This is a pretty good problem to have, but it’ll be interesting to see how this all gets sorted out.
• I touched on this a few weeks ago when I talked about Blake Perkins and his ridiculous walk rate and .400-plus OBP since coming to the Royals, but with Kelvin Herrera hitting the disabled list this week, I’m completely ready to walk back my criticism of the deal. Another factor in that is that Kelvin Gutierrez has been really good for Northwest Arkansas over the last month or so. I haven’t been able to confirm this yet, but it’s worth mentioning in this spot that I had heard he was working with a swing coach to try to generate more loft and add the power that he had been lacking in his game. Before last night, he had hit .340/.359/.530 over his last 26 games. The walk rate is obviously pretty atrocious, but a .190 ISO will play and he’d even hit two home runs in August already heading into last night’s action. I thought at the time there was at least a chance they thought Herrera was a ticking time bomb and wanted to move him as quickly as possible, and now that he’s on the disabled list and has been somewhere between average and bad with the Nationals, I’m believing that a lot more. There’s plenty to criticize Dayton Moore and the front office about over the last couple years and especially the last few months, but I believe this trade is not one of those things.
• I’m not sure what the point is where results weigh heavily enough to change opinions and I know we’re not there yet on Heath Fillmyer, but the results we’ve seen from him have been pretty darn good. I know that 21 strikeouts and 17 walks in 37.1 innings is a recipe for future disaster, but you have to at least be impressed with the way he’s handled himself. He’s sort of like Jakob Junis in that he really relies on a slider to be successful, but it’s been excellent for him with a 33.3 percent whiff rate. His changeup has been very good too with a 7 percent whiff rate and .190 average against it. I don’t think I’d be going out on a limb to say that Fillmyer won’t really be a factor with any team at any point in his career, but given the success he’s had with the slider and changeup, he’s definitely a pitcher who could benefit from using his fastball less, a tactic the Astros (and others) use to their advantage. In his Wednesday start against the Cubs, his curve was also very good, even though he didn’t get a single swing and miss on it. Like I said, I still don’t believe in Filly long term, but he has some things to build on and if he does, maybe he could be a viable option on a pitching staff in some capacity. It’s at least a lot more likely today than it was two months ago.
• The Royals don’t have many August trade candidates, but they do have a few guys on the 40-man roster who I suppose could possibly get moved over the next couple weeks. The most likely is Lucas Duda who could provide actual value for a contender as a lefty bat off the bench, but in the likely scenario that none of them are actually dealt, I think the Royals should really just release all of Duda, Alcides Escobar, Drew Butera and Jason Hammel toward the end of the month. Before you scoff and/or say that’s super-obvious, if the Royals can’t get anything in a trade for any of them releasing them is actually sort of a very Dayton Moore thing to do because it would give them the opportunity to latch on with a team and maybe even be on their playoff roster. I’m not sure why a team would want any of them, but hey, you never know. And obviously the important part from the Royals perspective is it opens up some 40-man roster spots to be able to give them to guys like Josh Staumont, Richard Lovelady and Nicky Lopez for September call-ups (if they’re to get one). I’m not saying it’s going to happen, but it definitely should, and I do think it actually might.

His findings were basically there is no wrong answer when it comes to which one you prefer. There were some outliers who didn’t correlate so well when comparing the three, based on some freakish offensive performances (think Barry Bonds), but for the most part, the advanced metrics are generally in agreement. It’s nothing Earth-shattering, but interesting nonetheless.

So how do the numbers stack up when looking at the 2018 version of the Royals offense?

The Royals don’t walk and they don’t hit home runs. The numbers don’t lie. Their walk rate of seven percent is 28th in baseball. (But third in the Central. My goodness, this division is abjectly awful.) They’re dead last in home runs, with 81 through the weekend. Although they are lurking behind the Marlins and Tigers at 83 and 82 dingers, respectively. By this fact, the Royals should fare worse in OPS+, which places more weight behind the free pass and the dinger, than your other favorite composite offensive metric.

TAv has factored situational hitting into the sauce. That means things the Royals really seem to be good at, like those productive outs, carry a little more weight. But, hold on a moment. Situational hitting is also things such as bringing home runners from third with fewer than two outs and avoiding double plays. Those are two things the Royals aren’t so good at. The Royals have a 12.5 percent double play rate, which is the third highest in baseball. They’ve scored just 45 percent of runners on third with fewer than two outs. That’s the fourth-worst rate in the majors.

So why not take a look at how the 2018 Royals do when it comes to all three offensive metrics? We know it’s not going to be pretty. They’re at or near the bottom in nearly every key offensive statistic you can dream up. Individually, there haven’t been any standout performances. This is a dreadful offense. Still, we are a Royals site. We soldier on.

The following table is sorted by plate appearances.

There are a couple of things we can immediately glean from this table. For starters, it’s a very good thing Whit Merrifield is leading off these days. He’s the best hitter on the team who isn’t on the disabled list (we see you, Jorge Soler) and it obviously makes sense the top offensive performer should get the most chances. We can say the same about Mike Moustakas, although the bat has cooled. The Phillies had another scout in attendance on Monday, but Moustakas sat. Still, the trade winds are blowing hard. The wager here is he will be removed from this table sometime this week.

Alas, beyond the top two names, the good offensive news stops abruptly. The Royals continue to insist that Alcides Escobar is a capable everyday player, but that’s just not the case anymore. There’s no amount of defense that can justify giving that many plate appearances to a batter that abjectly awful in the batter’s box. 

Had we run these numbers at the end of June, things would have looked a little more grim in the case of Salvador Perez. And boy do the Royals need to get Jorge Soler back. Although it sounds like his return isn’t pending anytime soon.

The numbers, as you should expect given the linear regression relationship, are fairly consistent across the board. There isn’t an individual on this club who does anything in the extreme. (Although you could argue that Escobar makes a ton of outs. This would be accurate.)  Take someone like Lucas Duda as an example as he’s the most pedestrian of the current Royals roster. Sure, he walks a little less than league average and strikes out a little more often, but by and large, he’s a league-average player in every facet of his offensive game.

Duda’s traditional numbers are in line with his more advanced metrics. A point off the average TAv and a couple points below league average when it comes to wRC+ and OPS+. He did well against a left-handed starter on Monday. He was never signed to this team to play the entire season. We’ll see if someone will pay for a platoon advantage when he hits against the righties and an overall league average player. 

The big outlier is in the lineup is Bonifacio. His TAv outpaces his wRC+ and OPS+ by quite a bit. Some of that certainly comes down to sample size. He has just 70 plate appearances on the year through Sunday. 

This little exercise doesn’t necessarily prove anything; it basically confirms what we already know about the Royals offense. It’s grim. Things look to change in the next week with the addition of Brian Goodwin and the probable subtraction of Moustakas. The return of Adalberto Mondesi from family leave should reduce the playing time of Escobar. There may be more lineup alterations forthcoming. However, the changes aren’t any kind of panacea. In fact, things look to get worse before they get better.

Still, given the suboptimal pieces there’s an optimal lineup to be constructed. It does still exist. Good luck figuring that out.

I had some real nice stuff here about the Royals making some progress and starting the second half with some fire and vigor and the appearance that they’d like to be a semi-respectable baseball team again and for eight innings, that looked to be the case.

Eleven pitches into Brandon Maurer’s relief effort and that was no longer the case.

The Royals have made a habit of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, but Monday night’s effort was particularly cruel. There was good pitching. There was some outright sterling defense. There was solid hitting up and down the lineup. And then Maurer showed up and it was over in a matter of moments. One dude crapped it away for the other 24 and that, more than anything else, is why Brandon Maurer has to go. Losing is one thing. Losing when 24 guys did everything they had to in order to win and one didn’t is something else.

Tonight it was Heath Fillmyer’s turn to be the hero… or would’ve been, if his trash bullpen had allowed things to work out for him. Making his second start, the righty turned in a solid performance, going 6.2 innings and striking out six while scattering three hits and allowing just two runs.

That’s going to sound like Fillmyer was out here missing bats and making life easy for the eight guys behind him, but that’s not quite the truth. In fact, the defense made Fillmyer’s life considerably easier, starting in the first inning with a 6-4-3 double play, continuing on Hunter Dozier’s diving stop an inning later and culminating in first baseman Salvador Perez (yep) making a behind-the-back flip to Fillmyer for an out in the fifth and Whit Merrifield nailing a cross-body throw to Perez to get Jose Iglesias by a millimeter two batters later.

Offensively, Lucas Duda did most of the heavy lifting, driving in all three early runs thanks to a two-run single in the first and another in the fifth to score Jorge Bonifacio after his double. The Royals pounded out 13 hits against the Tigers, who are bad at pitching, but then the Royals are pretty bad at hitting; they’d take 13 hits against a quality Double-A team some nights.

By the time Alcides Escobar ranged deep in the hole to backhand a Nick Castellanos bouncer and make the play at first to start the seventh, the Royals were collectively just showing off defensively. Fillmyer nearly got out of the seventh, but a walk to Victor Martinez and a bloop single by Jim Adduci got him a trip to the showers; Kevin McCarthy allowed a James McCann single to score Martinez, then moved Adduci and McCann up 90 feet after Drew Butera allowed a ball to get away. Then Iglesias singled to plate Adduci. 3-2 game. Bullpen making everyone nervous again.

But hey presto, the Royals got one back in the home half. Pinch-hitter Mike Moustakas greeted Daniel Stumpf with a double, then scored on a pinch-hit single by the recently-acquired Brian Goodwin. And McCarthy, rewarding Ned Yost for the trust I don’t think anyone else ever would’ve placed in him, got three groundouts in the eighth to keep the Tigers in check.

The Royals, by rights, should’ve added another run in the eighth. Butera led off with a single, moved to second on a Merrifield sac and then didn’t score… from second… on Rosell Herrera’s double. I’m not sure what Mike Jirschele did or did not see there and in the moment, it merely seemed odd rather than something the game turned because of.

But that’s the thing when you have Brandon Maurer in your bullpen—you can’t have too many runs. It followed a typical pattern of Maurer bed-crapping behavior. Jeimer Candelario led off with a bloop single, which always leads to rockets—Victor Martinez doubled into the rightfield corner, Adduci to the left. Eleven pitches, three hits, four strikes, two runs.

[ferrisbuellerlifecomesatyoufast.gif]

Jason Hammel, who also has seen better days, gave up a first-pitch double to McCann after replacing Maurer, which obviously he did. That put the Tigers ahead, and even though Hammel managed to get out of the inning with no further runs allowed, come on… you don’t think the Royals were coming back from that gut-punch, do you? Goodwin singled in the ninth, but that was that.

Your Tweet of Despair

It’s hard to put into words the rage that I feel when I see that Brandon Maurer is coming into pitch in the 9th inning in a close game. #Royals

— Jeremy C (@jayinlincoln) July 24, 2018

I hope Heath Fillmyer takes a big ol dump in Brandon Maurer’s hat. #Royals

— Brian Spano (@kcspano) July 24, 2018

Brandon Maurer was the pitcher Bob Uecker would get hits off of. #Royals

— sjpence (@sjpence) July 24, 2018

As you can see, we had some real contenders for tonight’s Tweet of Despair, and that’s not even including the ones I had to cull for swear words.

The Bright Spot: How’s about Goodwin riding into town and collecting two hits on his first night? How about Butera going 3-for-3 and sniffing .200 for the first time in a while? How about Lucas Duda driving in three runs and continuing to look like enticing trade bait?

The Nadir: WELL I WONDER WHAT IT COULD POSSIBLY BE TONIGHT.

The Next Step: If you’re not careful, this is the sort of kick to the collective sternum that sets off a time-wide funk and lengthy losing streak. Burch Smith will try to stop that by taking the ball tomorrow against Jordan Zimmermann, 7:15 p.m. (CT) in Kauffman.

The Royals won 6-5. That is not a typo, and it wasn’t even all that fluky. They played better than the Minnesota Twins for the entirety of the contest eight innings. I cannot recall the last time a game ended and I thought, “That was a quality win that Kansas City deserved,” which is either an indication of how bad this season has been or how low my expectations have become or both.

Probably both.

The Royals opened the second half with a two-spot in the first inning, thanks to Lucas Duda (who you can read more about in my piece earlier today, titled “I am Nostradamus and You Will Bow to Me”); he blooped a blooper down the line in left which eluded the outstretched glove of third baseman Eduardo Escobar to score Whit Merrifield (leadoff single) and Jorge Bonifacio (walk).

That was enough to get Danny Duffy going, and he built off a solid final pre-All Star start with a gem Friday night. He wasn’t throwing darts and putting up zeroes; it was a workmanlike performance. A guy would get on, Duffy would strand him. In the fourth, he loaded the bases with no outs after sandwiching walks to Escobar and Mitch Garver around a Robbie Grossman single—Max Kepler hit a sac fly, Jorge Polanco flied out and Bobby Wilson popped out. Duffy got some luck—Kepler just got under a belt-high fastball—but he also made his own luck, pounding the zone and forcing Minnesota to put swings on the ball.

It was 2-1 after Kepler got a run back for the Twins, but Duda led off the home half of the fourth with a single and scored on a Hunter Dozier gapper to give the Royals some insurance. Dozier was stranded after three straight flyouts, including a Rosell Herrera liner that missed being his first career home run by about three feet.

In the sixth, Duda (who is EXTREMELY AVAILABLE) slammed a no-doubter over the wall in right, his season’s eighth. An inning later, Salvador Perez plated Alcides Escobar (leadoff single) and Mike Moustakas (two-out walk) with a gapper.

By this point, Duffy’s race had been run. He went seven innings, tying his season-high with 114 pitches, striking out four and scattering five hits. His ERA is down to 4.40. The fastball had zip, consistently sitting mid-90s. Something dreadful is going to happen to him, I’m sure of it.

In the eighth, Jason Hammel served up a double to Escobar (kind of, it was a dribbler against the shift) and a triple to Garver to plate a run. No big deal.

The ninth was a different story. Wily Peralta came on and, bless him, either couldn’t find the plate or couldn’t miss a bat when he did. Jorge Polanco led off with a double. Jake Cave, pinch-hitting for Wilson, bled a walk. Professional Hitterman Joe Mauer laced a single. Suddenly the situation was serious.

Eddie Rosario grounded out—slowly, too slowly for Whit Merrifield and Alcides Escobar to make a quick double-play turn. That scored Polanco. 6-3 game.

Brian Dozier dug in, worked the count full and then dribbled one to Moustakas. Cave scored. 6-4. Peralta gassed. Brandon Maurer up in the bullpen.

Ned Yost gave Peralta the chance against Escobar. Suddenly, we had been thrust into theatre worthy of Shakespeare. Peralta missed twice—both low—before getting Escobar to chase a curve in the dirt and foul off a slider. The two-two two-seamer hit the dirt, and the payoff pitch missed the inside corner by fractions of a millimeter. Escobar walked. Yost was out of the dugout to relieve Peralta moments later.

Suddenly, all those thoughts I had earlier about outplaying the Twins and being the better team and such were replaced with knowing, deep down, that Brandon Maurer was all that stood between the Royals and coughing up a five-run lead. The one-hop rocket that Esky knocked down at short off the bat of Grossman—if he hadn’t, it might’ve killed him—did not assuage those fears.

Nor did Maurer running the count full to Garver. Nor did Maurer walking Garver to score Rosario. 6-5.

And then Kepler popped up to Gordon. As Uncle Huddy said, had ‘em all the way.

Unusually Happy Tweet of the Game

#ROYALS ARE BACK! #HEYHEYHEYHEY

— Brett Rasdall (@BrettRasdall) July 21, 2018

The Bright Spot: Duffy, who did everything he had to and more.

The Nadir: The bullpen, which… didn’t.

The Next Step: First things first, I’m joining Flanny and downing a cocktail after that one. Tomorrow night’s 6:15 p.m. (CT) start in KC pits Jakob Junis and Lance Lynn against one another; the MLB.com gameday side-by-side previews of the two make them look eerily similar. You be the judge.

Drew Butera

Drew’s reputation as a solid defensive catcher might entice some team that loses a backup to injury or that doesn’t like their current backup to see him as a nice emergency piece for the postseason. I don’t think he’s especially good defensively personally, but hey, you never know. The Red Sox just lost Christian Vazquez for a few weeks and maybe don’t trust Blake Swihart as a DH, so maybe they’ll have some interest? Maybe the Astros would have some interest with Brian McCann out until September. I guess the Mariners could also like a guy with postseason experience? There’s also the Brewers, who have a pair of former Royals in their catching ranks as well as the Rockies, I suppose. He’s a backup catcher. The market is thin to start, but if a team values veterans, I guess they might be interested in Butera.

Lucas Duda

Duda has been fine for the Royals this year, but fine isn’t really good enough when you’re a lumbering first baseman. I’ve actually been surprised at his defense, but that doesn’t mean a ton really, as you all know. He’s hit for so-so power, but not really enough to make a difference. Still, if a team is in need of a lefty bat off the bench or if their first baseman gets hurt, they could do worse than Duda. The Yankees, for example, are interested in Moose as a first baseman, but maybe the better play for them is to give up even less for Duda. If not them (and they only vaguely barely make sense), I don’t see any big fits anywhere, but teams like to stock up on bench bats in August, so we’ll see.

Danny Duffy

The conventional wisdom here is that the Royals would be silly to trade Duffy right now because his value is pretty darn low. And I get that. But consider this. His ERAs over his last four full seasons are as follows: 2.53, 4.08, 3.51 and 3.81. His ERA this season is 4.89. He’s been pretty bad. But over his last nine starts, he’s averaged a little more than six innings per start and posted a 3.07 ERA with a 2:1 strikeout to walk ratio and only five home runs allowed. He’s getting swings and misses again and while his control hasn’t been great, he looks an awful lot like the mid-rotation starter he’s always been. Maybe I’m reaching here, but it’s looking like the first 10 starts were the aberration, just like the 15 starts in the middle of 2016 when he posted a 2.38 ERA with tons of strikeouts and very few walks were an aberration the other way.

Duffy is owed $46 million from 2019 to 2021. He’s owed a bit less than $7 million the rest of this season, so that’s a chunk of change for a guy who has spent half the year looking more like a demotion candidate than a trade candidate. But even so, the Yankees are running out a lot of rough pitchers after Severino and Sabathia right now, though Tanaka is coming back. They could still use a mid-rotation guy. The Phillies might have some interest in pushing Nick Pivetta or Vince Velasquez back in the rotation if they want to make a playoff run. The Brewers starters have been surprisingly good this year, but they’ve lost Brent Suter and could probably use a guy who will be around for the next few seasons.

The issue with trading Duffy is the return. If teams are paying for his last nine starts, they’re probably paying about what the Royals want, but I doubt teams are going to be paying that much for him given the totality of the season for him. I don’t doubt that the Royals are listening on him because they’re listening on basically everyone, but I don’t think they’ll get the return they want even if it’s a solid return by industry standards for a guy who has been so up and down this season.

Alcides Escobar

What’s the market for a .195/.243/.275 hitter, who plays a below average shortstop and has some newfound versatility that isn’t actually a positive because he’s not good anywhere else? It’s exactly what you’d expect. If a team trades for Escobar, it’s because the GM is coming off a 72-hour bender and hallucinating.

Brian Flynn

Flynn is sort of an unsung piece in a bullpen, one who won’t get much attention or elicit much of a return, but he did a fantastic job after Kennedy went out early last night and would make sense as a non-impact acquisition for a lot of teams as a cheap guy they’d control. I don’t even think the Royals would get a flyer for him, so there’s nothing to be excited about, but if you like trades, they could probably at least move him relatively easily.

Jason Hammel

When the Royals shifted Hammel to the bullpen, I think it served two purposes. One, it got him out of the rotation, which was a huge need. Two, it put him in a role where maybe he could succeed and if the Royals were willing to pay some of his salary (don’t laugh, they did it with Brandon Moss at least), three solid weeks in the bullpen might be able to get them a flyer in rookie ball. In his first inning last night, that thought made a lot of sense. Then he Hammeled. Oh well.

Ian Kennedy

The Royals would love to move Kennedy. I’d love to find $50,000 every day for the rest of my life and not have to pay taxes on it. Kennedy has been better lately, but better doesn’t mean good and he’s also hurt. It’s not happening even if the Royals tried to attach him to a more valuable piece like Merrifield, which I really, really hope they don’t try to do, but I can’t say I’m confident they wouldn’t.

Brandon Maurer

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. <deep breath> Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. <deep breath again> Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah. Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. <final deep breath> Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

Wily Peralta

The Royals “closer” has shown flashes of being really good out of the bullpen, but he’s also walked six batters in 7.2 innings, so you know, we’ll see. But as cheap as he is, the Royals might be able to get that big-time longshot prospect. Every team could use a reliever, some could use one more. Given his salary and the likely extremely low cost of acquisition, that goes double for Peralta. If the Red Sox want to boost their bullpen, he’d make a lot of sense because he’s so cheap and they’re close to some big time taxing.

Looking at the list above, it’s easy to see why the Royals aren’t very good. They don’t really have much in the way of what you’d call “good” players, which isn’t ideal. But hey, maybe they can flip a couple of these guys for a flyer or two that hit big. It’s happened before.

Jose Berrios and Danny Duffy was a legitimate by-God pitcher’s duel. It was an old-school throwback to the days when the Twins and Royals competed against one another for supremacy in [checks record book] 1987, the last time they finished 1-2 in a division and within five games of another?

[Jeff Sullivan voice] What. Wait. Hang on. What?

Yep, seems like the halcyon days for each franchise came at the other’s expense and since I’m just killing time until we really get into the meat and potatoes of another loss, you can jump down this rabbit hole with me.

• In 2015, the Royals finished 12 games ahead of the Twins, who were second in the division at 83-79.
• In 2003, the Twins were finished four games up in the division and seven games up on a Royals team that went 83-79 and got everybody super-excited about Tony Pena, and ignored that the team went 14-5 against the worst team in baseball history (Detroit) and 69-74 against everybody else.
• In 1991, Twins won the old, seven-team AL West division by eight games, but all seven teams in the division finished .500 or better, including the Royals (82-80).
• In 1988, Twins won 91 and Royals won 84 and neither finished within a dozen games of the A’s, who powered by Mark McGwire, Jose Canseco and enough anabolic steroids to open a chain of pharmacies.

Here in 2018, the Royals lost 3-1. No reason we can’t get a little history lesson out of this in the process.

Duffy deserved a W based on a his ability to not only stymie the Twins at the plate but by working out of trouble on his own when he did get in a jam. In the very first inning, Joe Mauer and Eddie Rosario greeted Duffy with back-to-back singles, but the lefty rallied to strikeout Brian Dozier and Eduardo Escobar, then walked Robbie Grossman before striking out Mitch Garver. Just like it was drawn up.

Back-to-back doubles by Alex Gordon and Alcides Escobar staked Duffy a lead in the third, but two-out singles by Dozier and Escobar had the Twins cooking, and a 3-1 count to Grossman was concerning. The two-seam fastball that Grossman popped out to Jorge Bonifacio was less concerning, fortunately.

Did the Royals have an excellent run-scoring chance in the fourth only to have it come for naught thanks to a combination of bad calls and bad luck? Baby, it’s like you know this team has lost 28 of its last 32 or something! After leadoff batter Mike Moustakas was hit by a pitch, Salvador Perez lined a double into the gap that put runners on second and third with nobody out. The next batter, Lucas Duda, was called out on strikes, and I’m gonna leave this here so you know that I know that everyone knows that strike three was a crime against baseball.

Ned Yost was appalled and got himself tossed. If he was hoping it would inject some life into his team, he was disappointed as Rosell Herrera grounded out (sharply, forcing a backhand stop) to Escobar before Alex Gordon hit a weak tapper to end the frame.

Both teams left something on the table in the fifth. With two down, the Royals got back-to-back singles from Whit Merrifield and Jorge Bonifacio but couldn’t capitalize after Moustakas chased strike three out of the zone on a full count.

The Twins fared little better with their own two-out rally, when Dozier walked and Escobar singled. Grossman attacked a 1-0 change and beat it into the dirt for a groundout.

Once Duffy made his exit after six innings (six hits, no earned, nine strikeouts), it was not a matter of if but when. Tim Hill, Duffy’s replacement, gave up a double to Bobby Wilson, the first man he faced, and a single to Mauer, the second guy he faced. After a visit, Rosario grounded out to Moustakas to score pinch-runner Jake Cave, giving Hill an exit and Kevin McCarthy a chance to stanch the bleeding.

McCarthy walked Dozier and gave up a single to Escobar to score Mauer and give the Twins a commanding one-run lead, to which they added an eighth-inning run after a Jorge Polanco one-out walk and singles by Cave and Mauer because Brandon Maurer was pitching and there is no conceivable bad situation that Brandon Maurer couldn’t make worse.

Did the Royals put two on (one-out Duda walk, two-out Gordon single) in the ninth, only to let Alcides Escobar hit with the game on the line? You know they did. And you know how that worked out for them.

Your Tweet of Despair

Really Phys, 12. something is a “rather” high ERA? #Royals

— Tom Heapes (@theapes) July 10, 2018

The Bright Spot: A fired-up Duffy was spotted hitting 95 mph fairly consistently and if his offense (and bullpen) hadn’t screwed the pooch, he’d have MLB career win No. 50.

The Nadir: A 3-for-18 showing at the 1-through-5 spots in the order. The bullpen. 1-for-9 with runners in scoring position. You pick, I’m tired.

The Next Step: Somebody bad (Ian Kennedy) versus somebody unknown (Aaron Slegers) at 7:10 p.m. (CT) at Target Field tomorrow. On FS1 because Fox really wants to expose people to a bad product (Royals baseball, Skip Bayless, Colin Cowherd, etc.)

BPKC Hitter of the Day: Nick Pratto 2-5 HR, 4 RBI – MVP of South Atlantic League All-Star Game

BPKC Pitcher of the Day: Jackson Kowar 6.2 IP 5 H 0 R 0 ER 2 BB 13 K 5-2 FO-GO 121 pitches

Carolina League All-Star Game – Kort Peterson 2-4 R, 2b, RBI, Khalil Lee 1-2 BB, D.J. Burt 0-3 E, Bryan Brickhouse 0.1 IP 1 K

The North squad which the Wilmington players were a part of fell a run short with White Sox prospect Joel Booker winning MVP.

South Atlantic League All-Star Game – Nick Pratto 2-5 HR, 4 RBI, MJ Melendez 1-2 R, Seuly Matias 0-2, Sebastian Rivero didn’t bat

The Legends players fared well during the All-Star festivities with Seuly Matias hitting 10 home runs in the 1st round of the home run derby competition before Pratto turned on a fastball as part of a four RBI MVP performance that helped the South take the win.

Omaha Storm Chasers 9 Reno Aces 2

Four different Chasers pitchers spread out 11 Reno hits while limiting them to just two runs with the aid of 13 strikeouts. Starter Scott Barlow, back from Kansas City, gave up both runs in the second inning during his four innings of work, striking out six hitters in that time. The Chasers offense was paced by Jorge Bonifacio and Lucas Duda as the pair drove in five of the team’s nine runs. In the second game of his rehab stint, Duda doubled and connected on a home run to right.

Lucas Duda: 2-5 2R, 2b, HR, 3 RBI
Jorge Bonifacio: 2-4 R, 2 RBI, BB
Scott Barlow: 4 IP 5 H 2 R 2 ER 0 BB 6 K 3-2 GO-FO 56p/39k

Arkansas Travelers 7 NW Arkansas Naturals 1

The Naturals let their shot at the 1st half division title get away from them on Tuesday. Left-hander Emilio Ogando was knocked around again, giving up six runs in just two and one-third innings of work on seven hits. Those seven hits were more than the Naturals offense could put together on their side as four pitchers limited NW Arkansas to just one run on six hits in the defeat.

Donnie Dewees: 0-3 BB
Nicky Lopez: 1-3 RBI
Elier Hernandez: 0-3 BB

Grand Junction Rockies 7 Idaho Falls Chukars 4

A 4-2 lead for the Chukars got away from them late as Nathan Webb’s defense let him down late. The Chukars gave up an in the park home run when a ball got away from a diving outfielder in the seventh inning. An inning later, reliever Christopher Marte followed Webb after he allowed a pair of hits, allowing a double and a single to give up three more runs and put the Chukars too far behind to make a comeback.

Rudy Martin: 0-3 BB, 3K
Kyle Isbell: 3-5 2R, HR, 2 RBI
Jonathan Bowlan: 3 IP 4 H 2 R 2 ER 1 BB 1 K 4-4 49p/31k

Elizabethton Twins 6 Burlington Royals 1

The Royals lost their first game of the season as they struggled to get much going on offense with just three hits. Starter Charlie Neuweiler gave up four hits, one walk and a pair of runs over five innings, taking a tough loss in the process.

Charlier Neueweiler: 5 IP 4 H 2 R 2 ER 1 BB 2 K 4-3 GO-FO 56p/39k
Angel Medina: 2-4 2b, RBI
Juan Carlos Negret: 0-4 K

Tuesday Boxscores

Wednesday Probables
NW Arkansas – Jake Kalish 3-3 4.63 ERA 1.43 WHIP
Burlington – TBD
Idaho Falls – TBD