While Minnesota Twins pitcher Jake Odorizzi was busy carrying a no-hitter into the eighth inning on Wednesday, the Royals and White Sox were locked in their own version of a pitcher’s duel, wherein neither team hit particularly well and the pitching looks better as a result. Should we take that as gospel given that the […]
Tag: Whit Merrifield
RECAP: Junis keeps shoving to take down Chicago
Take away June and July and let him exclusively face the American League Central and Jakob Junis might be the best pitcher in baseball. 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 […]
RECAP: Junis mystifies Tribe in series-opener
Okay, so Jakob Junis two-hitting the Cleveland Indians—not their Triple-A team or the Pedro Serrano/Rick Vaughn/Hats for Bats version of them—reignites the theory that perhaps there is something a little special about Junis after all. He started his season like a house on fire, going 5-3 with a 3.51 ERA in his first 10 starts […]
RECAP: Royals Sweep O’s in battle for the bottom
The Orioles… whew, they are bad. To say that as one who has spent hundreds of hours watching the Royals this year, it’s really no small feat to make me consider a team to be bad, but the O’s are so much worse than any team I’ve seen, including the Royals, perhaps ever. Friday, they […]
RECAP: The Jakob Junis Game
If Jakob Junis could only face the Tigers, there’s an outside chance we might consider him one of the game’s finest pitchers. Unfortunately, there are 28 other teams and Junis seems not to fare as well against any of them. Fortunately, the Tigers were his opponent Tuesday and Junis did what Junis does in mowing […]
10 Things That Have Gone Right For The Royals in 2018
The 2018 Royals are a train wreck. Or perhaps, a dumpster fire occurring on top of a train wreck. This is no secret. But let’s ignore all the many, many negative things that have happened this year and focus on some positives. Yes, there are some. I promise. In no particular order, here are 10 […]
RECAP: Salvy wore a sombrero and somehow it gets worse
Nobody, but nobody, snatches defeat away from the jaws of victory quite like the Royals. The incredible part is that they can do it against the White Sox, nobody’s idea of a Murder’s Row offense, and make it look so charmingly easy. Matt Davidson wasn’t even involved, which is the true irony of ironies. Royals […]
RECAP: Keller shoves, O’Hearn swats in series-opening win
[extremely ‘Boomhauer from King of the Hill’ voice] Dangol’ baseball funnyol’ game, man. Dangol’ Royals beatin’ the Blue Jays, manya just don’ know what you’ll see on any given night man. The Royals had won three series openers since June 1, all started by Danny Duffy. The last non-Duffy series-opening win came May 18. The […]
RECAP: Weather, Twins defeat Royals in late one
You have to admire the commitment. Apropos of more or less nothing, the Twins and Royals sat around until the wee small hours of Saturday morning, enduring two rain delays and fighting apathy to finish a 6-4 contest in front of dozens of fans in Minneapolis. Why? I don’t know. This game was official when […]
The bleak reality of the Royals offense
Last month at the mothership, Rob Mains published a pair of articles comparing three of the more accepted advanced offensive metrics. TAv is what we use here at Baseball Prospectus. OPS+ is found on Baseball Reference. And wRC+ is located at Fangraphs. Mains ran the numbers and found that, despite some fundamental differences in how […]