Royals Rumblings - News for May 24, 2024

The Royals. They are good.

Sam McDowell writes about the fantastic starting pitching from this week’s homestand.

Baseball is a game of independent, individual games within the game. I get it. But it’s hard not to believe in some correlation from one start to the next, right?

“We’re definitely feeding off each other,” Singer said. “Nobody wants to be the guy to screw this thing up.”

I won’t overlook the obvious: It helps to have guys with good stuff. Ragans is rated as having one of the top-5 fastballs and changeups in the game by Stuff+. Seth Lugo rates darn near close to an ace pitcher on the same scale.

There is a lot of nastiness within the rotation, and I don’t even know how far back we’d have to track for that to be true in Kansas City.

Pete Grathoff writes about all the ways the Royals have improved.

A year ago, the Royals ranked 25th in Major League Baseball in runs scored. This season, they are tied for the American League lead in runs scored (247), which is the third-most in Major League Baseball. The Royals are also tied for third in doubles (91) and tied for second with 13 triples.

They’re also putting the ball in play more than most teams. Royals batters have struck out 352 times, which is the third-lowest number in MLB. Only three teams have hit into fewer double plays than the Royals (27).

David Lesky marvels at the hot start.

They’re now on pace for 102 wins. They have as many wins today as they had through July last season. They only need to finish 49-62 to be a .500 team. Simply finishing a game under .500 the rest of the way and they’ll win 87 games. A 60-51 finish gives them 92 wins, which is significant because it would represent the single largest year-over-year win increase in MLB history. I don’t know what this team is capable of doing, but I can tell you after 51 games that the limit is a whole lot higher than I thought it was two months ago.

Craig Brown also notes the dominant play.

A factoid that I very much enjoy is that the Royals never trailed at any point during this six-game homestand. They led for 49 innings of action and were tied for 5 innings. That’s taking care of business. Yeah, half of those innings came against the Oakland A’s who were reeling when they arrived in Kansas City after a decent start to the season, but that doesn’t mean you hang some kind of asterisk on this note. The Royals are playing the schedule. They have to kick teams when they’re down. Playing the bully in sports is how you win championships.

ESPN’s David Schoenfield looks at whether some hot starts are for real. [ESPN Insider]

The offense, so far, has been top heavy with Perez and Witt, and the bullpen hasn’t been that great, with free agents Chris Stratton and Will Smith relatively ineffective. (Indeed, for all the money the Royals spent on free agents, only Lugo and Wacha have paid off.) Like the Guardians, the offense has overperformed with runners in scoring position, so there is likely regression in that department — and if that happens, I don’t see this lineup scoring enough runs. All that puts pressure on this rotation to keep performing at an extremely high level.

Verdict: Not real

Kevin O’Brien at Royals Reporter thinks the team is for real.

Third base prospect Cayden Wallace lands on the Injured List with side tightness.

Bobby Witt Jr. visits a local elementary school.

The Royals release veteran pitcher Zach Davies from Omaha.

White Sox outfielder Eloy Jiménez will miss about a month with a hamstring injury.

The Mariners acquire reliever Mike Baumann from the Orioles.

What if Rockies pitchers threw only knuckleball?

What’s wrong with the Reds?

MLB Pipeline writers discuss who will be selected first overall in the draft.

There are rumors the Blue Jays are shopping Vladimir Guerrero Jr.

Commissioner Rob Manfred says we likely won’t see robo-umpires in the big leagues in 2025.

Sacramento’s baseball stadium is getting some upgrades before the A’s move there.

MLB announces host sites for the 2026 World Baseball Classic.

MLB and the player’s union will expand financial assistance programs to support living Negro Leagues players.

Diamond Sports has its reorganization hearing in bankruptcy court pushed back to July.

The WNBA will expand to Toronto.

An oral history of Roundball Rock, the theme to the NBA on NBC.

Could zero-emission “electric cement” be a game-changer?

How AMC Theaters is still surviving despite $4.5 billion in debt.

The Department of Justice and 30 state attorneys general sue Ticketmaster.

Your song of the day Wolfmother with Joker and the Thief.