From the Fountains: Royals Weekly News Roundup

Jared Perkins May 27, 2024 in News Tagged Cayden Wallace, Kansas City Royals, Kyle Isbel, Matt Sauer, Michael Massey, Nick Loftin, Sam Long - 5 Minutes

Here are the latest news happenings for the Royals from last week!

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Overall Team Record: 34-20 (2nd, 2.5 GB)

Upcoming Series (4 Games): Kansas City Royals (34-20) vs. Minnesota Twins (28-24)

Monday: RHP Alec Marsh (4-1, 2.72 ERA) vs. RHP Joe Ryan (3-3, 3.15 ERA)
Tuesday: LHP Cole Ragans (4-3, 3.34 ERA) vs. RHP Simeon Woods Richardson (1-0, 2.57 ERA)
Wednesday: RHP Seth Lugo (8-1, 1.74 ERA) vs. RHP Bailey Ober (5-2, 4.33 ERA)
Thursday: RHP Brady Singer (4-2, 2.63 ERA) vs. RHP Chris Paddack (4-2, 4.39 ERA)

WEEKLY SERIES RECAP

Detroit Tigers vs. Kansas City Royals (5/20 – 5/22): The Royals continued their winning streak by sweeping the Tigers. They dominated the AL Central opponent by outscoring them 26-9. They got incredible starts from Michael Wacha, Alec Marsh, and Cole Ragans. Michael Massey and Maikel Garcia continued to remain extremely hot, carrying the offense in this series. Bobby Witt, Jr. continued to show why he is also an MVP candidate.

Kansas City Royals vs. Tampa Bay Rays (5/24): The Royals stretched their winning streak to eight games by winning the first two games of their series against the Rays. We are running out of words for how good Seth Lugo is at this point. He dominated in game one, and it didn’t even seem like he had his best stuff. He covered seven innings while giving up just one run and four hits. He lowered his season ERA to 1.74. Massey hit a huge three-run home run in game one and, unfortunately, was pulled due to an injury shortly after that. The same back injury put him on the IR earlier in the year. The next day, it was announced that he was being placed on the 15-day IR. Royals and Rays battled it out in game two with the Royals offense coming through in the eleventh. The Royals lost game three despite another masterful performance by Michael Wacha. The bullpen just unfortunately couldn’t hang onto this one and the Royals offense faltered to get anything started against starter Taj Bradley and the Rays bullpen.

ROYALS NEWS

The Royals designate Matt Sauer for assignment, call up Sam Long: “Kansas City announced that RHP Matt Sauer had been designated for assignment. The Rule 5 pick from this past December was certainly worth a flyer, but it didn’t turn out great in his first attempt at the big leagues. Over 14 appearances, Sauer had pitched to a 7.71 ERA for the Royals with just nine strikeouts against 11 walks. It was always going to be a bit of an uphill climb for Sauer, who was heading straight to the bigs from Double-A. Sadly, it didn’t quite pan out this time.”

Cayden Wallace was placed on the minor league injured list: “Wallace was placed on the 7-day Minor League injured list on May 22 after exiting his Double-A game in the first inning. He was replaced by a pinch runner after hitting a single in his first plate appearance on May 21 as he dealt with what the Royals described as right side tightness.”

Michael Massey placed on the 15-day IR, Nick Loftin called up: “The club announced it’s placed Massey on the 10-day Injured List; the move is retroactive to Saturday, meaning he won’t be eligible to return until the first full week of June at the earliest. The culprit is a low back ligament sprain. He left Friday night’s series opener at Tampa Bay with what the Royals preliminarily characterized as lower back tightness.”

ROYALS ANALYSIS

Jackson Ogden looks at how the Royals are doing the impossible: “There’s bouncing back after a bad season, and then there’s what the Royals are doing right now. Plenty of teams have missed the playoffs and qualified for the following season, but none have come back from as bad of a season as the 2023 Royals had. If the season ended today, the Royals would become just the second team in the expansion era dating back to 1961 to lose over 100 games and then make the postseason the following season.”

Trey Donovan dives into Kyle Isbel’s defensive success: “Kyle Isbel is probably one of the more polarizing players this writer has seen within this fanbase, and there are valid reasons for that. However, the value of centerfielders is on defense and Isbel is one of the better defenders in the league. Kyle Isbel is the best option, internally, to man center at Kauffman and fans should accept that. Even if the bat stagnates, his defense will always be the reason to keep him.”

Kevin O’Brien talks about how the Royals are playing some ball: “Considering that many Royals fans (including myself) thought that 74-78 wins would be cause for celebration, a possible 30-win turnaround from a year ago would be worth a parade down Main Street (even if it doesn’t result in a pennant or World Series title). That said, while the Royals’ pace is predicted to stagnate at some point, Fangraphs is also projecting the same fate for the Guardians.Fangraphs projects that the Guardians will have a rest-of-the-season record of 55-58 and an 87-75 final record. That is only one win better than the Royals projected record. In addition, they also project the Guardians to finish with a lower run differential (+43) than the Royals (+56) by the end of the seaso.n”

Pete Grathoff dives into all the Royals success: “Anyone who came out to the Royals’ recently concluded homestand never saw the team trail. In all six wins, the Royals either had the lead or were tied. They’ve been on a roll, winning 11 of their last 14, and at 32-19 are 13 games over .500 for the first time since ending the 2015 season 28 games over .500. It’s been a remarkable turnaround for the Royals, who lost 106 games a year ago. Here is a closer look at five statistics that show why the team is playing so much better this season, plus some other numbers of note.”