Rockies @ Royals Series Preview: Where Are The Bats?!

You know that meme of “nuclear bomb vs. coughing baby”? Well, this is more like two coughing babies in a coughing contest. This series will feature the two worst hitting teams in the sport. Get your popcorn ready, the 9-14 Kansas City Royals are on the call with the worst team in baseball, the 4-17 Colorado Rockies.

By way of the normal slash line numbers, the Royals are only dead last in slugging and the Rockies are about 26th in everything, but the worst elements of both teams are what make them the actual worst lineups. For the Rockies, it’s strikeouts: Colorado hitters are striking out more than 30% of the time. An individual doing this would be concerning, an entire team missing at this rate is unbelievable. The Royals, meanwhile, have shown no power to speak of, as they are the only team with an Isolated Power (ISO) under .100. The team with the second-lowest ISO is Toronto who have about 50 more points of SLG than the Royals. Also, both Colorado and KC are tied for having the fourth-lowest walk rate in baseball. Finally, a worthy opponent.

Colorado Rockies, On Offense

The Rockies’ best hitter is Brenton Doyle, who might be ending his personal leave for this series. If not, the best hitter is Mickey Moniak, the 1st overall pick of the 2016 draft. The nearly 27-year-old Moniak has a career 1.2 WAR in MLB so far and was unceremoniously cut from the Angels after Spring Training, but he seems to be reviving the cliche of Coors Field being the place to go to revive a hitter. He even has the Statcast metrics to back up his current numbers, which is a nice surprise. The other hitter of note is Kyle Farmer, who’s been off to a good start with a .396 BABIP.

Boy, is it rough beyond that. Ryan McMahon and Michael Toglia have the two highest strikeout rates of all qualified hitters. Meanwhile, three Rockies hitters are in the top-50 (or, bottom-50 I guess) for lowest walk percentage (Toglia, Tovar, Farmer). In Colorado’s defense, several of their hitters are still getting their toes wet in the Majors such as Zac Veen and Adael Amador, and they come with strong prospect pedigrees. The Rockies also very recently replaced their hitting coach, so there’s not a lack of effort on their part to improve moving forward.

Colorado Rockies, In Relief

If there’s one thing that hasn’t failed the Rockies so far, it’s been the bullpen. Colorado relievers are 18th in ERA and 13th in left on base percentage (LOB%). That said, they haven’t struck a lot of batters out while carrying the highest walk rate of all bullpens, giving them the worst FIP in the game. They’re also one of two teams that currently have more blown saves than actual saves; the other team being the Twins.

Game Times & Pitching Matchups

Tuesday, April 22 @ 6:40 PM
RHP Ryan Feltner (0-1, 4.82 ERA) v LHP Kris Bubic (2-1, 1.88 ERA) – Feltner is a 3-year veteran has always struck me as the kind of pitcher that would be good if he pitched for literally any other team. He has a 6-pitch repertoire and often does enough to circumvent the fact that he gets hit a lot, but this year the contact has been harder and his walk percentage has gone up from 7.5 to 11.6. Kris Bubic has a golden opportunity to recover from his first and only subpar start of the season, the 3-run 5.1 inning show against the Yankees. Despite that outing, he still ranks 10th in ERA among all qualified pitchers and 20th in FIP.

Wednesday, April 23 @ 6:40 PM
RHP Germán Márquez (0-3, 8.27 ERA) v RHP Michael Lorenzen (1-3, 4.57 ERA) – Márquez is a former Rays prospect who the Rockies acquired in a trade, finished developing and got 16 bWAR out of as a starter. I don’t know why more people don’t talk about how insane that is. Unfortunately, that doesn’t reflect who he is now: not looking great after an extensive absence through injuries. The 8 walks to 11 strikeouts in 16 innings will say as much, although his .364 BABIP and signature low home run rate do give him much better expected numbers. Márquez has an expected ERA of 4.99 and expected FIP of 4.94 (which is also his current FIP). Michael Lorenzen also has a golden opportunity to flush his worst start of the season, his first being unable to finish five innings. That said, Lorenzen has a career 4.97 ERA against the Rockies, although with just three starts.

Thursday, April 24 @ 1:10 PM
RHP Chase Dollander (1-2, 7.36 ERA) v LHP Cole Ragans (1-1, 3.58 ERA) – This should be one of the most fun matchups of the whole year. Dollander is a 2023 first-rounder who entered this season as one of the top pitching prospects in all of baseball, with a prospect ranking as high as #8 overall from Baseball America. There’s a good reason why: his average fastball velocity is the 6th fastest among all starting pitchers. Even as he is now, with unpolished command and undercooked secondaries, he’ll at least put on a high-velo fireworks show with Ragans. Also, his season has had two bad starts at home… and one good start on the road, against the Padres, arguably the best team in baseball right now. Fortunately, Cole Ragans should be as excited as anyone else for this start, as the current AL Strikeout King gets to face the most strikeout-heavy team.

Series Goals & Expectations

If there was ever a time where a team “had” to sweep another, this may as well be it. The Royals may have had a tough schedule so far, but they now get to play the worst team in the sport. It’s imperative the hitters begin producing on offense and hopefully they can show the last weekend was the beginning of momentum building. Anything less than winning two of three would be shocking for KC as they’ll be deploying their two best starting pitchers against the league-worst offense. Moreover, the Rockies are 1-11 on the road. Losing this series would be a tough new low to beat for the 2025 Royals, but winning it could be the start of a path to recovery.

The title of this article is based on the song ‘Where Are The Punks?!?!” by The Barbarians of California.

Image Credit: Kyle Cooper (Getty Images)