Royals roast Cardinals’ bullpen; win 8-3

As has so often happened in Royals games this year - it was a very close one until it suddenly was not.

Michael Wacha is such an interesting player to me. As I noted in the game thread, it sure felt like he hadn’t been very good since the break, but the stats told a completely different story. Once again, tonight, it felt like Wacha was struggling all night long but he ultimately pitched seven innings, allowed only seven baserunners, and struck out six while allowing two runs on a two-run home run surrendered to Paul Goldschmidt. Looking at that line, there’s very little to dislike. It’s unclear to me why it always seems like Wacha is struggling more than he is; tonight it could possibly be blamed on an offense that struggled early and so he was losing for most of the night. But that can’t be true of all of his starts, can it? Perhaps something to dig into later.

Andre Pallante was on the mound for the Cardinals and, frankly, he wouldn’t even be in their rotation right now if Lance Lynn hadn’t suffered an injury around the time they were acquiring Erick Fedde from the White Sox. That didn’t stop him from twirling most of a gem against the Royals. He finished his night with 5.2 innings pitched and allowed two runs, only one of which was earned. He only allowed three hits, but he did walk four while only striking out four. Not a bad night at all for a team’s sixth starter.

This one had a lot of Royals fans very upset for much of the night. Personally, I don’t get super stressed until the other team has a three-run lead or more in the early innings. Had the Cardinals escaped the sixth inning with a lead I might have started getting upset, but they didn’t, so I had a fairly ho-him evening until things got fun.

Wacha gave up the aforementioned two-run home run in the second inning. The Royals scored their first run in the third inning and it was the definition of a manufactured run. Kyle Isbel chopped one in front of the plate and then went to second when catcher Willson Contreras fired the ball down the right field line. He went to third on a groundball to the right side by Maikel Garcia. He scored on a Bobby Witt Jr. grounder, also to the right side.

The Cardinals, for their part, played an incredibly sloppy game. They committed a pair of errors and had multiple other plays that might have been marked as errors in a different era of baseball. They also gifted Michael Wacha a four-pitch first inning which was one of the keys to allowing him to pitch seven tonight and allow Matt Quatraro to only rely on Kris Bubic and Lucas Erceg to get things done. We’ll talk more about them in a minute, let’s get back to the offense.

The Royals allowed the Cardinals only one 1-2-3 inning all night long, the first. Every inning after that they had at least one baserunner and often more. The only other inning in which a pitcher faced only three was the fifth when Bobby Witt Jr. walked but was picked off of first base.* In the sixth inning, with Pallante’s pitch count rising, the Royals got to work again.

*If you’re wondering, since the start of July Bobby has been caught stealing three times and successfully stolen only three bases. At least two of those caught stealing were pickoffs. I don’t know what happened to base-stealing Bobby, but I miss him.

Pallante got two quick outs but then walked Paul DeJong. DeJong had only walked 14 times in 107 games for the White Sox, but has already walked three times in eight games for the Royals. That would be 40 walks over 107 games if he maintained that pace. It almost certainly doesn’t mean anything, but it’s still funny. Anyway, MJ Melendez hit a bloop to center that landed in no man's land and DeJong motored all the way to third. That’s when Cardinals’ manager Ollie Marmol went to his bullpen and summoned Ryan Fernandez. Fernandez has allowed a measly 18% of his inherited runners to score. But Freddy Fermin was at the plate, and Freddy doesn’t care about the odds.

Michael Wacha came back out for the seventh and immediately walked Goldschmidt before giving up a single to Nolan Gorman. Kris Bubic began warming in the bullpen. Tommy Pham, who had two of those plays that would have been errors other nights, came to plate and got jammed. He hit a grounder to Salvador Perez at first who turned and fired a strike to Garcia at second. Garcia then made an incredibly head’s up play and threw to third base. Goldschmidt had been stuck without any idea where to go because the ball to Salvy had almost been a line drive worth catching and was not able to beat the throw to third. Just your typical, everyday 3-4-5 double play.

Wacha then struck out Brandon Crawford to end the inning.

In the bottom of the seventh, the lineup roared to life against Fernandez. Isbel singled and stole second, then scored on a Garcia single to right. Garcia also stole second - MJ Melendez had a steal earlier in the game, so the team clearly wanted to run on Contreras - and Bobby Witt Jr got his first hit of the series, an RBI triple. Vinnie Pasquantino smashed a line drive at 99.7 MPH exit velocity, but right at Gorman for the first out. Salvy then came to the plate and demolished a pitch down the left-field line but foul. On the very next pitch he lifted one to right and it seemed destined to at least give the Royals some more insurance.

It did more than that.

With a four-run lead, Q gladly turned things over to Kris Bubic. Bubic is probably going to take some flak for his outing tonight, and he did give up a leadoff double on a poorly placed 1-2 pitch to Brendan Donovan. But he also got two strikeouts on two of the worst swings you’ll ever see, a groundball that became problematic because it was so poorly hit, and a groundball that would have been a routine out to second if there hadn’t been a shift on. Ultimate he was charged with allowing an earned run, but if he pitched exactly that well you’d expect that to be an impressive scoreless inning nine times out of ten.

Lucas Erceg came in with two runners on and two out to collect the four-out save. He immediately struck out Goldschmidt to end the threat in the eighth.

The Royals then piled on a couple runs in the bottom half with an Adam Frazier double, Isbel triple, and another Bobby single. Erceg came back out for the ninth because they have the weird Sunday off-day so there was no reason to try and preserve his ability to potentially pitch tomorrow. He gave up a pair of hits but struck out another batter and didn’t give up a run. Because he had come in on a save situation, he was credited with his fourth save of the evening despite the five-run lead when all was said and done.

Playoff Push

Cleveland Guardians WON

Minnesota Twins LOST

Boston Red Sox LOST

The Royals are now one game back of the Twins for the second Wild Card spot and 2.5 games ahead of the Red Sox for the final Wild Card spot. They are 3.5 games behind the Guardians, who snapped a seven-game losing streak by defeating the Twins tonight.

The Royals’ Magic Number is now 44.

The Royals, by the way, also now hold the second-best run differential in the American League, behind only the Yankees. As noted earlier, a weird quirk of the scheduling this year has produced a Sunday off-day tomorrow. The Royals will resume play by starting a three-game series in Minnesota on Monday night. The game will start at 6:40 PM Royals time and Brady Singer will take the bump for KC. The Twins, reeling from the loss of ace Joe Ryan for the remainder of the season, have not yet announced their own starter.

P.S. In case you hadn’t heard, Jac Caglianone has started his professional career with the Quad City River Bandits. He had his first hit, the other night, a sizzling double. Tonight, he did this: