If you read the papers these days, the Royals lack of options in their starting rotation and underwhelming power production from their lineup has finally started playing some actual effect on their ability to win major league baseball games.
Those reports are still unconfirmed.
1. Not everything about 2016 immediately got thrown out the moment the Royals stepped onto the U.S. Cellular Field grass, it took at least an hour. Jose Quintana faced the minimum over the first five innings, and popped his fastball brazenly in the zone like the days of old (i.e. the last six weeks).
Then the sixth inning came, and nothing worked again. More specifically, Quintana started hanging curveballs and got punished for it. He gave up back-to-back doubles to the bottom of the Kansas City order, as Omar Infante and Paulo Orlando evened the score at 1-1, and when Tyler Saladino couldn’t rob Alcides Escobar a third-straight time on a groundball deep in the hole to first, it deepened the jam with Lorenzo Cain up.
Quintana started Cain off with a center-cut fastball that the all-world center fielder thought he could handle, and cursed himself for fouling off. Cain immediately rectified the situation by tracking and scooping a curve off the bottom part of the zone and into the left field corner for a go-ahead RBI double. Quintana somehow retired Eric Hosmer, the best hitter in the Royals lineup, before Kendrys Morales drilled another curve to right to put the Royals up 3-1. An ill-advised return for the seventh inning sealed Quintana’s worst outing of the year, as he gave up back-to-back singles to lead off the frame, and got charged with a fourth run over 6.1 innings when Zach Putnam allowed an inherited run to score.
2. Quintana’s early-game dominance blotted out that the White Sox struggling lineup was having equal trouble doing anything with rotation fill-in Dillon Gee. There isn’t a ton of stuff in the former Mets hurler’s right arm anymore and he struggled with control early. He plunked Brett Lawrie and walked Alex Avila to wade into a bases loaded jam in the second, but escaped with just a single run on an Austin Jackson sacrifice fly.
He stranded two more runners in the third when he struck out Lawrie looking, and escaped first and third situation in the fourth when he got raging house of fire Adam Eaton to ground out weakly to end a threat. After squeezing five good innings out of him, the Royals got Gee right up out of the game after taking the lead in the sixth.
3. The Royals bullpen has been merely murderous this season rather than their normal vaporizing selves, but the Luke Hochevar, Joakim Soria, Kelvin Herrera and Wade Davis combination still spun four shutout innings with just two hits allowed. They are still good.
4. The Royals went 6-for-11 with runners in scoring position for the night while the Sox went 0-for-6 and struck out looking a whopping seven times out of their 10 total strikeouts. Punched out while holding his bat to close out the night, Eaton decided he had finally had enough, and went ballistic on home plate umpire Hunter Wendelstedt, becoming the rare player ejected after the final out of the game.
5. Matt Purke made his major league debut in four outs of scoreless relief during garbage time. He flashed some nice movement on his curveball and struck out Alex Gordon, although his lack of command got him in trouble with right-handed hitters and needed a lineout to left with two runners on to escape damage in the ninth.
If he was able to hold that trend for a bit, he would be an interesting enough LOOGY candidate when opportunities allow.
Team Record: 25-17
Next game is Saturday at 1:10pm CT vs. Kansas City on CSN
Lead Image Credit: Caylor Arnold // USA Today Sports Images