The Royals arrive at the ballpark today winners of two of their last three games, but also two of their last two of their last eleven. So ya know, fun with endpoints!
The Royals are 2-2 so far on this home stand, and boy, things would feel a lot better after that awful losing stretch if they could finish it 4-2 with a series sweep over the Anaheim Angels of Los Angeles, California. No, the Angels aren’t a particularly good team, but you’ve got to start somewhere.
Speaking of starting somewhere, Cole Ragans will take the mound to begin the day. Over his last 3 starts, he has pitched 11 innings while giving up 10 runs with 13 walks and 9 strikeouts. The team ace has not seemed himself at all since taking a soft liner off the bat of Jose Ramírez in Cleveland. But he’s going to give it another shot, and today would be the best day to look like his unhittable self since the last day he started.
In an argument against it being an injury problem, his spin rates, velocity, and movement profiles are all exceptionally similar using that day on April 8 as a breaking point. If anything, his spin rates have gone up slightly, and he’s even throwing about 2% more strikes than before. But his chase rate has dropped from 32% to 17.2%, and his whiff rate has dropped from 35.8% – one of the best in baseball at the time – to 17.5%. If we can accept that the issues aren’t physical, then I can only imagine that Brian Sweeney, Mitch Stetter, and Mike McFerran are lying awake at night over it.
Rookie Walbert Ureña will be making his second career big league start and fourth overall appearance this year. He made the club as a reliever out of Spring Training, but struggled in his first two appearances and was demoted back to AAA to stretch back out as a starter. He was recalled last week to allow an extra rest day for other starters on the Angels’ staff and shone, striking out 8 and allowing 2 runs in a six-inning performance against the Padres. Unfortunately for him, he took the loss as the Angels could only muster one run in support.
He entered the season ranked as the Angels’ 18th-best prospect on MLB Pipeline and 23rd-best on FanGraphs with a 40 FV. According to TJ Stats, he features four pitches, of which three are elite. Against righties, he will primarily throw a sinker that averages 98.8 MPH and grades out at 72 on the 20-80 scouting scale, mixing in a 67-grade sweeper. Against lefties, he throws a 45-grade four-seamer that averages 98.7 MPH and a 65-grade changeup. The four-seamer and changeup have gotten hit hard so far in his young career, and, not coincidentally, lefties have tortured him.
With Maikel Garcia out for his second straight game but with a righty on the mound, the Royals have decided not just to go lefty-heavy, but to ask Carter Jensen to lead off for the third time in his career. The first two times were both last year, and while he was the designated hitter. The first time he did it was in that wild game against the Blue Jays when he went 3-for-7 with 3 doubles and the Royals won 20-1.
The Royals will only have three righties in the lineup. What will be particularly interesting to see is if this goes well for Carter, if the Royals might consider having him lead off against righties on the regular and move Maikel down in the order to even things out a bit, handedness-wise. Possibly finally shifting Salvy to a lower spot in the order where he better fits.
Regardless, the Royals have averaged 5.75 runs on this homestand, even with a lineup that didn’t really get anyone excited last night as they won 6-3. If they can keep doing that, we’ll stop caring about the batting order nearly as much.