Royals Rumblings

Royals Rumblings - News for June 6, 2022

Another weekend, another series loss.

By Max Rieper@maxrieper Jun 6, 2022, 8:00am EDT

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Royals Rumblings - News for June 6, 2022

Salvador Perez was pretty even-keel after the Royals dropped the series finale on Sunday against Houston.

“Everything is good when we win, but today was a pretty good game,” Perez said.

“We kept it close. You guys know how baseball is. It’s nobody’s fault. That’s what it is. Everybody is trying to do their job. Yesterday, the bullpen was really good. Today, they give up a few runs. It’s part of the game.

“The good thing is we’ve got an opportunity tomorrow. Today is over. Try to concentrate on the new series against Toronto and see what happens.”

Michael A. Taylor is glad to be back after illness, and pitchers are glad to have him back in the outfield.

Taylor, who entered Sunday leading all Royals batters in hitting with runners in scoring position (.308 batting average and a .406 on-base percentage), said he hit off of a machine to adjust to high velocity before he went on his rehab assignment.

“I got pretty sick, so I was down for about four or five days,” Taylor said. “Then I slowly worked my way back after that.”

Astros reliever Ryan Pressly was pretty hot after being ejected for allegedly throwing at Taylor.

“I guess we’re not allowed to pitch inside in the big leagues anymore. … I’m human. I will miss inside,” Pressly said following the game, according to the Houston Chronicle’s Chandler Rome. “To warn me after something like that and to throw me out after questioning it - you have to be better than that.”

Andrew Benintendi explains why he had to leave Sunday’s game.

“The foul ball off his calf kept him from being able to really go full-speed,” Royals manager Mike Matheny said of removing Benintendi. “We thought it would loosen up, but it kept tightening up.”

Benintendi fouled a sinking fastball off his calf in the sixth-inning at-bat against Astros starting pitcher Framber Valdez. The left-hander threw Benintendi, a left-handed hitter, a healthy dose of those 94-95 mph sinkers throughout the game.

Avery Osen at MLB.com reviews the pitchers from the 2018 draft, including Kris Bubic, who is back from a demotion to Omaha.

“Any time you get sent down it’s not ideal, but you learn from it and move on from things, and I think it just puts things in perspective,” Bubic said. “For me, I’m a guy that is pretty detail oriented, hard on myself, but kind of seeing the other side of that now, it’s OK.”

Alec Lewis talks Royals hitting prospects with coach Drew Saylor.

Recently, you were watching Triple-A Omaha in Louisville, so you might imagine who I’m going to ask about. Your conversation about strikeouts brought Nick Pratto to mind. Overall, he has 59 strikeouts and 26 walks this season. But how do you assess his strikeouts specifically?

I don’t know this for a fact, but seeing how the at-bats play out, I would love to know how many times he gets struck out on a sub-20 percent likelihood strike.

And what I mean by that is, there are a lot of balls guys throw on edges or below the zone. Based on the subjectivity of an umpire, he gets dinged, and it’s a strike three. I’m not worried about that, so much as I am thinking about, “How do you get through that at-bat? Do you miss a pitch you should drive and put into play?” That’s not localized to Nick, but to our whole organization. That’s the goal. Swing at stuff you can hit hard, and take the stuff you can’t.

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