Royals Rumblings - News for September 15, 2022

Bobby Witt Jr. came through late in Tuesday’s game to prevent the Royals from being no-hit:

“He was on tonight,” Witt said. “The fastball is something that you’re like, ‘Oh, seeing it well, seeing it well,’ and then boom, you miss it.”

Ryan kept hitters off balance with his fastball, curveball, changeup and slider, and generated a ton of weak contact, with the Royals averaging an 81 mph exit velocity on the 11 balls put in play.

“What’s going on in the dugout is frustration,” Matheny said. “Guys realizing that it’s embarrassing when you get no-hit. Going up there fighting through their at-bats, but it’s not something you want to have them finish off.”

In Alec Lewis’s last piece for the Royals, he presents a collection of stories about Billy Butler from people that knew him firsthand ($):

Barnett: We’re in Detroit. And Detroit had a bunch of turnover in their bullpen. We’d probably faced them two weeks before that, and now they’ve got six new pitchers. I’ve got the whole scouting report. And they bring in this left-hander, and I’m going, I don’t remember this guy. I’m scrambling to look. I said, ‘Billy, you got this guy?’ He goes, ‘Yeah, I got him.’ I said, ‘What do you mean you’ve got him? How do you have him? We haven’t seen this guy.’ He goes, ‘Yeah, we have. We faced him last time we were at home. He was up then. He has a sinker, cutter and split. The last time I faced him, he threw me two sinkers away, a cutter in, he hung a split, and I hit it right back up the middle.’ In between innings, I run in. I pull up that at-bat. I hardly remembered the guy. I look at that at-bat, and I’ll be damned if he didn’t throw him two sinkers away, a cutter in, hung a split, and he hit it right back up the middle. I go, ‘Wow.’

Maier: One game, he said to me, ‘That guy doesn’t throw that pitch in that count to a right-handed hitter with runners on base. He’s never thrown that pitch in that situation.’

Sweeney: When he stepped in the box, he went from a 10-year-old kid to a 37-year-old hitter in a grown man’s body. He could see things that other players didn’t see. The pitcher would tip a pitch, or, on a spike curveball, he could see the index finger elevated. I’m like, ‘Can you really see that?’ He was just so advanced at a young age as a hitter.

Mason Barnett, drafted this year, made MLB Pipeline’s Prospect Team of the Week:

Talk about making a lasting first impression. The Royals’ third-round selection in the 2022 Draft has made three appearances with Single-A Columbia this season and has yet to yield a hit. After tossing one inning in the Arizona Complex League, Barnett joined the Fireflies on Aug. 31. The 21-year-old right-hander nearly tossed two perfect frames in his debut on Sept. 2, his lone blemish being a hit batsman. But, he followed that up with two more dominating appearances last week. On Tuesday, Barnett was perfect over two frames with four strikeouts, and on Saturday he worked around one walk and fanned five over three innings. He is sporting a 0.14 WHIP with 11 punchouts and one walk in seven Carolina League frames.

In other minor league news, the Royals named their players and pitchers of the year for the lower level minors. Here they are:

• High-A: C Luca Tresh and LHP Emilio Márquez
• Low-A: C Carter Jensen and RHP Ben Kudrna
• ACL: OF Roger Leyton and RHP Mauricio Veliz
• DSL: OF Erick Torres and RHP Emmanuel Reyes

MLB appears to be losing the war against sticky stuff, writes Eno Sarris ($).

Also at The Athletic ($), Ken Rosenthal pens an open letter to Tony La Russa.

Alden Gonzalez, Jeff Passan, and Jesse Rogers provide a breakdown of minor league unionization.

Randy Arozarena sows chaos on the basepaths.

Adam Wainwright and Yadier Molina made their 325th start together, the most for batterymates in AL/NL history.

Here are four things to watch in tonight’s Chiefs-Chargers matchup. On a related note, Thursday night football is an abomination that should be abolished.

Patrick Mahomes moves to the top of The Ringer’s QB rankings, where he really should have been from the start.

In this week’s CFB Bottom 10, UMass takes the #1 spot.

Scottie Scheffler was voted PGA Tour Player of the Year, which was a pretty easy call given his only real competition departed for LIV.

This week’s rental opportunity is a studio featuring a twin bed, a nearly useless kitchenette, and one very small window.

Ferdinand Magellan gets all the credit, but he actually did not complete the world’s first circumnavigation ($).

Investigating why some people appear to be naturally immune to Covid-19.

If you’re in Minnesota to watch the Royals lose play, here’s a new opportunity: after the state seemingly accidently legalized THC products over the summer, breweries are introducing THC-infused seltzers.

Your song of the day is Dear Boy by Avicii.