Kansas City Royals news: Ryan Bergert impresses and Jonathan India wear looser pants

Jaylon Thompson writes about another win for the Royals on this homestand, this time over the Rangers.

“You hope you can keep stacking them together,” Royals manager Matt Quatraro said of this run of victories. ”We know we need to do that this time of year.

“You can’t win more than one game a day. That’s where you’ve got to refocus. Take some time to enjoy it for sure — it’s hard to win these games. It’s hard to win in the big leagues. You’ve got to enjoy it, but the process starts over.

The Royals

are impressed by Ryan Bergert’s even-keel approach.

“He’s pitched against some good teams when he was with the Padres and we’ve thrown him right into the fire in big spots with us, as well,” Quatraro said.

“The stuff you can tell when you watch, but then you watch the way hitters react to his stuff and that’s exciting. “But also, if he doesn’t execute a pitch — he gave up the home run in Minnesota — he just refocuses and gets back after it.”

Craig Brown likes what he’s seen from Bergert.

There’s not a lot of run to the Bergert slider, but there is about 30-plus inches of drop. By movement, it’s not a special pitch, but there’s some kind of deception there that gets major league hitters out. On the afternoon, Bergert recorded seven strikeouts. Six of them came with Sox hitters going down swinging. Five of those were on the slider.

Bergert threw 28 sliders on the day, got 17 swings against the pitch and recorded eight whiffs, good for a 47 percent swinging strike rate.

Anne Rogers talks to Matt Quatraro about the timeline for Jac Caglianone, who is on rehab assignment.

“We didn’t set out a certain timeline,” manager Matt Quatraro said early last week. “We told him, ‘Just go down there and play. Just because you get a few hits doesn’t mean you’re coming back the next day, and if you don’t get any hits, doesn’t mean you’re never coming back.’ We just wanted him to get back on his feet. The hits [are] a good sign, but also being able to run the bases, and be in the field and put some volume back on his body.”

She also writes about the changes that have helped Jonathan India lately.

David Lesky recaps the weekend and appraises the Wild Card race.

At the beginning of this current 10-game homestand earlier this week, India also switched up his walk-up song — to “Yukon” off the new Justin Bieber album, at the request of his wife — and stole a pair of pants from Royals starter Cole Ragans, whose locker is two down from India’s in the Royals’ home clubhouse.

India had been wearing tighter pants at the knees for what felt like forever, he said, and was looking for a change. Baggier pants are more comfortable in this heat, too.