Blair Kerkhoff writes that Tyler Tolbert came up big in the Friday win over the Cardinals.
“You never know when your name is going to be called,” Tolbert said. “You just have to be ready.”
That was the case throughout the game for Tolbert. In the sixth inning, after failing to get down a pair of bunts with a runner on third, he drove in a run with a sacrifice fly to deep center.
“To stay in the moment and be able to concentrate on that pitch, that was big for him,” Royals manager Matt Quatraro said.
“That ball was smoked.”
Anne Rogers has more on how Tolbert stays ready.
“It’s a mental thing,” Tolbert said. “A lot of people are like, ‘Save your energy.’ But for me, it’s a mindset thing. My whole life, I’ve been a starter. It just gets my mind and body ready, like, ‘Hey, we’re playing a game. Let’s get in that mode. We’re not sitting around and hanging out. Turn the switch on.’”
She also provides an update on the knee injury for Bobby Witt Jr.
If playing one game shorthanded means the Royals can give Witt more time to recover and see how he feels, they’ll do it. Avoiding an IL stint means they would avoid the minimum 10 days without their best player. But they also don’t want to risk a long-term injury, so there are a lot of factors at play.
“It’s going to be what the conversations are with him and [team] Doc [Vincent] Key,” manager Matt Quatraro said. “It’s not a surgical thing. I know they can put a brace on it. It’s going to be a lot of get the swelling out of there and understand how he feels, and those conversations are going to have to be honest between all of us.”
Thomas Harrigan at MLB.com writes about the starting pitcher trade market.
Kansas City made the playoffs in 2024 and won 82 games a year ago, but the club has cratered in ’26. The Royals aren’t going to launch a full-scale rebuild when they have Bobby Witt Jr. in his prime, but they badly need to retool.
With starters Cole Ragans (controllable through 2028) and Kris Bubic (pending free agent) both injured, their best chance to do that is dealing veteran hurlers Seth Lugo and Michael Wacha, each of whom is signed through 2027 with a ’28 club option.
Michael Baumann at Fangraphs examines the decline of Salvador Perez.
Perez’s power is gone. It just up and disappeared over the winter. And for a player who already couldn’t run, wasn’t much use defensively, and never walks, that was the last Jenga piece. The power was the only tangible skill Perez had left.
And it’s definitively gone. Last year, Perez’s barrel rate was in the 91st percentile and his hard-hit rate was in the 70th percentile. Those numbers are in the 45th and 44th percentiles now.
From last year to this, Perez has lost 1.4 mph of average bat speed and his fast swing rate has been cut nearly in half, from 30.5% to 16.9%. Another hitter could live with those numbers; Perez’s bat speed figures are in the same neighborhood as Kevin McGonigle’s and Kyle Tucker’s. But if power is your carrying tool, that little power won’t carry you very far. Maybe Perez is dealing with an injury from which he’ll recover, but for a 36-year-old who’s spent nearly 12,000 innings behind the plate, Occam’s Razor points in another direction.
David Lesky recaps the big offensive night on Thursday against the Cardinals.
Kevin O’Brien at Royals Keep writes that the offense has not been a problem this month.
Shohei Ohtani is out of the lineup while away on paternity.
Travel issues led to the Padres/Rangers game to have only two umpires.
Tigers pitcher Tarik Skubal and White Sox pitcher Mike Vasil exchange heated words.
Yankees pitcher Cam Schlittler strikes out 13 in a shutout win over the Reds.
Justin Verlander is out several weeks with a hamstring strain.
How Jacob Misiorowski became one of the best pitchers in baseball.
The Tigers call up the grandson of Jose Cruz, making that family the fifth to have three generations of MLB players.
Byron Buxton isn’t looking for a trade out of Minnesota.
Jazz Chisholm Jr. admits he has never worn a cup, after taking a ball to the groin.
The Giants may be ready for a firesale, but can they move those large contracts?
Oklahoma and North Carolina square off in the Mens’ College World Series finals this weekend.
Could the United States actually win the World Cup?
Will NFL officiating improve with a new “practice squad” of refs?
Be careful with your dog’s paws in hot weather.
A TV series based on the popular RPG novel Dungeon Crawler Carl is greenlit for Peacock.
Pizza Hut is sold to a private equity firm.
Your song of the day is The Replacements with I Will Dare.
