On Jac’s blazing bat bobblehead night, the Royals were jolted with a little bit of power. They hit two home runs and just barely missed a third in a game that was a joy to watch.
It didn’t start like that though. Both offenses looked off in the first few innings. The game moved at a blistering pace; I thought for a little bit that the game might be over before my kids’ 8pm bedtime (yes yes that wouldn’t happen, I know). It seemed like every plate appearance was a first/second pitch popup for both
teams. I blinked and it was the fourth inning already. Good thing I did not blink again, as the Royals bats woke up then. I could use some eyedrops now, maybe. Blinking is important.
In that fourth inning, Bobby Witt Jr opened the scoring with a home run. He got an 86mph cutter at or above the top of the zone. Honestly..might have been called a ball had he not swung. But, he made himself tall and put the ball into the Hall of Fame stands. Beautiful. The Royals weren’t done.
Right after, Vinnie Pasquantino took another upper-zone pitch off the right field fence. He missed a homer by a few feet. The next batter, Salvador Perez, hit a grounder dead up the middle, and the second baseman was in position to make the play. Maybe he blinked – the ball went right through his legs under his glove. Upon replay, we could see that the ball bounced off the base. The spin did not seem to change all that much; the guy’s glove was *right there*. The ball just snuck under the glove. Vinnie scored on the flub to make it 2-2.
Jensen followed with a single and Lane Thomas walked to load the bases with no outs. At that point, I got worried the RISP issues would show up again. Cags and Collins both struck out with no more runs scored. With two outs, Nick Loftin put a grounder perfectly between the third baseman and shortstop for a single. Perez scored easily, and then Carter Jensen rounded third. Steven Kwan made a great throw, and initially Jensen was called out. The Royals challenged, and it was quite clear Jensen was safe. A good slide, keeping his toes down to touch the plate right as he reached it. As in, he did not touch the plate in the middle; he touched right at the corner. That made the score 4-2.
Later on, Jac made his presence known on his blazing bat bobblehead night. He got an up-and-in fastball that he somehow managed to pull, and pull it he did. It was a moonshot past the right field bullpen. Then we got a little bit of manufactured scoring. Bobby reached first on a throwing error from Brayan Rocchio, advanced to second on a wild pitch, stole third, and scored on a Pasquantino single.
I’ve made it nearly 500 words without saying ANYTHING about Michael Wacha. It is time.
Wacha was a machine. He made basically one mistake to David Fry, a meaty cutter that caught too much of the plate. That led to a two-run homer. But then Wacha set down 16 of the next 17 guys. He allowed just one walk in that stretch before David Fry came up again in the 7th inning and hit a single. Angel Martínez followed by roping a double into the right field corner, but Fry was not able to score on it. After a mound visit from Brian Sweeney, Wacha got a lineout to prevent any runs from scoring.
Wacha’s changeup looked like it was working really well. There were several instances against left-handed hitters where he threw it against their shoulder and it ended up crossing the middle of the plate. Guys buckled up against it; he was pounding the edges. The camera view, in my opinion, didn’t quite do justice to the pitch.
As a result, Wacha was wildly efficient. He threw 60 pitches in only 6 innings! He had to throw 19 more to get through that little blip in the 7th inning. Overall, 79 pitches in 7 innings with only two runs allowed on the Fry homer. Four hits allowed. I’ll take that every day of the week and twice on Sundays. Matt Strahm and Alex Lange mowed down the hitters in the 8th and 9th innings.
It was fun to watch. That’s kind of it. That was a really fun game! I love fun baseball games!
Let’s do it again tomorrow!
