Yesterday, facing Bailey Ober, the Royals put out this starting lineup:
Frankly, it’s amazing the Royals got even one run with that group. Any time Kyle Isbel has to bat higher than ninth, something has gone badly wrong.
The next most obvious problem is that Maikel Garcia was the starting shortstop and batting second instead of superstar Bobby Witt Jr. Bobby couldn’t play because of a back injury, so that’s understandable even if it’s disappointing. But as you go down the lineup,
you’ll note that Randal Grichuk started in left and batted fifth, Nick Loftin started at third and batted seventh, and Luke Maile started at catcher and batted ninth. That left Carter Jensen, Jac Caglianone, and Adam Frazier on the bench.
Now, you could argue that none of the second set are guaranteed to be any better than the guys who were out there, but there’s absolutely way more upside in Caglianone and Jensen than in any of Sunday’s starters, and Adam Frazier has done nothing but hit since the Royals acquired him from the Pirates before the trade deadline.
In a vacuum, any of these three choices might have made sense. Grichuk hadn’t played in a while, and he’s not been completely helpless against righties,* so it makes sense to get him in a game so he’s not completely rusty before facing lefties this week in Cleveland and Philadelphia. Loftin had a three-hit game Saturday night, so maybe he seemed due to keep hitting. Luke Maile has more experience catching this staff than Carter Jensen does, so he could seem the safer choice.
*If you’d only seen him play today, it would be understandable if you doubted that assertion.
And so, those might have been reasons to include one of those guys in the lineup. But all three? When the only lineup this year to feature all three of the benched lefty batters scored 11 runs in a game started by Joe “The Boogeyman” Ryan?
To reach those conclusions, you’d also have to ignore that, before Saturday, Loftin had been one for his last eighteen. You’d have to ignore that Grichuk had a 71 wRC+ for the Royals entering play Sunday – only slightly better than the oft-overlooked and recently-demoted John Rave. And you would have to ignore that Carter Jensen has caught Michael Lorenzen this season during one of his rehab appearances for Omaha, and would have had Salvador Perez and Maile in his ear coaching him in between every inning.
Additionally, Bailey Ober has some pretty gnarly splits. And the three hitters that did get into the starting lineup are all right-handed, while all the guys on the bench were left-handed. Even if Ober’s splits weren’t meaningful, it left the Royals in a tactical disadvantage with only Tyler Tolbert as a right-handed hitter on the bench. When the Twins brought in Kody Funderburk to face Isbel, Maile, and Mike Yastrzemski in the eighth inning, the Royals had to let Isbel and Yaz bat against the lefty. A big part of the reason those two have been hitting so much better lately is that their plate appearances against lefties have been limited as much as humanly possible. Arranging the lineup the way he did severely limited Q’s options in the late innings and made things easier for the opponent. Always a bad thing.
Then there was the coup de grâce.
In the ninth inning, facing right-handed reliever Justin Topa, Matt Quatraro decided Grichuk wasn’t his best option and sent Adam Frazier in as a pinch hitter. Two batters later, Nick Loftin was no longer the best option; Jac Caglianone was. Another two batters later, Luke Maile wasn’t the best option to keep things going; Carter Jensen was. If this was all true in the ninth inning, why wasn’t it true earlier in the game? And it sure looked true. Loftin, Maile, and Grichuk went a combined two-for-nine with a double and two strikeouts. Frazier, Caglianone, and Jensen went oh-for-one with a pair of walks in much more difficult circumstances. Caglianone and Jensen took two of the better plate appearances of the day despite their lack of experience as pinch-hitters, since, until now, they’ve always been the best choice to start in whatever league they were playing in.
The Royals have three weeks of baseball left to play. Thanks to what has been an epic collapse by the Seattle Mariners to rival what the Twins did last year, the Royals’ playoff odds miraculously went up during the 4-5 homestand. But Seattle could start winning again any time. Or the Rangers or Guardians could find yet another gear. The Royals don’t have time to fart around anymore. It is all-hands-on-deck, play-every-card-you’ve-got time.
Yes, don’t worry, I know I’m the person who, a mere two weeks ago, declared Matt Quatraro a tactical genius. So either he’s playing seven-dimensional chess or that’s egg on my face. Still, if he’s even half as smart as I think he is, he won’t make the mistake of putting out such a lackluster lineup again this season when he has better options. Ned Yost famously made the mistake of going to Aaron Crow in a close game against the Red Sox in late 2014 because the sixth was “his” inning. After taking the loss, Yost never made that mistake again. He leaned heavily on his better players down the final stretch as the Royals stormed all the way into a playoff spot. Matt Quatraro should be able to do the same, hopefully with similar results.
