Lorenzen Loses Command of the Fastball
Royals fall to 8-12 with series-opening loss in Detroit
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With the Royals offense cratering, pressure is mounting on the pitching staff to keep the team in games. On Thursday, Michael Lorenzen cracked a bit under the stress, allowing four runs and seven hits across just 4.2 innings, needing 102 pitches to get there.
He also walked three while striking out the same number, and while the 33-year-old right-hander has given Kansas City everything it could ask from him during his time in Royal blue, it needed a bit more in the series-opening loss to the Tigers.
Yes, the offense stranded 10 runners. The bulk of the blame still lies on what’s been a punchless offense for nearly the entirety of 2025. But Lorenzen seemed a little off with his command so I wanted to take a closer look.
It’s not that Lorenzen was bad on Thursday. He was fine — in fact, if he’s a bit more efficient with the pitch count and gets another couple outs, we’d be perfectly content with this outing.
It’s that pitch efficiency, however, that stands out. Lorenzen usually attacks the zone pretty heavily with a near-55% zone rate on the season. He uses his three-fastball mix (four-seam, sinker, cutter) about 60% of the time combined to go right after hitters, setting them up for changeups, sweepers and curveballs later in the at-bat.
Against the Tigers, the fastball command just wasn’t there. He went to the four-seamer 22.5% of the time but his cutter and sinker usage were both halved. Instead, it was primarily changeups (usage up 9% from baseline) and sweepers (usage up 8%, nearly doubled, from baseline).
It’s not that Detroit is some fastball-walloping team, either. I don’t believe the game plan was to rely so heavily on the soft stuff. The Tigers are seventh in MLB in batting average against all fastball types, sure, but they’re middle of the pack in slugging percentage, 27th in average exit velocity and in the bottom-third of the league in hard-hit rate against heaters.
We can see from the Baseball Savant pitch chart that he’s a little all over the place with the sinker and cutter. Lorenzen typically throws the cutter on the outer half to lefties and uses the sinker up in the zone against righties. In Detroit, he often missed in the heart of the plate or down/gloveside.
By the time the fifth inning rolled around, he’d all but given up on those two offerings, turning almost entirely to four-seamers, changeups and sweepers. It seemed like the Tigers figured that out, too, with Kerry Carpenter lacing a double and Riley Greene pulling an RBI single into right field against the changeup.
Again, Lorenzen has proven more than capable in his time as a Royal. He came over in the trade from Texas, turfed his slider to opt for a sweeper under the guidance of KC’s pitching coaches and turned in quality results in the second half of 2024. He’s off to just as strong a start in 2025, and Thursday was hopefully just a hiccup.