Royal Scrolls: Boys In Blue Romp the Rox
KC's lineup comes alive to light up Colorado; Houston heads to the K for 3
Royal Scrolls is a recap of the week so far and a preview of the weekend ahead, along with news, nuggets and notes.
Confirmed: The Royals are allowed to score more than four runs.
Granted, it’s been nearly three full weeks since they’ve done so, but a dose of playing host to the Colorado Rockies is the cure this crumbling offense needed to come to life.
And come to life it did, rallying late on Tuesday to win in extra innings before bombarding the Rockies for 13 runs across Thursday’s doubleheader, resulting in 7-4 and 6-2 wins.
Surely these hitters — namely Salvador Perez, who had a massive day with four doubles — can breathe a little easier with some weight lifted off their shoulders. The back-of-the-baseball-card stats aren’t markedly better after just a few games, so there’s still plenty of progress to be made, but just seeing one go through the net (to borrow a basketball phrase) has to feel good.
The bad news? Cole Ragans gave up four runs in just three innings in game one before departing with a groaning groin. His velocity was down about a tick across the board and his secondary pitches looked like someone throwing darts in the dark.
At 12-14, Kansas City (well, regardless of record) needs its ace to stay healthy. This is now a couple times he’s reported some level of pain following a start this season. It remains to be seen if he’ll miss time, but he’s logged three brilliant starts, two duds and one passable outing on Opening Day. Ragans isn’t due to pitch against Houston, so we’ll wait and see how he looks next week in Tampa Bay, assuming he’s in line to take his turn in the rotation.
After a miserable road trip last week, let’s keep our eyes on the positives of a four-game win streak.
Crowning Achievements
Chasing Waters-falls
Following the demotion of MJ Melendez, KC needed someone to step into an almost-everyday role in the outfield. After all, sending one player to Triple-A for performance reasons does little good if another player can’t improve on the production.
Enter Drew Waters, who’s enjoyed one of the best weeks of his time as a Royal. From April 17 through Tuesday (prior to Wednesday’s rainout), Waters slashed .316/.381/.632 in 21 plate appearances. His three hits in Tuesday’s extra-innings win over Colorado tied a career high.
In Thursday’s doubleheader, Waters added a pair of knocks in game one before going 0-for-4 with two strikeouts in the nightcap.
Now, as game two showed, there are still holes in the game. Waters struck out in a third of his at-bats during this stretch. I don’t believe he’s a long-term answer in an outfield corner. But right now, the Royals just need someone — anyone — to produce, and he was a major player in the three-game sweep.
Maikel is Doing it with Discipline
If you’ve been around, you know I love Maikel Garcia’s game and believe there’s more to the 25 year old than what he showed last season. He continues hitting the ball with authority — he’s up to a 93.8 MPH average EV (92nd percentile in MLB) and 57.8% hard-hit rate (96th percentile). The whiff and chase rates remain some of the best on the team.
And now, he’s putting that discipline on full display by taking walks in bunches. Garcia’s 10.5% BB is the best of his career. The strikeout rate (which has never been an issue anyway) stands at a career-best 15.1%.
In the last week of action leading up to Thursday’s doubleheader, he slashed .375/.524(!!!)/.438 behind a 23.8% BB. During the twin bill against the Rockies, Garcia went 2-for-8 with a double and yet another walk. The ascension is underway, I believe.
Freddy Stayed Ready
You don’t have to stand out in the box score to earn a Crowning Achievements spotlight. Along with Kris Bubic’s dominant seven shutout innings and Waters’ three-hit night, Freddy Fermin helped lead the Royals to a series-opening win Tuesday against the Rockies.
With the game hanging in the balance after Carlos Estevez blew a save, Fermin made the defensive play of the season so far to keep the Rockies scoreless in the 10th.
Then he walked to the dish in the bottom half of the 11th with the bases loaded and no one out. He rifled an 0-2 slider from Tyler Kinley into center field.
Ball game. KC’s first walk-off win of 2025.
Weekend Preview
The Astros (13-11) long ago earned “benefit of the doubt” status.
This offseason, Alex Bregman bailed for Boston. They traded Kyle Tucker away for Major League-ready pieces.
Carlos Correa, George Springer, Gerrit Cole and Justin Verlander are relics of the past.
Jose Altuve is long go— oh wait, there he is in left field now. Weird.
And yet, even as the parts are moved around as players age toward and into free agency, there’s Houston — always playing for October.
The beginning to 2025 hasn’t been perfect. After an 8-10 start, however, the Astros took 2-of-3 from San Diego and are coming off a three-game sweep of their own against Toronto. Yes, the mojo still exists.
These perennial AL West contenders also come into Kansas City with a bit of a “rest advantage,” if that’s what we want to call it. After brooming the Blue Jays out the door to finish their six-game homestand, the Astros enjoyed an off day Thursday. Meanwhile, Kansas City managed its twin bill against Colorado.
Pitching Probables
Friday: Seth Lugo vs. RHP Hayden Wesneski
Part of the return that sent star outfielder Kyle Tucker to the Cubs, Wesneski’s made a smooth transition from Chicago to Houston. The surface numbers are largely the same but he’s upped the strikeout rate, trimmed the walk rate and is in the zone 56.6% of the time (11th among 81 qualified MLB starters), compared to 50.2% a year ago.
While he’s always showed quality command, it looks like the Astros asked the right-hander to trust his arsenal in the zone more often. The four-seamer, cutter, sinker and sweeper are all landing for strikes at a higher rate than in 2024.
At 84 MPH with 17.5 inches of gloveside break, the sweeper is a nightmare for opposing hitters. It carries an elite 123 tjStuff+ grade, fifth-best in baseball. That vicious breaking ball is his bell cow against right-handers along with his 94 MPH four-seamer and 93 MPH sinker. Wesneski is a bit more varied against lefties, mixing his four-seamer, cutter, changeup, sweeper and a brand new breaker.
As the Astros pitching development staff likes to do, they shoved a curveball grip into Wesneski’s hand when he arrived. Wesneski’s version is… fine — it grades OK in the stuff models and he mostly uses it on the first pitch of at-bats to steal called strikes. In fact, it’s his second-most used offering in 0-0 counts at 16.7%, well behind the 48% usage of his four-seamer.
Speaking of curveballs: Houston is fourth in overall curveball usage (9.5%) and third (15.1%) among starting pitchers. Kansas City is fifth in MLB in batting average (.326) and eighth in slugging percentage (.500) against them this season.
Saturday: Michael Wacha vs. LHP Framber Valdez
And here’s a big reason Houston ranks highly in curveball usage — while Framber Valdez is off to one of the worst starts of his career, his two-plane breaker remains one of the nastiest in baseball. The southpaw is a spin savant, whipping the curveball at the back foot of righties and pairing it with a hard running sinker to generate elite groundball rates.
Valdez is essentially a three-pitch southpaw, mixing in a changeup 15% of the time while occasionally showing lefties a soft two-plane slider that’s essentially a baby version of the curveball.
I don’t anticipate Valdez being stuck in a rut for long. A 3.49 FIP points toward the 4.50 ERA being a bit of a fluke, and most of the underlying metrics are in line with his priors. If anything, he might actually be in the zone too often (Z-rate up 5% from 2024), leading to higher contact rates. In particular, the curveball (.250 BA, .389 SLG) and changeup (.417 BA, .833 SLG) are catching more of the plate than in the past and it shows in the box score.
Sunday: Kris Bubic vs. RHP Hunter Brown
While Valdez aims to work his way back from a subpar start (by his standards), it’s been the opposite sort of April for ascending right-hander Hunter Brown.
We’ve got a tasty matchup in the series finale between two of the top 10 starting pitchers in ERA this season. Bubic enters eighth at 1.45 and Brown enters fourth at 1.16. The 26-year-old possesses a powerful heater with great velo and good ride to pair with a turbo sinker that gives him a duo of foundational pitches.
A former top 100 prospect, it took Brown some time to get his legs underneath him in the Show. After posting a 5.09 ERA across 155.2 innings in his first full season in 2023, he was ambushed for 25 runs in just 19 innings in April of 2024. With a 4.39 ERA at the All-Star Break last season, Brown took off in the second half, tossing 71.2 innings with a 2.26 ERA from that point forward to begin making good on his prospect pedigree.
He’s got the aforementioned sinker to thank, in part, for his quick rise. It first appeared in a May 5 start last season against Seattle and its usage ticked up as the year went along, giving him another weapon against the right-handed hitters that gave him fits (105 OPS+ compared to 73 OPS+ for lefties) in 2024.
As you can see, ramping up the sinker usage coincided with massive success on the mound. By the middle of June, it was his most-used pitch in every start but one the rest of the way (even more than the four-seamer). Though Brown’s backed off the sinker some in 2025, it’s still a weapon he’ll wield to keep the Royals at bay in the series finale.
Astros Notes
One of the talking points around Jac Caglianone this spring has been the examples put forth by other organizations quickly pushing their prospects to the Big Leagues. Houston is one of them: Coming off the heels of a massive Spring Training, the Astros made Cam Smith (the 14th overall pick last season and part of the return for the Kyle Tucker trade) their everyday right fielder. It wasn’t a pretty start for Smith, but over the last week of action, he’s slashing .294/.368/.647 to bring his season line to .226/.304/.403.
It’s also worth noting Smith isn’t a natural right fielder. He’s a third baseman by trade but has shown well on the grass with two Outs Above Average (Statcast) and may start to see time in center field, too. (Caglianone made his first appearance in the outfield for Northwest Arkansas Thursday night, by the way.)
Entering Thursday’s games, Houston hitters rank 29th in average exit velocity (88.1 MPH) and 23rd in hard-hit rate (38.1%).
The Astros pitching staff’s 3.26 ERA, fourth in MLB, is no fluke: it ranks second with a 3.30 FIP, fourth with a 25.8% K and second with a 17.6% K-BB.
While the starters are perfectly capable, it’s the bullpen that dazzles. Houston’s relievers own a 2.62 ERA (third), 2.96 FIP (second), 28.5% K (second), 19.7% K-BB (second) and 80% left-on-base rate (third) behind superstar closer Josh Hader.
Data Mining
Unearthing always fun, sometimes meaningful Royals stats.
Salvador Perez is the unluckiest hitter in baseball right now. Entering Thursday, he had the largest negative differential between his slug (.293) and xSLG (.559) and the second-largest negative differential between his average (.185) and xBA (.283). Yes, he’s a 34-year-old catcher. Yes, he’s going to slow down someday. But Perez isn’t done yet: His 15.9% barrel rate is second-highest of his career; a 90.3 MPH average EV matches his career average; the hard-hit rate is the best it’s been since 2022; the chase rate is actually down a few ticks. He’s going to hit.
Peek behind the curtain: I wrote the above on Thursday morning before Perez dished up a four-pack of doubles. You’re welcome.
Pitching in the strike zone is good (usually). Getting whiffs is good (always). Doing both is the best you can ask for. Two Royals rank in the top 12 among starting pitchers who’ve thrown at least 100 pitches this season in Z-Whiff%, a measurement of whiff rate on pitches thrown in the zone. Cole Ragans sits 10th at 24.2% while Kris Bubic is just behind him at 23.6% in 12th.
Somewhat surprisingly, Michael Wacha is 27th (among 154 qualifiers) at 21.1% — I only say it’s surprising because the veteran’s total whiff rate is 22.8%. You’re telling me he’s getting almost as many whiffs in the zone as he is out of it? His chase miss rate is 27.8%.
Of course, this only makes sense with three in the top 27, but the Royals rotation as a team is second in MLB with a 19.7% Z-Whiff and 10th overall as a pitching staff at 18.5%.
Let’s stick with the arms for another moment. KC’s starters are up to eighth in MLB in FanGraphs Stuff+ at an even 100. Of course, Ragans is doing the heavy lifting there at 110 followed by Wacha (99), Bubic (98), Seth Lugo (97) and Michael Lorenzen (93).
Royals Data Dugout Updates
While the on-field results have been a little frustrating at times, this first month of the season has been a blast in getting the site up and running. I feel like I’m getting into a groove with the newsletters and hope you’re enjoying following the Royals with me.
As I earn more subscribers and followers, I hope to write more mailbag/Q&A style posts to ensure I’m answering the questions you actually want answered instead of filling the voids of the internet with my own ramblings. Maybe every other Saturday to alternate with the Saturday Study Hall series? Thinking out loud here and would love your feedback — after all, while the X followers (almost 800!) are great, the Substack subscribers (you!) are the ones truly powering the growth and making this venture as sustainable as possible.
So, be on the lookout tomorrow morning for my first reader mailbag. We’ve got a few great questions to get to!
Maybe this is a dumb question, but what does the Z in Z-Whiff stand for?😂