Royal Scrolls: Offensive Ineptitude Impedes Continued Pitching Production
KC's lineup is slumping (again) while the rotation keeps rolling
Royal Scrolls is a recap of the week so far and a preview of the weekend ahead, along with news, nuggets and notes.
Ah, baseball. What a beautiful, dumb sport.
Just as quickly as it felt the Royals (25-20) picked up momentum and won 16 of 18, they’ve now dropped two straight series and lost four of their last five games heading into a weekend set with the “rival1” Cardinals.
Only one week ago, this is what I had to say about Kansas City’s offense, which appeared to be turning a corner and finding its stride as a middle-of-the-road unit that could support a downright dominant pitching staff.
Oh how things can change in this beautiful, dumb sport — in a heartbeat. Since the series opener last Friday against Boston, the Royals lineup is right back where it was to open the season. Across the last six contests, they’re slashing .220/.271/.306 for a 57(!!!) wRC+, worst in MLB. For reference, not a single qualified hitter in MLB owned a wRC+ that low in 2024. In fact, as you may know, Maikel Garcia was last in the league at 69.
The slugging percentage is better than only the Seattle Mariners. Their .086 isolated slug is last in the game.
There are plenty of underlying issues. Damage on impact is sinking with average exit velocities, hard-hit rates and barrel rates all in the bottom third of baseball. KC’s 33.9% O-Swing during this six-game stretch is the highest in MLB. It appears opposing pitchers are discovering the Royals are happy to get themselves out as they’re seeing the ninth-lowest percentage of pitches in the strike zone at 50.6% over the last week of action.
Simply put, the offense needs a spark, similar to the one it got from Drew Waters a few weeks ago when MJ Melendez packed his bags for Omaha. Right as Michael Massey is getting going at the plate (.267/.353/.467 the last six games… though with a 15.4% hard-hit rate), the peak of the lineup is trending the wrong direction. Since the start of the Boston series, Bobby Witt Jr. is striking out nearly 30% of the time2. Vinnie Pasquantino’s uptick in production came to a swift end with a .240/.269/.240 slash and a 40 wRC+.
Worst of all, it appears the hip issue that knocked Salvador Perez out from behind the plate for a few days is lingering. The captain was one of the unluckiest hitters in baseball over the first month of the season, but all his hard contact has vanished. Since the calendar flipped to May, his average exit velocity on the year dipped from 90.9 MPH to 89.4; the hard-hit rate plummeted from 48.4% to 35.3%; his chase rate leaped from an already worrisome 39.4% to an absolutely untenable 50.5%.
In the meantime, the pitching continues (mostly) cruising with wasted efforts from Kris Bubic and Michael Lorenzen to round out the Astros series on Tuesday and Wednesday. While Kansas City’s bats cratered over the last week, its pitching staff posted a 3.76 ERA (12th-best in MLB), 3.54 FIP (10th), 1.1 collective fWAR (third) and 18.8% K-BB (sixth).
Around the quarter mark of the season, we can pretty confidently say this is the team’s identity: Elite rotation, lockdown back of the bullpen and a streaky (to put it nicely) lineup that will need some help at the deadline.
After all, as bleak as it’s been on the hitting side, Kansas City still holds the fourth-best record in the American League — yet third in the AL Central — and is still squarely a buyer with some intriguing minor league pieces that could grease the wheels for a bat or two in the coming months.
Baseball. Dumb, but beautifully dumb.
Crowning Achievements
Lorenzen Tightens His Grip On the 5th Spot
Maybe I’m the one jumping the gun, but it’s always felt the endgame for Kansas City’s pitching staff as a whole included Michael Lorenzen in a swingman role, alternating between relief work and spot starts as we ventured deeper into the season to open up opportunities for Noah Cameron, Alec Marsh and others3.
That’s not to say I don’t believe in Lorenzen or anything — he’s clearly performing as one of the best fifth starters in the sport and owns a sneaky fastball/sinker/cutter trio that plays well off each other. With a velo bump in shorter stints, it’s the type of arsenal (along with the changeup and curveball) that could get both sides of the plate out in long or middle relief.
But Lorenzen is not interested in your “swingman” games.
The right-hander worked a pair of (almost) quality starts over the last week of action, firing seven lights-out innings against Boston with seven punchouts before working into the eighth inning in Houston on Wednesday night. He held the Astros at bay with one run through seven innings before getting into trouble and eventually allowing four runs, which prompted an interesting note from Alex Duvall on X.
And yet, with a 3.76 ERA across nine starts and 52.2 innings coming off the heels of a 1.57 ERA in 28.2 innings in his time as a Royal in 2024, Lorenzen is going nowhere — for now. That 2025 line is loaded with a 4.53 FIP, which is something to monitor, but Kansas City has no reason to fix what isn’t broken with this rotation at the moment.
Bubic Basks In the Breeze
If you think you’re going one single week without reading about Kris Bubic in this corner of the internet, you are sadly mistaken. The left-hander enjoyed one of the best nights of his career Tuesday against Houston, inducing a career-best 22 whiffs with 13 coming on the high-ride heater, eight on his changeup (a valuable weapon against a right-handed heavy lineup) and one on the slider.
All those swings and misses (a 42% whiff rate, second-highest in games he’s started) provided a nice breeze for Bubic on the bump, who cruised to 6.1 innings of one-run ball with a career-high nine strikeouts, six hits allowed and one walk.
Of course, it unfortunately wasn’t enough as the Royals offense sputtered and John Schreiber (whose velocity uptick certainly warrants some attention) allowed a walkoff dinger to Isaac Paredes in the bottom of the ninth.
With an attacking mindset and willingness to mix pitches based on opponent, Bubic now owns a 1.66 ERA (fifth in MLB among qualified starters) to pair with a 1.10 WHIP, 3.16 FIP, 18.7% K-BB and .223 average against.
Izzy Deserves His Due
Believe me, I was tempted to not even look at individual hitters for this week’s Crowning Achievements, but Kyle Isbel put together a big stretch with a .455/.500/.727 slash and 241 wRC+ at the bottom of the lineup. Even hitting ninth, it’s a bit of an indictment on the offense (as if you needed another reason) that all this production led to one run scored and zero RBI. Still, the defensive-minded center fielder racked up 0.3 fWAR in just five games for 60% of his accrued fWAR on the season.
Weekend Preview
On the downswing of their recent hot stretch, the Royals welcome a St. Louis club that’s in the midst of its own upturn. The Cardinals are winners of nine of their last 10 games, riding a mildly surprisingly potent lineup that’s seventh in MLB in runs scored.
A team 110 wRC+ pits them ninth across the league with a .262/.338/.406 slash, in spite of a middle-of-the-pack average exit velocity and hard-hit rate combined with a 28th-ranked 7% barrel rate.
It’s versatile lefty-swinger Brendan Donovan leading the way behind his high-contact approach that’s netted a .313/.376/.448 slash and a tiny 11% strikeout rate. He’s followed closely by Lars Nootbaar, who owns the third-lowest swing rate (37.4%) in the Major Leagues but, when he does lift the bat from his shoulders, punishes the baseball with an 80th-percentile exit velocity and 88th-percentile hard-hit rate.
Pitching Probables
6:40 p.m. Friday: Cole Ragans (4.20 ERA) vs. RHP Andre Pallante (4.36 ERA)
Pallante carries one of the most confusing statistical profiles I’ve looked at this season. He’s an extreme groundball pitcher (65.2%, 98th percentile) with a sub-average arsenal, low strikeout rate, high walk rate and a tendency to allow loud contact. All of that leads to an ERA you’d roughly expect in the low-mid 4s with a dangerously high 5.02 FIP. However… he cobbled together a 3.17 ERA in his rookie 2022 season and a 3.78 ERA last year despite similar peripherals. I suppose the extreme groundball tendency kind of throws a wrench into the expected statistics, but still — Pallante’s a strange arm.
You’re naturally inclined to think a groundballer would throw a ton of strikes at the knees, but Pallante is 75th among 79 qualified starters this season with a 48.3% zone rate and 56th with an 8.6% walk rate. In fact, his four-seam fastball is the only pitch with a zone rate above 40%.
The right-hander works over the top with a north-south arsenal that includes a wildly hittable fastball, baby slider, running sinker and a curveball that drops off the table. Those fastballs are the ones that get him into trouble with the four-seamer allowing a .272 average and .489 slug; the sinker gives up a .333 average and .481 slug.
At 87 MPH, the slider has been his most effective weapon to date with a solid 31% chase and 33.3% whiff. When hitters can lay off the slider and knuckle-curve, though, Pallante finds himself in big trouble.
6:10 p.m. Saturday: Seth Lugo (3.02 ERA) vs. RHP Miles Mikolas (4.35 ERA)
At first glance, 36-year-old right-hander Miles Mikolas looks like the dollar store version of Lorenzen with a deep arsenal, but it’s really just a classic five-pitch mix with a seldom-used (and underwhelming) sweeper. Similar to Pallante, Mikolas has a miniscule whiff rate and relies on soft contact to get outs with an 89 MPH average exit velocity allowed that rests in the 58th percentile across the league.
He’s walking hitters at the highest rate since before his three-year stint in Japan, and that’s despite owning the third-highest zone rate (59%) among starters with 30 or more innings pitched. That’s partially due to a 22% O-Swing that ranks 125th among the same 128-pitcher subset — hitters simply do not offer at pitches out of the strike zone and, even when they do, are able to make contact at one of the highest rates in baseball against Mikolas.
1:10 p.m. Sunday: Michael Wacha (2.96 ERA) vs. LHP Matthew Liberatore (3.11 ERA)
In the series finale, former top prospect Matthew Liberatore will give the Royals a different look from games one and two, and not just because he’s a left-hander. Liberatore generates solid chase by leading with an 86.4 MPH slider and a 94.5 MPH four-seamer that he works in the upper regions of the strike zone. The slider, in particular, is a good one that earns plus marks in the models, coaxes hitters out of the strike zone at an elite 47.3% clip and is spotted effectively down and gloveside. He bridges those two pitches nicely with a solid 90 MPH cutter that can also get chase and whiff to both right- and left-handed bats.
The big alteration for Liberatore this season (a 3.11 ERA down from 4.40 and 5.25 the last two campaigns doesn’t happen on its own) has been doubling the usage of his changeup against righties. For his career, he’s kept same-handed hitters quiet to the tune of a .219/.277/.297 slash. But right-handers have feasted with a .278/.342/.470 slash and 1.14 HR/9; using the changeup 16% of the time has helped tamp down that issue as it’s allowed just a .105 average and .105 slug when hitters own the platoon advantage. That pitch mix change, coupled with reducing his reliance on a highly flammable sinker, has led to much better results.
Of course, it’s not just one pitch making the difference. Liberatore’s walk rate has decreased each year of his four-year career and now sits at 3.8%, fifth-lowest among qualified starters in 2025. The southpaw’s strikeout rate is also up a tick from last season, too, and he’s carrying a career-best 29.3% CSW. It’s all led to 1.5 fWAR through just eight starts, doubling what he was able to accrue through his first three seasons combined. MLB Pipeline’s 43rd-ranked prospect heading into 2022 is coming around nicely.
Cardinals Notes
Outside of their winnings ways, there haven’t been many newsworthy items for the Cardinals recently. Veteran Matt Carpenter officially announced his retirement on Wednesday following a 14-year career that included three All-Star Game appearances and three seasons that saw him accrue MVP votes.
Royals Data Dugout Updates
It’s a Saturday Study Hall week! Make sure you’re subscribed to receive tomorrow’s lesson plans on plate discipline metrics. This one is going to be short and sweet, focusing on simple definitions of stats I often reference here and on X like O-Swing, Z-Contact and more.
One side of the state thinks this is a rivalry, the other looks westward down their noses. (Both fanbases should take offense to this line.)
Wipe the sweat from your brow. Despite a cold — by his standards — week at the plate, Witt is smashing the baseball with an insane 99.8 MPH average exit velocity, 66.7% hard-hit rate and 26.7% barrel rate.
Rich Hill?!?
It sure is easy to get angsty when the Royals lose, but being reminded they still have one of the better records in the AL was good enough to keep me going last year and I reckon it'll do again this year. Thanks for the reminder!
At this point, I’d like to see Lorenzen hit. Might be an upgrade.