Royals Over .500 with White Sox Sweep!

On this week’s episode, the fellas look back on a very successful week that saw the Royals move above .500 for the first time since early 2022. They also share their thoughts on the drama surrounding the stadium vote, take a closer look at some emerging Royals, and preview this week’s games.

Plus, Mike’s wife embarrasses him by proxy!

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Welcome back to Royals Weekly, I am your host Marcus Mead and joining me as always, the world record holder for the longest consecutive time spent in an airplane bathroom, my brother Mike. You know, 99 .9 % of the things you say about me at the beginning of this show are untrue. Okay? This one might actually be true. It probably isn’t, because you know, there’s some weirdo out there, but there was a flight that Mark happened to also be on that I spent a good majority of that time in the bathroom trying to throw up, trying to make myself sick. And I can’t do that. I have a very hard time throwing up. So. It was the worst flight of my life. I hope it never happens again. Turns out I was very sick and then I ended up making everybody else for the next week sick as well. So. Yes, you’ve all heard that story. That was the infamous Mike ruined our spring training trip story. But I’m going to tell you right now that he was sabotaged by his own wife here. She’s the one who texted me this week and suggested that intro. So that is an intro brought to you by Morgan Meade. So yeah, that’s her. She’s she texted me with that earlier this week. And I’m like, absolutely. I’ll put that in and that’s gold. We’re running with that this week. And so thank you, Morgan, for the suggestion on intros. If you have an intro suggestion, if you’d like to hear us say something about Mike. Go ahead and leave it in an Apple podcast review and we’ll go ahead and try and include those in the show. We’ll just say it. We don’t care if it’s true about Mike. We don’t care. Like that’s what we’re saying. We’re talking. So this one might be though, honestly, uh, on this week’s episode, you better believe we’re talking about the winning week that was from the Royals. Cause if they’re having a winning week, that’s all we’re talking about. We love, we love talking about winning. And so, uh, we’ll touch a lot on that. We’ll, uh, we’ll touch on our thoughts about the stadium stuff. We’ve avoided that conversation up to this point, but the vote has happened. Some time has passed. It’s time for us to give our two cents on. what took place there. We promise if you don’t like that, we’ll move on fairly quickly from it. But then we’ll also talk about some emerging players, some guys who’ve really stepped up this season, guys who we talked about needing to step up in the off season. And then we’ll preview this week’s slate of games as the Royals try and stay above 500. That’s sort of the goal, I think, at this point. But first, remember, subscribe to our sub stack, royalsweekly .substack .com. All paid subscribers are getting an extra episode every Thursday. which is awesome. We’re having a lot of fun on those extra episodes. There’s no ads. We’re getting deep dive into certain things about the Royals. It’s really, really great. And we give more attention to the first series of the week. So that was great. We talked a lot about the Baltimore series and the bullpen problems and stuff like that in the, in this week’s midweek episode. They’re also getting occasional articles from us. They’re getting one post a week from me every Sunday and then occasional articles as we write them. I went deep and I don’t know if you read this week’s Mike weekly rack up wrap up, but I made it. I went in depth. I went to. It was a long one, is what I’m saying. Like I tried to touch on so many different things. And so make sure you’re checking those out. Subscribe. It’s only $5 a month to become a paid subscriber. You get all this extra content and we’re looking very forward to hearing more and more people join us in that journey. Cause it’s a lot of fun. I also want to remind you that Royals Weekly is brought to you by Eric Occher of West USA Realty. Phoenix has all of our favorite things. Year round golf, year round baseball, and Eric Occher of West USA Realty. whether you want to buy your dream retirement home or just stay a while in catch spring training. Eric can help you find the perfect house fast. We’ve known him for 30 years and trust him far more than we even trust each other. I may have had or tried to have Mark deported once, maybe twice. And with the facial hair, he looks like middle or Eastern European homeless person to the T. I mean. even a cool, he tried to send me to Belarus once. It wasn’t even like, it wasn’t anything great, you know, I wasn’t, you want to send me to, you know, Buenos Aires, fine. Eric goes long, Eric does long -term rentals for the snowboard crowd and home sales and purchases for those who want to stay a while longer. Are you a baseball parent or player who needs a place in the Phoenix area fast? Eric will find the perfect spot for you. Want to spend your day shanking golf balls into the graveyard? Eric knows the golf scene like Mike knows the business end of a buffet ice cream machine. Find Eric online at ericoxer .com. If you can figure out how to spell his name, it’s E -R -I -C -K -A -U -X -I -E -R .com. Or just shoot him a text at 480 -383 -9745. That’s 480 -383 -9745. Even if you’re just curious about what he can do for you, he’s 100 % no pressure and one of the best people we know. And he once saved the life of a British monarch who shall remain nameless. It was Harry. Got the good one, I guess. I don’t know anything about these people. anything about them either. We start our review of last week with roster news typically, but once again, there is virtually no roster news for the Royals. Michael Massey did go out on a rehab assignment, which is nice to see. Hopefully he’ll be getting back in a week or two as he gets some at bats. I think he’s at Northwest Arkansas to start, but you know, maybe he ends up going to AAA and doing some there too. I doubt it. Maybe he’ll just stay at Northwest Arkansas, but we’ll see. Hopefully he gets his back going and he’s back in the lineup before too long. Instead of roster news this week, we’re actually gonna spend this portion of the show. discussing last week’s stadium tax vote. Mike, what emerges if you don’t know, sorry, I’m just assuming everybody here knows the news. If you do not know for some reason, the Kansas City Royals and Chiefs banded together to get a ballot initiative going to essentially have Jackson County taxpayers fund a new stadium for the Royals and stadium renovations and changes out to the Truman Sports Complex for the Chiefs. That ballot initiative failed last Tuesday by a vote of 58 to 42. So the taxpayers of Jackson County, of which Mike and I are both taxpayers, they voted no. And so that will not be happening at least right now. Mike, what emerges as the central theme of this whole stadium drama for you? Well, I don’t know if it’s necessarily the central theme, but I think it’s something that has completely gotten lost. Like nobody’s talking about this. And it’s just shocking to me. And that’s this. I think people are forgetting the whole idea that this plan, the plan to move the Royals to downtown may have been a loser to begin with. Like that’s what people aren’t talking about. They’re talking about, you know, oh, the plan was really botched on the rollout, which it was. They’re talking about how, you know, oh, these certain groups banded together to fight against it and all this sort of stuff. Right. But what nobody’s really talking about is the fact that this may not have passed. If you had just said, would you vote for a downtown stadium, even if the Royals funded the whole thing? That may not have passed by itself, people that might not have passed. OK. There’s a huge contingent, especially in Eastern Jackson County. And I’m talking about Blue Springs, Independence, Lee Summit, Raytown. OK. There’s a huge contingent in those areas that do not want the Royals to move from the Truman Sports Complex. So when you think about that and you go, okay, well, that might be 40 % of the vote right there. You might be at a no for 40 % right there, or there’s probably a contingent of people downtown who don’t want the stadium down there. You’re talking about 40 to 50 % of the vote that’s that already. That’s already a no, okay? If you add on top of that, no concrete, community benefits agreement, really shitty rollout, playing Jackson County against Clay County, all of this, the threatening to lead, you know, the fear mongering stuff. How could you think you’re going to get above 50 % is my thing. Like we’ve talked already at length at the way that the Royals and Chiefs, at least on social media, how they kind of botched this thing. Okay. And so I voted yes, but I completely understand anybody who voted no. And I completely understand that this may have been an uphill battle to begin with. So I don’t know why there’s so much like blaming of people. It’s like, I’m going to blame you because you voted no. This may have been a no if they’d have done it perfectly. That’s what people aren’t understanding. Yeah, that is something we really should readdress. I mean, I was under the assumption nobody nobody is talking about that that point right there. My assumption always was that the fear monger I am somebody who knows that fear is an extremely effective motivator. Right. And so the fear mongering that the Royals and Chiefs were doing, I assumed would be effective. Right. Like, I never assumed that, like, everybody wanted downtown baseball the way that I do, which I do. And I voted no, actually. And so but. I’ll get to the reasons why eventually, but like, I never assumed that that was everyone, but I assumed that it was enough people and that enough people were okay with the idea of downtown baseball, that you add those people together with the people who are so afraid of losing the Royals and Chiefs that they were gonna get it because the fear would motivate enough people, right? And the thing that I think is the central theme of this whole campaign and the whole stadium drama, is divisiveness, right? Like you’re right. They pitted one group of people against another. They pitted Jackson County first against Clay County. They pitted people who wanted to vote no for very good and substantive reasons against people who wanted to vote yes for also good and substantive reasons. Like it was a whole campaign from the Royals and Chiefs, I think, that was rolled out intentionally to be extremely divisive. And I’ve mentioned this on social media, but I’ll mention it again here on the show. They hired a campaign manager for this. whose reputation in the political world is that he is extremely divisive. Which is weird, think about that. In the political world, the most divisive world on planet Earth, this guy’s known as one of the worst. And so it’s like, if you bring Matt into the stadium, of course you’re going to get divisiveness, right? They hired a person in Jeff Roe to manage the campaign, the Chiefs and Royals did, who was bound to make it extremely divisive, extremely dirty. That’s the only word I can use to describe it. It was gonna be like, underhanded, it was going to be deceptive, there was going to be a lack of details, a lack of transparency and all that sort of thing. That’s sort of what he’s known for. He is known for working with bomb throwers. He is known for working with people who want to be extremely divisive. And that’s what he gives them is divisive candidacies. That is what he gave the Royals and Chiefs, a divisive campaign. And I think you’ve seen some things come out from John Sherman and the Chiefs and things like that, who are sort of like, maybe we listen to the wrong people. Maybe we did the wrong thing, the wrong approach, which is absolutely the case. The wrong, the wrong. but the mayor came out and pretty much just said that. This process was bad. Who supported it wholeheartedly? the Vote Yes campaign came out and said, we did not handle this correctly, right? And that’s true. It wasn’t handled correctly from the very first moment, not just in terms of process. The process was bad, trying to rush it, not enough details, poor planning, changing plans all the time, that sort of thing. That was bad to begin with. But also, the rhetoric surrounding it was bad from the jump because the chiefs… And the Royals poisoned the well immediately by threatening to leave, by playing people against each other, by doing all these different things rhetorically by trying to smear Frank White, which was just, I mean, I understand a lot of people don’t like Frank White and some of that is for very good reasons. But the fact that they were trying to pull a political hit job on a Jackson County, you know, executive or whatever, you know, legislator, I don’t understand that. This is not, it was not collaborative from the jump and that was always gonna hurt them. I feel like they didn’t understand that. I feel like they thought they were just gonna strong arm their way to a yes vote. And Jackson County taxpayers were like, you’re not gonna strong arm us. We’re not gonna be strong armed by 106 lost team. Like that’s not gonna happen. Anyway, Mike, there’s a lot of blame being hoisted on the Royals in Chiefs right now. I think justifiably so. But do you think that that’s fair to sort of blame them for what took place? I very much do. Yeah, I don’t understand who else there is to blame. Right. I’ve been on social media and I’ve there’s a specific guy. I’m not going to say his name because I don’t want to promote him on here. But he is very fervently blaming the no side. People who voted no. And the crazy thing to me was he’s doing it by saying they didn’t understand the consequences. Are you insane? Everybody knows these very simple to understand consequences. Everybody knows. I know. are the consequences we will leave we will leave everybody knows the consequences knows that. Everybody gets it right. And yeah, the fact that he thinks that people don’t is more maybe of a reflection on him. I don’t know. But yeah, of course it’s their fault. I mean, part of it that we also don’t talk enough about is the imbalance of power here. OK, yes, they’ll have other opportunities. They of course will. OK, but when they’re going to miss out, the thing that kind of. you have to factor in here is this, it costs money to move those teams, no matter where they go. It costs a big chunk of money, okay? And they’ll always talk about, oh, we’ve been loyal to Jackson County, we’ve done this, we’ve done that. They don’t ever mention how loyal Jackson County has been to them, right? When the Chiefs didn’t win a playoff game for like 25 years and still sold out games constantly, that’s loyalty is what that is. And they actually voted for this tax increase at that time, when they weren’t that good, they hadn’t won. three Super Bowls in five years or whatever it is. But that’s the crazy thing to me is like you don’t see the back and forth there because the process was so botched. There was no room for collaboration. You know, the chiefs and royals kind of push that out of the way. And like you said, they thought they could strong arm their way to a yes vote. And Kansas City voters were like Jackson County voters were like, no, we’re not OK with this process. And if you do move, we know enough to say it’s gonna be on you. It will be the choice that you made to move, not the vote choice that people made that said your process is garbage and your plan is garbage. And the plan was shit too. Do you see the renovation to Arrowhead? It was garbage. I have not seen one person say that was a good thing. everyone I see who said that was like, this is the word, like nobody, even the hype men and the bootlickers for the arrowhead and one way away, even the bootlickers were like, this isn’t great. Like, and so, you know, it’s not good when they’re like, no, thank you. But yeah, you’re absolutely right. The Jackson County taxpayers, okay to renovation, okay the sales tax initially when both teams were garbage. This was like 2006 when neither of those teams was any good, right? And so, Jackson County has showed that level of loyalty. When you mentioned the imbalance of power, I thought you were going to bring up the fact that the Vote Yes campaign led by the Chiefs and Royals had all the power in this discourse. They spent all this money. They had all this media behind them. They had 610 doing their bidding, as they always do. They have so much media within Kansas City doing their bidding, and they still couldn’t get a yes vote because of the way that they tried to get it. Right? Like if it was gonna be collaborative, if it was gonna actually have detail, if the plan was actually, honestly, the plan didn’t need to be good. It needed to be halfway decent and people would have been fine with it. They didn’t like care, right? Like, but like, if they had just done those basic things, gone about it in a way that was genuine and honest, I think they would have understood. I think they’re thinking now like, man, if we had taken that route, we’d be celebrating a win right now. Instead they’re lamenting a loss and people are getting all. but heard about it like, oh no, it’s the no votes problem. It’s the people who voted no, oh no, the Nashville Royals and Chiefs, oh, it’s like insane histrionics on that front. And I wanna talk a little bit about that as well. Cause I’m seeing nothing but sour grapes from people who voted yes. And they’re like, oh great, good luck not having the Royals and Chiefs anymore. They’re going to Nashville. They’re going to wherever else they might go. Krypton, you know, like there’s a whole bunch of theories out there about where they may go. Mike, do you think that the Royals and Chiefs legitimately will move from the Kansas City Metro? And if so, are the vote no folks to blame, as is the narrative? Well, let’s start with this. The vote no people, at least at this point, the way the vote happened this time, no, they deserve no blame for anything. These will be choices that the chiefs and royals made, not the vote that these people made. Let’s be clear there, okay? This will be a conscious choice. And the same thing with the not putting it on the ballot again that they’re threatening. This is a one -time thing. We’re not doing this again. That’s just a choice you made. You just made that choice. You could easily put this on the ballot again. You could. here in Kansas City. put this back on the ballot. No problem. You’re choosing not to do that if that’s your choice. And that, and it’s your business. It is your choice. You can make that choice if you want to, okay? But don’t then cry some bullshit about loyalty. I don’t want to hear anything about loyalty if you’re doing one garbage vote, unplanned crappy preparation, and then saying, okay, we’re leaving because of that. That’s not loyalty. You cannot tell me that it is. I will not buy that. Okay, now do I think that’s actually gonna happen? Do I think they’ll leave the greater Kansas City area? I don’t. Here’s what needs to happen. Oh wait, no, we’re gonna cover that. Okay, I’ll get to my perfect plan for this here in just a second, but no, it’s not the fault of the people who voted no, and I don’t think that they’re leaving the greater Kansas City area, but of course the percent chance did increase with the no vote. Yeah, it went from maybe like, you know, 0 % to point or to 2 % now that they leave the KC Metro or something. It’s still very, very low, the odds that they leave the KC Metro. And, you know, they could go to Clay County, the Royals, I mean, I don’t think the Chiefs are going to go to Clay County. Any of these teams could go to, you could go to Johnson County or something like that. But I don’t think that the people who run the Chiefs and Royals understand that people in the KC Metro don’t care that much. about if they go to Clay County or if they go to Johnson County. It like doesn’t impact them in any way, right? Like the experience for me driving to Truman Sports Complex would be the exact same as if I had to drive out to Johnson County. They’re literally the same distance for me. And so it really makes no difference to me. I live in the city as people like Mike who live out in Greenwood or Lee Summit would say. And so for me, there’s no difference. Like, you know, and as a Jackson County taxpayer, I know that it’s not gonna be an economic boon for Johnson County if these new stadiums get built or whatever. So what does it matter? Like, it makes no difference to me, ultimately. Well, and here’s the thing. Here’s an I think this is another reason why you probably won’t see at least the chiefs move from the Truman Sports Complex is a lot of their season ticket holders are in Lee Summit, Blue Springs, Independence, Raytown, those kind of places. They’re not in. I mean, yes, they have. Don’t get me wrong. They have season ticket holders in Johnson County and in Kansas. But when you talk about the size difference between the suburbs on the Kansas side and the suburbs on the Missouri side and the eastern Jackson County, it’s a huge difference, people. It’s huge. OK. And so you’re going to be. are big and so is independence. And you’re going to be losing a lot of those people that are going to those games. And that’s okay. And I’m not saying that it can’t work because of course it will. Maybe you’ll get more from Olathe and you’ll get some people who want to drive in from Gardner and you’ll get, you know, all those people in Overland Park and Leewood and great. You’ll get all those people and you’ll get, I’m sure you’ll be fine if the chiefs choose to do that because they’re insanely popular. But that loyalty that you had, let me put it this way. If you do that, Patrick Mahomes retires and you become not so good. Don’t expect to sell out those games constantly like you did when you were terrible under friggin Romeo Cranel. And who was that douche? The offensive coordinator guy. Thank you, Todd Haley. Those years, those cities stuck with you through those years. They aren’t going to stick with you again when you move to Johnson County. Okay. Yeah. So you have a perfect plan, Mike. Let’s hear what that perfect plan is. What should the Royals and Chiefs do moving forward? Here’s what the Royals and Chiefs need to do. Number one, it’s time to break up. You guys should not be doing deals together. You’re two vastly different businesses, okay? I think when that happens, the Chiefs should basically, one, come up with a new plan, because nobody liked your plan. Let’s start there. Nobody liked it. It was stupid. Nobody needs more VIP access and parking lots. Nobody needs that. What we need is, you know, we want the party zone and we want… Bars and restaurants. Yeah. We want a retractable roof. We want that sort of shit. We don’t want fucking more parking spots and VIP lanes. Okay. Cause that doesn’t apply to any of us. All right. Exactly. Yeah. So do that. And then, you know, what’s crazy. If you do that, if you come up with just a slightly better plan, you could put this exact same thing on the ballot by yourself and it pass. You can get all that money. You can put a three, eight cents sales tax. And just as the chiefs and get every damn dollar of that from the Jackson County taxpayers, if you come up with a little bit better plan and do it by yourself, then what do the royals need to do? You need to get out of the crossroads. It’s got to go to the East Village. Has to. OK, a blueprint, a footprint that is not going to be taking away businesses that people love. That’s not going to be affecting at least rental prices as much in the immediate area. OK. and then try and then come up with a good plan, a really good plan that’s collaborative with groups like Casey Tenants, that’s collaborative with the Chamber of Commerce, that’s collaborative with the the City Council and the Jackson County executives, a solid community benefits agreement. Yes, it might mean you don’t make quite as much money, but you’re going to get what you want in the end. And in the long run, you actually are going to make that money back. OK, so be smart about it and do it that way. Royals, if that’s not something you can handle. and your ego gets in the way or whatever and you got to go to Clay County or Kansas or wherever. Fine. But if you want to do a collaborative, slow process, Jackson County will vote for a downtown baseball stadium. you this, if Johnson County is not going to be loyal like Jackson County was in the lean years for the Chiefs, they’re definitely not going to be as loyal in the lean years for the Royals, right? Like, that’s just not a thing. That’s not a thing that’s going to happen, right? Like, and so, you know, with the imbalance that exists right now among population sizes on either side of the state line or even North KC, you think a bunch of people who live south of the river are going to Royals games as much if they, you know, if it’s in North Town? I don’t think so. And so like, you know, I think that’s a that’s a really bad idea. going from Lee’s Summit up to North Town. I know that. Lee’s Summit. No way, no way. That’s not gonna happen, right? But in my mind, I like your plan, Mike, your plan is good. I’m gonna talk about mostly the marketing of it, right? And in my mind, the marketing, the campaign you should run, the simple solution is the best solution. Just put together an honest collaborative process. Don’t hire Jeff Rowe to do this again. Don’t hire any political operative to come in and run you a really divisive political campaign. Just be honest. Be honest, be collaborative, be transparent and have a good plan and this whole thing will work. And hey, you know where to find me. I’ll come be a consultant on your plan. Just come hire Mark. Mark will be a consultant and he will give you a 100 % better outcome than Jeff Rowe got you, I promise. Let’s talk about what happened on the field. That’s enough of a stadium talk. Last week, the Royals went five and two to bring their overall record to six and four. They’re above 500, y ‘all. That’s right. They are on a four game winning streak right now. Is it a four game? It’s a four game, yes. Because after a four game sweep of the Chicago White Sox, the only team that reminds me of that White Sox team is the mess of a Royals team from last year. It is gross, how bad, the Chicago White Sox. It’s offensive. to my sensibilities as a baseball watcher, honestly. Mike, that’s all that’s working for them right now. Yeah, it’s bad. Mike, how did you feel about last week’s action? I was very encouraged by what I saw overall, even before the White Sox series where we expected them to do very well, because the White Sox are garbage. They played their asses off in that Orioles series and the bullpen cost them. That was it though. They should have won at least two out of three in that series. They only end up only coming home with one, but they played one of the best teams in the American league very well. Okay. And I’m completely okay with that. They looked very good against the Orioles. And then they come in and do the work that they’re supposed to do. For how many years have we been saying, Royals, you have to beat up on the teams you’re supposed to beat up and they never do. They always, oh, well, here comes in the awful A’s and we’re gonna drop two or three. Wonderful, like that can’t happen. And so they came in, they beat up on a team they were supposed to beat up on and they look good doing it with still pretty really good starting pitching. Marsh wasn’t as sharp today, but it wasn’t bad, bad. And yeah, I was very encouraged. Yeah, we talked about what they sort of needed to do in these opening series to be on track to sort of survive this early tough schedule that they have. And the idea was they got to get at least one game in the Minnesota series. They got to get at least one game in the Baltimore series. And then they need to take three of four from the White Sox. And they got one game from Minnesota. They got one game from Baltimore when they probably should have gotten two. and then they went ahead and swept the White Sox. So they’re one game up actually on what we wanted them to be able to do in these first 10 games. It’s great to see. Yes, Mike, you’re right. They have to beat the teams that they’re supposed to beat and the White Sox are a team that they’re supposed to beat. So they’re two games over 500. They’re taking advantage of this excellent starting pitching they’re getting to the most, for the most part. Yeah, maybe they’ve left a winner two on the field, which is, you know, maybe comes back to bite them later. But right now they’re in a lot better shape. than I think some people thought they might be. With that in mind, Mike, who was your strong performer for last week? Oh, I’m going with old MJ Melendez. Get it, Merv. Hero MJ Melendez. Six for 21, two doubles, three home runs, seven RBI, two walks and five strikeouts. He hit the big home run yesterday to put them over the top. He hit the big home run today to put them over the top. And so both of them extremely close. One had to be reviewed and one actually should have been a ground rule double, but they called it a home run. because it hit the wall, then the guy knocked it over with his glove on accident. Did you see that in the, did you see that in the broadcast today? The only part of the broadcast I listened to today, Ryan was explaining why it should have been a ground roll double and that nobody knew it except for Len Casper, the guy who calls the, does the color for the white socks. He, listened to the White Sox broadcast the last two days because, or this whole series, because I janky stream it and that’s just what I get. And so like, he mentioned it briefly. Len Casper mentioned it, it wasn’t Len Casper actually, they got a new guy doing the White Sox broadcast. Like, I forget his name, he’s real young though. Oh yeah, he might’ve been on the radio, I don’t know. But somebody mentioned it like, just like for a second. but it wasn’t like in a real confident, like that’s definitely the rule way. And I saw it, I’m like, wait, shouldn’t that be a ground rule double? But nobody talked about it, right? Like I was like, okay, well, that’s fine, whatever. We’ll take the win. That’s right. MJ, absolutely killing it. We’re going to talk more about him later. Yes. My strong performer for this week is actually reliever. And I chose him because we needed somebody to do something in the bullpen this last week. And he was the only one doing anything in the bullpen. We got great starting pitching, obviously, and there were a lot to choose from there. Plenty of hitters or a few hitters to choose from, but I’m choosing John Shriver out of the bullpen. He’s come in and just been so good for the Royals so far. He went through three and two thirds innings pitch last week. Zero runs given up, three strikeouts and two walks. His power sinker is really good change up. through a nasty change up to, what’s his first name? Benentendi. Andrew, Andrew Benentendi. I kept wanting to call him Anthony Benentendi. Andrew Benentendi today for a strikeout that was insane. Great change up from him. Schreiber is looking like their number two guy out of the bullpen right now, right behind James McArthur. Yeah, he’s doing great. And so I love to see that from him. Great week out of him. He’s getting a lot of ground balls, which is exactly what he’s supposed to be doing as well. Not everybody was on fire this week. Mike. Who is your weak performer? We all love him, but he did not have a group. Yeah, Vinny Pascuantino is really struggling to just to start the year three for twenty two zero extra base hits this week to strikeouts to two walks, which is somewhat encouraging. If Vinny Pascuantino is striking out and walking at about the same clip, you know, he his approach is OK. He’s just not hitting the ball. He’s not barreling the ball up and he’s not hitting it in the air. His average exit velocity so far this year, eighty eight point one, which is a 40th percentile exit velocity. That’s not Vinny Pascuantino. His average launch angle is just 7 .3 degrees. Also not going to be very good. He can’t hit the ball on the ground. He’s too slow. So we need Vinnie Pasquantino to start barreling balls up more. We need him to start getting some lift on the ball, hitting those line drives into the corner that we’re used to so that he can start driving in more runs because those guys in front of him are getting on base. He’s missed a lot of opportunities to drive and run. So I believe in you Vinnie. He’s a notorious, he himself has said I’m a notoriously slow starter to a year. And so hopefully it’s just that. Yeah, I hope it’s just that too. I think once he starts barreling some balls up, I think both of those things go up. I think his launch angle goes up. I think the exit velocity goes up. He’s just, his timing is not quite there and maybe his swing is not quite there. I’m glad they gave him an off day today, going into an off day tomorrow against a tough lefty anyway. That way he gets a couple of days to kind of try and figure it out. And then back to, back to hopefully hitting the baseball on Tuesday, I guess. My week performer this week is the guy a lot of people were talking about, Will Smith. He has not played well out of the bullpen. He has not pitched well He went three innings pitched gave up two earned runs four strikeouts and three walks this week last week blew at least one game maybe two Was a he definitely was about to blow a second one But they pulled him for James McArthur here in this and that was a great move by Quattaro I wouldn’t have gone to Will Smith after Will Smith blew that second Baltimore game I were that second Baltimore loss. I would not have gone for me The book would have been closed on Will Smith as the closer for at least a while And I would have just been like James McArthur’s to close it for now because Will Smith is not doing the job. Matt Cotrero decided we’re going to give Will Smith one more chance, puts him in for a game against the White Sox in the ninth to close the game. We were up one run at that time, I think. He gives up two base runners and then he’s like, nope, James McArthur’s coming in and he pulls Will Smith after, you know, not even finishing the inning, which is something I haven’t seen in April ever, I don’t think. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a reliever be pulled that way in an April baseball game. in a playoff baseball game or near the end of the season. Sure. Never in the first months of the season. So that was wild to see. But you did go out today and get a clean inning. When I say clean, I just mean no runs given up. So stuff didn’t still didn’t look that great. His fastball velocity is way down from last year. I think I put in the weekly wrap up yesterday or for today. It’s down like two point six miles an hour on his force. That’s really bad. That’s a lot of velocity lost. And so he’s going to have to figure something out because. You know, not only is he not throwing with great command, he’s also not got stuff looks like it’s taking a step back. And that really doesn’t help when you’re looking for that guy to be one of your high leverage relievers. With all that taking into account Mike, solid week, successful week, winning sweep, that sort of thing. What’s your theme for this week? My theme for this week comes from the fantastic film starring Keanu Reeves, Speed. Keanu Reeves looks a lot like one of our brothers. Yeah, definitely, for sure. And it had Sandy B in it, who we love. And it’s Shoot the Hostage, when he’s given the scenario of what do you do if somebody takes a hostage and then he ends up shooting his partner. So the guy, the reason you shoot the hostage is because the hostage is like, then the hostage is like dead weight. You can’t carry the hostage around anymore. That was what I thought of when I thought of the immediate change in the bullpen that was made. Like, Hey, Will Smith, you’ve blown it twice now. You’re about to the bullet a third time. We’re yanking you, MacArthur, you’re in there and you may notice MacArthur has closed that game and now another game since then. Will Smith is seemingly out of the closers role already, which is what you signed him to do in the off season. They are not waiting around to continue to lose more games. And that’s really what we were all saying that night, that night that he blew that game in Baltimore. Social media, royal social media was he can’t close games anymore. Quit having him close games now. It needs to be now. It’d be one thing if the stuff was still going, but it’s not. The stuff isn’t. It’s not like, oh, the stuff’s not there. He’s just his commands a little off or whatever. They had a couple of good hits. No, the stuff doesn’t look like it’s where it needs to be. The command isn’t there. His confidence in his own pitches doesn’t look to be there. You can’t have him closing games. You can’t do it. These games count to people. And so it was good to see them shoot the hostage and say, we’re winning this year, people. You know, feelings be damned. Yeah, and Will Smith is a smart and veteran guy. He knows like, hey, I can’t go out and close. He knows a manager has every right to come out and get you and take you out of that role if you’re not producing, because winning matters, right? He’s been on a ton of winning baseball teams. The dude knows if I can’t get the job done right now, which I can’t, I have to be removed from that role. And so hopefully he can build his confidence back, because it is partially a confidence issue. He is not confident in the stuff that he has right now because it keeps getting hit. and it keeps getting hit because it’s not as good as it used to be, right? And so maybe it’s a mechanical adjustment that’ll get some of that velocity back. Maybe it’s just he needs to ramp his arm up even more or something. I don’t know what it is, but right now the velocity isn’t there, which makes the velocity on the secondary is not there, and it’s just not working out well for him. And so he gets the low leverage innings for now in my mind. And then eventually maybe he can take on some higher leverage stuff when his stuff comes back, if it does. My theme for this week is an entirely different thing. I’m going to the pop genre of the early 2000s with this shit is bananas. B -A -N -A -N -A -S from that classic poet Gwen Stefani. I’m of course referring to the starting pitching there. The fact that the Royal starting pitching has gone on the run to start the season that it has what was like, they have like the going into today anyway, they have the best ERA in major league baseball. They had, you know, among the best outcomes and things like strikeouts to walk ratio. walk percentage, what else? What are some of the other awesome, just all the good whip, FIP, you know, all the different Ips, they’re just killing it in terms of their ability to both be successful, run prevention, but also to go deep into games. So Alec Marsh goes seven in his first outing. Michael Walker went seven yesterday. Cole Regans is going six, six plus twice. We got, our starters are eating innings. which is great because it’s limiting the exposure to the terrible bullpen at this point. And also meaning that when we need to pull a guy early like they needed to with Marsh today, they have an Hill’s Erpah to go two or three innings if they need to. So it’s all going well off the back of this great starting pitching that they’re getting, which is bananas because how bad was their rotation last year? It was like the worst. It was like the worst in baseball. And all of a sudden right now, it’s the best in baseball, at least for the first 10 games. I love baseball. Royals Weekly is brought to you by All In Physical Therapy. You already know that All In Physical Therapy helped turn our mother into stone cold Steve Austin, but with more attitude. But what you don’t know is that mom loved her experience there because of the personal attention she got from Tommy and the staff at All In. They guarantee a personalized, one with one experience to suit the needs of patients recovering from total joint surgeries, sports injuries, or any kind of injury or pain. Yeah, I never got injured playing sports. It was mostly just baking soufflés. I got a little soufflé elbow. souffle, you don’t even know, it’s crazy. All in physical therapy is owned and operated by Tommy Frevert with locations in Blue Springs and Lee’s Summit, but most importantly, they’re in network for nearly all insurance providers. and you want to be in network or your insurance company legally owns your soul. We know that’s the system. that’s how LOL works. If you’re a high school athlete recovering from injury or someone bouncing back with a brand new hip or knee, check out the best physical therapy in the KC Metro at allin -pt .com. That’s A -L -L -I -N -P -T .com. Or give them a call at 816 -427 -5300. That’s 816 -427 -5300. Before the season started, we mentioned that the Royals needed some players to take significant steps forward in order to compete in 2024. We picked out players like MJ Melendez and Michael Garcia as guys the Royals needed to emerge as solid big league starters at least. We’re going to spend this week’s spotlight segment discussing the players who look to be emerging for the Royals. And we’re going to kick it off with a player who had a lot of hype behind him last year, but less in the results department, and that’s Michael Garcia. He had an 84 weighted runs created plus in 2024 with a paltry 358 slugging. I thought that was wrong when I read it. I think that’s right. So far this season, he’s got a 605 slugging. This was going, I don’t know if this counts today’s stats. I don’t think it does. And a 141 weighted runs created plus. Mike, what do we owe this power surge? What’s the cause of this power surge from Michael Garcia? Well, that’s a great question. I think he’s gotten a little bit bigger and stronger. I do. I think we saw that in the winter league. He played in the Venezuelan league or the Dominican Venezuelan winter league. I think we started to see that there and there were rumors and there were people saying, hey, wait, look and see what this guy is. He looks a little bit bigger this year, which hopefully, you know, people sometimes misunderstand what that muscle mass does for you. Yes, it might help him hit the ball a little bit harder. But the thing that it’s gonna really do for him is it’s going to allow him to do that deeper into the season. And that’s what’s really important. We saw it with Nick Lofton last year, like sometimes that muscle mass doesn’t necessarily mean you’re gonna be jacking the ball of the fence and stuff, but you’re hoping that it lets you carry you deeper into the season. And they actually mentioned it with a pitcher on the broadcast the other day about how he had trouble keeping the weight on during the season and stuff. Same thing for a guy like Michael Garcia. He’s got that bulk that’ll hopefully help him carry him throughout the season. And that’s my real goal for him. Cause I think with the swing changes and the approach stuff, I think he’s going to be able to keep that. It’s not going to be six Oh five at the end of the year. Okay. That’s just not going to happen. He’s Michael Garcia still, but four 50, four 50, 500 somewhere between four 50 and 500 would be great for him. Cause he’s got the speed. He’s got the defensive profile. He’s not walking quite as much as I’d like, but he’s going to be a great, great player for us this year. And the increased slugging is just a part of that. Yeah, I’m gonna attribute it to two things. One, I noted in a Substack article that I wrote before the season even started that we saw a swing change from Michael Garcia in the Winter League with some of the video that came out from him in there that looks like he has intentionally flattened the path of his bat to catch the underside of baseballs and hit with more elevation. So you’re seeing a lot higher launch angle than we saw from him last year. He’s getting the ball in the air more. And that’s a result of a swing change, I think, primarily for him. But there’s another thing that he’s doing that I think is really important for a guy like him, which is that when he’s ahead in counts, he’s looking to turn and burn. He is looking to pull balls, especially balls thrown on the inner third or middle in at all. He is looking to pull them to the left side, pull them up and out of the ballpark. And as a result, he’s generating more power, more in -game power. Sometimes it’s doubles off the wall. Sometimes the balls get over the wall, but either way. He is producing that game power because when he is in advantageous counts, he’s looking to produce power outcomes by pulling the ball. The best thing you can do if you’re looking to hit for power is pull the ball. We know that, right? Like I know on the Royals broadcast and the after -party, oh, you gotta go the other way. You gotta do that. If you wanna hit for power, you gotta pull it, okay? Like, especially for a guy like Garcia, maybe the tippiest, tippiest top of the power outcomes guys, the Aaron judges of the world, they can hit the ball the other way and still get great power outcomes a lot of the time. Michael Garcia cannot. Right, he can sometimes, he had a home run to the opposite field in Baltimore, I think. But for the most part, when he wants to hit for power, when he wants to generate good power outcomes, he’s got to look to turn on inside fastballs, turn on inside pitches and pull them over the fence or off the wall or whatever. And he’s been looking to do that this year and it’s really having tremendous results along with that swing change. Mike, you mentioned a little bit about what he could be. What is the outlook for Garcia if this power continues? Well, I think if that power continues, you’re talking about a guy, because he’s got three home runs already. You’re talking about a guy who hits 20 home runs. And Mikel Garcia playing the defense that he plays hitting 20 home runs. He probably drive in 70 runs, 70 between 70 and 80 if he hits 20 home runs. And, you know, he’s going to hit to 75 ish plus that’s with the level of defense he does. That’s an all -star right there. And so that’s that would be, oh my gosh. That’s so huge for the Royals if he does that. You’re talking about a player that you developed, that you brought up, that is now a stalwart for you at third base of all places. I never thought it would be third base for him because he is so good at shortstop, but gosh, he’s a great play. He’s an all -star if he continues to do that. If his slugging is 450, 5, 475, you’re talking about an all -star. Yeah, I agree. I think borderline All -Star, maybe a certain All -Star if he gets up to those numbers in terms of power, a 5 -F war player is definitely within the realm of possibility and definitely, I would say is probably the floor if this power continues, right? If this power surge is real and goes throughout the season, a 5 -F war season is very, very likely. And from that, we’re talking about like, it’s not just, now it’s not just Bobby Wade Jr. who you sort of homegrown turned into an All -Star, now it might be him. It might be Mikel Garcia, might be Bobby Wade Jr. Or sorry, it might be MJ Melendez. The list starts growing in terms of guys you are now producing who are not just above average Major League players, but even above that. And that’s homegrown. That’s cheap, homegrown talent that you can now leverage. You now have one of the most valuable things you can have in Major League Baseball. On the other end of the spectrum, MJ Melendez has seemingly used up all his hype coming into the season. So last year towards the end of the year and in the off season, Mikel Garcia got a ton of hype. MJ Melendez had seemingly already used up all of his and some in the Royals commentariat, I won’t name names Serin Petro, were calling for him to be traded last year. Like that’s how bad the Royals sort of general commentators were down on him. All he’s done this season is put up a 197 weighted runs created plus coming into today. That might’ve gone up now with that home run he hit. and look much improved in the outfield. Mike, what’s been the key to Melendez’s emergence so far this season? The pitches that he’s swinging at are better. It’s pretty simple for him. And we were talking about this last year when he was struggling so much. He’s swinging at pitches in the upper third or outside the upper third sometimes, and he just can’t do anything with those. He’s popping them up. He’s just straight missing them. And now it looks like he’s really trying to do damage on those ones in the lower third, in the middle third. The one the one today was like maybe at the top of the middle third, the homerun that he hit today. That’s probably as high as he ever wants to go. And yeah, he’s just really doing damage on that stuff every once in a while. If he gets two strikes the other day, he did this too. And it was so brilliant. It was like, hey, the pressure was on. We hadn’t been able to score. He hit a ball to left field, just a simple single to left field. He was down in the count anyway. You know, he was just looking to put some that’s that’s when you hit the ball the other way, people, by the way, in case you’re wondering. When you hit the ball the other way is when you’re down in the count. You’re not looking to produce power because you’re playing very defensive. And your swing decisions are, I gotta swing at anything that’s close. That’s when you’re thinking, okay, I’m going to for him and be left field. And so, yeah, it’s been really fun to watch him making better decisions and really, you know, kudos to him and kudos to hitting coach. What’s his name now? Alek Zumwalt. Alek Zumwalt. Alek Zumwalt. follows us on threads, I think, by the way. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks for the follow Zumwalt. But kudos to those people because he made the adjustment and he’s paying and it’s paying dividends now. Yeah, that is a big part of it. Not swinging at fastballs in the upper third or above is like unlocked a lot of what he’s doing at the plate. And I love that. And so that’s great. I’m also in love with what seems like a an obsession of his to only hit the ball in the air. That guy hits the ball in the air all the time. That’s all he wants to do. Doesn’t care if he flies out. Fine. You’re going to fly out quite a bit when you hit the ball in the air, but you’re also going to have great outcomes when you’re a power hitter who’s determined to only hit the ball in the air. And so I’m going to give you some. wild statistics to back this up. Last year, his average launch angle was 16 .9, right? 16 .9 degrees, which is decent. That’s pretty good. That’s a pretty air -oriented approach anyway. This year, his average launch angle is 21 .8, right? So he is hitting the ball way more in the air, right? But not like in a bad way. They’re not infield fly balls, right? Like, which is great. His barrel percentage right now, and this might be coming in today, I’m not really sure. He’s in the 96th percentile. He’s getting a barrel 22 .7 % of the time. Insane. If you don’t know what a barrel is, it’s when you hit the ball in the optimum launch angle, really hard at an optimum exit velocity. He’s in the 96th percentile, which means he’s elite in terms of getting barrels, right? Like these are the types of things I wish I had brought up his batted ball outcomes. I wish I could see right now what his, oh, here it is. It’s right here. He is hitting a fly ball. 41 % of the time, 41 % of the time. It’s crazy and awesome, right? And how many of those fly balls are becoming home runs? I don’t have that right now, but it’s a bunch of them. And that’s really, really good, especially when you play in Coffman Stadium. So his determination to hit the ball in the air is creating his best offensive profile. He is a power hitter, a slugger, and he should be hitting the ball in the air. Mike, how are you feeling about Melendez in the outfield? We talked about how last year that was a big thing that was a drag on his value. How are you feeling about him in the outfield? So. I’m still not sold on him being a good left fielder out there right now. I have not been impressed with his throwing ability so far. He had a in the twin series, I believe he had a big throwing error that cost us a run, if I’m not mistaken, or at least advanced a guy 90 feet and then he came into score later. So the throwing has been an issue which you would think that would be the good thing. He’s got a strong arm. He was a catcher for crying out loud. But his routes do seem to be better. He does seem to be getting better jumps on the ball. We don’t need him to be good or above average. We just need an average left fielder if he’s gonna hit the ball the way that he has. So I’m fine with it. You know, I think the arm thing will come with time. He’s not gonna get a lot of reps throwing guys out at home and stuff. That’s just not how it works. You don’t get 10 of those a game. But I do think it is improved. I do. I think it’s improved as well. And I think the route running has gotten better. I think he looks more comfortable as he approaches balls that he’s trying to field in the outfield. I mean, usually in the air, but also on the ground. And so that’s really, really good. I think the advanced metrics back that up. I think he’s been a just an average outfielder up to this point. I think he’s zero about above average right now, according to baseball savant. And so the stat cast data. So I think you’re right about that. I do expect to see some outs with his arm. as the season goes on because he has that strong arm. And last year, that was actually a real positive to his fielding was his ability to throw runners out on the bases. And so I expect to see some of that moving forward. But what we’ve seen is that his ability to move in the outfield, his ability to track balls has gotten significantly. Mike, speaking of power hitting outfielders, let’s talk about a guy many people had given up on this spring. I of course mean Kyle Isbell. I’m just kidding, he’s not a power hitting outfielder, but I’m talking about Nelson Velasquez, Nelly Nukes. He’s off to a pretty hot start with a 165 weighted career runs, created plus and 27 plate appearances coming into today. Mike, please explain to me why Nelson Velasquez should still be in, in fact be in a AAA. And Mark is both bitter. He’s a bitter man. He really is. What are you? I don’t know how to how to state this. Smug, petty, petty, very petty. So Mark and I took some heat for saying that Nelson Velasquez should be on the Major League roster, the 26th man coming out of spring training. A lot of people wanted Nick Prado. A lot of people wanted, you know, Lofton in another sense, you know. Lofton ended up making it anyway, but they wanted they wanted not Nelson Velasquez on the 26 man, which I understood at the time, even though I disagreed with it. But you can’t say that now. I mean, the guy is doing really good things right now. He’s got a 320 ISO, which is fantastic. And you say, I can’t sustain that. It was 350 last year. So now I don’t know that he can sustain 320. But if there is a guy on the rails that can, it’s him. He’s been doing some small things too that I really like. He was the walk today that was on base when MJ hit that home run. Now he wasn’t on base because they pinched it, pinch ran, die run Blanco, but he’s doing some really good things. Now the strikeouts are still too high. He’s got a 37 % strikeout rate so far this year. That’s not what you want, but he was, I mean, he was the guy that started it today that got crochet out of the game. I mean, that’s, uh, wait, no, was that him? Yeah, I think that was him. Uh, but. You know, he’s he’s been very good and I think as it warms up, I think some more of those balls are going over the fence too. And so look out for Nelson Velasquez this year, people. I think he might be very good. Yeah, I think you’re right. And I think what’s interesting to point out is he’s been great so far to start this season and he doesn’t even look locked in right now. Like he looks like it’s still not quite there. He’s taking good plate appearances. He’s drawing walks. He’s like doing good things for the team, but he doesn’t look super locked in the way he looked last year to end last year. Right. He’s going to get locked in at some point. It’s going to happen. He’s going to have stretches where he’s locked in and he’s just putting balls out what seems like every single day. Like that’s going to happen. And so I think it’s just been this tremendous development. And think about, remember, cast your mind back. We got him for Jose Guas. So it’s like, what the hell? He’s 25. Nelson Velasquez is only 25 years old, right? And so we brought, we were talking about him in this segment because he is a young player emerging for the Royals. And yes, the strikeouts are a little too high right now at 37%. But remember. We’re only he’s 27 plate appearances in, you know, one, two or three strikeout game. And that throws off your strikeout percentage for this year. So far, he I do see a genuine effort for him to make more contact, especially when he’s in two strike counts. You see him doing things like lining balls through the infield in that sort of thing when he’s behind and counts and just kind of needs to make contact. So I’m seeing things, especially from his swing, which looks a lot more adaptable. If that makes sense, if that makes sense, like his swing looks less grooved. than it did last year when he was really just, it was all about his approach last year where he’s like, I’m not swinging at breaking pitches until I absolutely have to. I’m gonna get one of these fast balls and put a charge into it. Now he’s like, when I’m down in two strike counts, I know they’re gonna throw me a lot of breaking stuff. I need to be more adaptable and he’s being more adaptable. And that’s really gonna help I think as the season moves forward. I don’t expect the third 320 ISO to stay the case, but I think the strikeout and the walk might go down and the walks might go up. as he’s gonna see a lot more breaking pitches this year than he saw last year. And so with that, walks might go up, strikeouts might go down, power might go down a little bit, but I think overall you’re gonna see a similar level of offensive productiveness from him that he put up last year. Mike, final question to the segment, we’re going a little too long for my taste. What role do you see each of these three players having in the team moving forward as time progresses? I hope it’s pretty much the role that they currently have, because I like what they’re doing. You know, Garcia at the top of the lineup to set it all up. You may get an occasional power, maybe knocking in some runs from the bottom of the lineup in the third, fifth, seventh innings, you know, whatever. And then you have MJ somewhere in the middle. MJ is a four or five kind of guy, maybe even a three, you know, a day of the right handed pitchers pitching. I wouldn’t mind seeing him in that three spot and see Vinny down in that five spot. I’m fine if they decide to flip those guys. And then I like Nelson Velasquez down in the order a little bit because I want him driving in some of those runs. You know what I’m saying? I’m not saying he should be way down there in eight at the eight hole or something, but how about five or six? Six would be great. I think six is a great place to put him. If you don’t have, you know, you can’t put Vinny down there at five, then have him at six. It’ll just be way, way, way too slow. But maybe, you know what? It may work out. So I like them in the rules that they have right now, pretty much. And because I think it’s working and I think these guys feel comfortable. But if you want to move MJ up to the three spot and move Vinny down, I’m fine with that. Just keep them doing what they’re doing and I’ll be completely fine. And let’s be honest, in the future, maybe it’s Nelson Velasquez who fills the Salvador Perez role. When Perez can no longer be that middle of the order bat, he’s that middle of the order right -handed bat that they want, right? Like it’s Nukes, it’s Nelly Nukes in the four spot. Hell of a lot more than Salvi will. And so, yeah, I think that’s a good place for him. I like him at six, two. I think that would work out really well. I see MJ as middle of the order bat as well. Garcia, I’m not sure. lead off is what’s best for him and would be my ideal thing for him or for the Royals. He has to do that right now because they don’t have a better option, I don’t think, but maybe down the line, it might be better to have him in the five spot or even you would love it if a guy like Garcia was your seven or eight hitter and you had a guy that good in the seven or eight hole. I think that would be great if they had enough talent to push him further down. But for right now, the lead off spot is good enough for him because they need. some on base ability and he at least has to some degree with his ability to get a high batting average, he has some on base ability. The Royals get an off day here at home on Monday before the home stand ends with a three game series against the scuffling Houston Astros. Then it’s off to New York for a three game set against the most expensive lottery team there will be, the New York Mets. Mike, tell us about an Astros team that’s struggling to start the year. Yeah, that’s a little bit of a surprise. Hopefully they can stay struggling. The Astros are two and seven and last in the AL West. And there’s some people not very happy about it. If you’re if you’re listening to Astros fans, the first game will be a good pitching matchup. Cole Regans goes against Christian Javier, 27 year old right hander out of the Dominican Republic. He has a zero point zero zero ERA and a one point zero zero whip in his two starts. So he hasn’t given up a run in eleven innings pitch because he very good. Four seam fastball that averages 92 to 93, but he makes money on a good slider and an emerging change up and then a knuckle curve ball. In the past, he’s been predominantly fastball slider, but he’s thrown the change up a lot more this year. And it’s getting to that level where he’s throwing it almost as much as the slider and not throwing the fastball quite as much. In the second game, we’ll see Seth Lugo go against Hunter Brown, a 25 year old right -hander out of Wayne State. He’s not done so well so far this year, a 6 .43 ERA and a 2 .57 whip and two starts. He’s only got seven innings pitched in two starts. He’s got a four seam fastball and averages 95, a cutter, a knuckle curve ball and a split finger. He’s walking a lot of guys right now and his strikeouts are down in 2024. So makes you wonder what happened to Hunter Brown in the off season. In the last game of the series, it’ll be Brady Singer who’s been fantastic. against JP France. How did we go this whole show and not talk about how good Brady Singer has been? Yeah, he’ll go against JP France, the 29 year old right handed pitcher out of Mississippi State, 4 .76 ERA and a 1 .50 whip and two starts. He’s gone 11 and a third innings. He’s got a fastball in the 14 fastball in the low nineties, a cutter, a change and a curve ball was very fastball forward last year with 47 43 % fastballs. but he doesn’t throw in anything more than 29 % this year, probably because teams are doing damage on that fastball with a 294 batting average. So I do like the pitching matchups. Hopefully Cole Regans can give us a really good win against Christian Javier in that first game, get us going good. Yeah, I’d love to see a nice, I’d love to take two or three from the Astros here. That would be mind blowing. Get them while they’re down, you know what I’m saying? Anyway, after that, they’re gonna head to New York to face the amazing Mets who are not so amazing right now. The Mets are three and six, which is fourth in the NL East. I think I saw some sort of really despondent thing on social media about the Mets the other day. That was something like, you know. their dead last or whatever, nobody’s here. Nobody was at the game. It was raining. They were just having a real sad, a real sulk. They were throwing a sulk. Anyway, they’re three and six, fourth in the NL East. Their starting pitching has actually been pretty good, which is a rotation filled with mostly veteran guys. They got Jose Quintana, who’s been good. Luis Severino, who’s been pretty good. They’ve got Sean Manaya in that rotation. He’s only had one start, but he’s been pretty good. It’s a… old and potentially injury riddled rotation, but they’re guys who know how to get outs. And so it’s also, it’s a little bit of a gamble on the Mets part. Like if they stay healthy, they might pitch pretty well out of the starting rotation this year, but there’s also a chance they don’t stay healthy and it’s all falls apart. The offense has really struggled up to this point. They have a 64 weighted runs created plus as a team. They have a good young catcher in Francisco Alvarez who’s hitting right now, but basically nobody else is. Pete Alonso is not hitting, Brett Beatty is not hitting. Nobody else in that lineup, Jeff McNeil, is not hitting. It is not going well for them offensively. Their bullpen’s about middle of the road, but they’re really struggling to score runs. In a division with good teams like the Braves and the Phillies, that’s gonna be tough. We’ll end this week’s episode like we end every episode with our Just About Outside segment, where we talk about something that’s interesting to us outside the world of baseball. Mike, what do you got going on in this last week? Oh, man, I discovered something somewhat fun. So, you know, being the parent of a young child can be tough to set aside time with your spouse to like just hang out, just the two of you. So on Friday and Saturday nights, my wife and I try and hang out and do something. She came up with the idea. She’s like, hey, I want to play dominoes. Right. And I’m yelling domino. And so, of course, I immediately bring up the movie Boys in the Hood. How could you not? How could you not? thing you know. But I’ve never played Domino’s, never in my life. I don’t know how to play Domino’s. I don’t know what it is. I don’t really understand the concept of it other than like stacking them and knocking them down. That’s what Domino’s is to me. I don’t know. But she’s like, hey, a coworker of mine told me that when her family gets together and plays Domino’s, they play a game called Mexican Train. OK, and I’m like, OK, just tell me how to play it. She’s like, I don’t know how to play it, but I’m going to go look up how to play it. And I said, do not type Mexican Train into our laptop. Please dear God, I’ve been on the internet. I know what’s coming. You can’t unsee those things. Okay. And so she, she figured out a way to type in and got the rules and we played it and it was really fun. It was like, uh, it was basically like playing cards. You know, it was like playing a really great game of, uh, Rummy or pitch, but you only needed two people to do it. And so I was like, okay, this is really cool. And we had a great time last night. And then I was like, Hey, are we playing this game? Uh, I’m winning around. She’s winning around. Look down. It’s fuck. It’s midnight. And I’m like, we’ve been doing this for like three and a half hours. We should probably stop now. So that was a really fun game. Domino’s. It’s not just for the old, you know, it’s it’s you can be young and play Domino’s or maybe I’m old. Maybe it is just for the old. But yeah, that sounds fun. I like the idea of playing dominoes. And I really want to like slap one down the table and watch them all explode up and just like Ice Cube does. Yes. I’m picking a bone. I’m having my own boomer moment tonight on the episode, because I’m angry about something that took place to me yesterday. So I have to arrange like these events for my job sometimes. So for these events, they’re like all day events. And so I have to get lunch catered in frequently. And… The bone that I have to pick is basically with every place that does catering. Cause I have tried four or five different catering places. I’ve tried Spin Pizza and their catering. I’ve tried Panera, Pizza 51, various other places. And none of them ever deliver what I need on time and everything I ordered. It never happens. And I’m talking to this other person at this event I had yesterday who also plans events. She’s like, no, places are awful at it. You cannot get things delivered on time. You cannot get everything you ordered. It is awful. And so I’m gonna tell you the specific story of what happened yesterday with Panera Bread. And yes, I’m putting you on blast Panera Bread, coming after you. Because I placed an order with Panera Bread, not a huge order. It was like 380 bucks worth of food. Not a huge order, but we needed it at a particular time. I get a little update. Oh, your food will be there about 10 minutes earlier than I actually asked for it. And they asked me before like, When do you want it? And I was like, at this time, they’re like, okay, we’re gonna put a window 1245 to one. We’re getting closer and closer to one. The food’s not actually showing up, even though I got the text saying it was. I’m like, what’s going on? I looked to check and see, I’m like, oh, it says that they’re still just waiting at the Panera bread. I’m like, okay. So I eventually they’re like, they tell me, hey, it’s gotta be done through DoorDash. Like we as Panera can’t deliver it on the weekends. So I call this DoorDash driver and he’s like, oh buddy, I’m standing in a line and they’re telling me it’s gonna be a half an hour. before I even get your food. And I’m like, what? And he’s like, yeah, it’s gonna be like half an hour. It’s like one o ‘clock at this point, right? So my food is gonna be half an hour late. What happens? I’m just sitting there waiting. I’m trying to call Panera, nobody’s answering, which is the case for all businesses now, I feel like. Nobody answers a phone anymore, right? Like, yeah, you’re open. You’re open. You’re just not answering the phone, right? Like, and so I’m calling, I’m calling, I’m calling, no answer, right? I’m trying to call this door dash driver who’s just standing there in this long ass line, apparently. and 50 minutes late, we get our food, right? 50 minutes late. That would have pissed me off just enough. What happens? They show up and they have forgotten about 40 % of our food, right? Like about 40 % of the stuff we ordered and paid for, they did not have. Also, somebody finds a piece of random plastic in one of their sandwiches, right? Like what the hell is going on here? Like just a nightmare scenario. Why can’t people figure out catering? Oh, who has the time? Hey, I want to speak to your manager. Give me that line, Mark. gonna go Karen on them and just be like, I wanna speak to your manager. But that doesn’t mean anything, right? Like I have a sense that like for the Paneras of the world and for a lot of food places, if they’re doing something like this, what does any one order matter when you have 500 customers a day? What does any one order matter? Like. because you ordered giant catering stuff. giant cake. Like it will never happen with Panera again. That’s over. Like somebody gave me the name of a different place I’m going to try. I’m just going to keep cycling through them until I find somebody who can do the most basic shit on earth, which is just deliver on time and give me the food I paid for. That’s all I’m asking for. It doesn’t even have to be good. Food doesn’t even have to be good. I will go with what you’re doing if you just do that. That’s all I’m asking. All I’m asking for from the Royals. Yes, it does. All I’m asking for from the Royals is a winning week this week. and we’ll be back to talk about them next week if they do that, but also if they don’t. Until then, be good to each other. And go Royals!