Cal Raleigh rallies Mariners past Royals, 6-5, in the ninth inning

Sep 25, 2022 - 2:52 AM

Royals pitchers walked nine and struck out eight.

No, don’t keep reading, look at that number again.

Royals pitchers walked nine and struck out eight.

That is no way to win a baseball game.

To be fair, the Royals were squeezed all night. I can think of at least five pitches off the top of my head that were in the white box on the TV broadcast but were called balls. That includes one pitch starter Kris Bubic threw which should have led to a strikeout and the plate appearance instead ended in a walk.

Kris Bubic, as you might have imagined, was a great offender, tonight. He walked four and struck out six in his 4.2 innings pitched. However, Colin Snider and Brad Keller each walked a pair without striking anyone out. Carlos Hernández also walked one. Hernández and Keller each had to escape bases-loaded situations late in the game. That they managed to do so while only giving up a single run speaks more to the Mariners' failures than the Royals’ successes.

Kris Bubic only had one pitch working tonight, and it was his curveball. He managed to keep the scoring from getting out of hand solely because when he was missing his spots, he was doing it outside the strike zone. Unfortunately, that also led to him topping 100 pitches without escaping the fifth inning. That placed a large burden on the bullpen which couldn’t keep up the pace they had established earlier on the homestand.

Vinnie Pasquantino did hit another dinger, at least. So let’s take a look at that.

Notes

• I was right about Logan Gilbert being due to give up some runs, but wrong about how the Royals would do it. Extra base hits were the order of the day.
• The TV broadcast had new Executive Vice President J.J. Picollo on to talk about the changes coming to KC, and he reemphasized the importance of analytics and their usage in modern baseball. That was nice to hear.
• The Royals will have another shot to guarantee fewer than 100 losses on the season tomorrow.
• During the broadcast, the crew pondered whether Bobby Witt Jr. or Nate Eaton were faster. Announcer Ryan LeFebvre declared confidently that Witt is the faster of the two. According to Baseball Savant, he’s right. Witt Jr. clocks in at the 100th percentile. Don’t sleep on Eaton’s speed, though, he’s sitting at the 97th percentile.
• While Witt might be faster, Eaton might be the better base-stealer. Witt has stolen 28 in 141 games but Eaton has stolen 10 in only 36.

Tomorrow will be a matchup of Castillos. Trade deadline acquisition and the most recent addition to the lucrative contract extension club Luis Castillo will take the mound for the Mariners. Promising rookie Max Castillo will go for KC. The game will start at 1:10 PM CDT.