Another night, another win for the Royals; 5-3 over the Athletics

They are 2-0 while celebrating the 2014 team.

The Royals are now nine games over .500 for the first time this year. I don’t have access to the databases that I would need if I wanted to tell you when the last time that happened was, but we know that before this year, they hadn’t been eight over since 2016, so it’s still been a hot minute.

This was one of the Royals’ least dramatic non-blowout victories of the season. Pretty much everyone just did their jobs and the result was a victory over an inferior team. Seth Lugo got things started with 5.2 innings of two-run ball. He struck out 10, which would have been a career-high if not for the 12 he struck out Sunday. He only gave up six hits and one walk; three of those hits came in the second inning when he gave up a double, a home run, and a single after getting the first out. That let the A’s tie the game for a while, but he held things down after that. His ERA spiked all the way up to 1.79 but his FIP came down to 3.19.

On the offensive side, everyone had at least one hit except for Adam Frazier, who was in the lineup because, before tonight’s game, he had five hits in six at-bats against Oakland starter Ross Stripling. Maikel Garcia, Michael Massey, and Nelson Velázquez each had a pair of hits. Garcia, Massey, and MJ Melendez each hit doubles. Kyle Isbel hit a home run in the bottom of the seventh to give the Royals some cushion.

The Royals got things going fast in the first inning when Garcia and Bobby Witt Jr. each hit singles, then advanced a base on a weak groundout by Vinnie Pasquantino. The 2014 Wild Card Game hero himself, Salvador Perez came to the plate and knocked them both home with a solid single into left.

It seemed like the Royals could score more, but both Velázquez and Melendez popped out to end the threat. Lugo, as mentioned, immediately coughed the lead back up, but didn’t allow Oakland to take control.

In the bottom of the fifth, the Royals struck again. Garcia hit a one-out double over Estuery Ruiz’s head in left and eventually scored on a Vinnie Pasquantino liner to right just over the leaping Zach Gelof. It was Vinnie’s first RBI since last Thursday against the Angels. It also tied his previous career high of 26.

In the sixth, the Royals finally got rid of Stripling when Massey led off with his double and Velázquez atoned for his earlier popup with a single up the middle to drive in Massey.

John Schreiber gave up a run in 1.1 innings of relief. Angel Zerpa has completed earning his late-innings stripes and pitched the eighth, striking out one in a perfect inning and then James McArthur came in to close. This was the only point at which there was some drama, but mostly because of what has come before rather than what happened tonight.

It’s no secret that McArthur has struggled a bit, recently, but he has still shown flashes of the excellent reliever we knew him to be before that. Unfortunately, he gave up a leadoff hit to Max Schuemann on a pitch that wasn’t terrible, but then hung a curveball to Kyle McCann for another single, even though it was very softly hit. Abraham Toro got a middle-middle fastball but hit it to the deepest part of the park and Isbel made the play and Schuemann advanced to third.

If James McArthur’s nickname was The Cyborg as was once the moniker of the man who threw out tonight’s first pitch, you could say this was when he rebooted. Suddenly the sinker had its life back and he was mostly locating it - though he did miss middle-middle one more time, the life on it meant it could only be fouled off. The curveball became what it had once been: absolutely, unhittable nasty. He struck out JJ Bleday and Brent Rooker to end the contest.

Hopefully, that was a good sign for the return of a dominant closer. Between McArthur, Zerpa, and Schreiber the Royals have a pretty good backend of the bullpen. There are going to be inevitable comparisons to HDH, especially this weekend, and they won’t live up to that. But almost no trio of relievers will. These guys aren’t HDH, but ZSM will suffice for 2024.

The Royals will go for the sweep tomorrow. Brady Singer will start for the Royals and try to bounce back from a pretty pitiful performance against the Mariners. The A’s will counter with lefty JP Sears. Be ready for a weird lineup.