Swing and a miss
The Royals need to take advantage of the disparity in strikeouts between themselves and the Yankees.
The Yankees’ offense is better than the Royals. Its not just the one-two punch of Aaron Judge and Juan Soto either. Giancarlo Stanton and Gleyber Torres and Austin Wells have all put up solid seasons and there are other hitters they have that are not good, but at least have some pop. They led the MLB in home runs, and they were third in runs scored, but they are susceptible to striking out. Their team overall has a slightly below-league-average strikeout rate, but Judge and Stanton in particular, strike out a lot and could be the key to the Royals pulling out a series win.
Against the Orioles, the strikeout played a key role. In game one, the Orioles struck out 10 times while the Royals only had 4. Putting an extra handful of balls in play is a huge advantage in a lower-scoring environment like the playoffs. The second game was much closer with the Royals striking out 10 times and the Orioles 12. That’s almost half of the Baltimore outs coming on a punch out. Striking out fails to move runners and set up or complete sacrifice flies. Teams want a high K% for their pitching staff for a reason. Those 22 strikeouts had a lot to do with the Orioles only scoring one run in the wild card series and the Royals getting the win. Especially the strikeout that would have been a hit-by-pitch had Colin Cowser not swung.
In the playoffs, there are almost no fourth or fifth starters to feast on. The bullpens shrink and get added rest, so you don’t tend to see the mop-up guys. As I have talked about before, the Royals are not going to Chris Stratton or Will Smith, those guys are not even on the playoff roster. It also means the starters often only go through the lineups once or twice. Only the elite starters get a crack at the third time through. That means fresher arms in almost all situations and generally better stuff, which leads to higher strike-out rates and lower-scoring games.
For the Royals to win this series, the path is now pretty clear. Cole Ragans needs to shove in game 2 and find a win. If the Yankees win game 2, it is going to be incredibly hard to win three in a row against a team with as much firepower as New York. Getting game two means you split in New York, then you get to go home and try to finish the series there, but if you also split there it’s not over. Game Five would likely be round two of Ragans vs. Rodon. KC will not have the home-field advantage in game 5, but they will have the pitching advantage. Rodon has not looked like an ace since coming over to the Yankees, but Cole Ragans is. More than that, he is left-handed, which in Yankees Stadium means he can limit lefty power, like Juan Soto.
This Yankees lineup is predicated on Soto and Judge in the two and three holes. Everyone knows that. If you can get around Soto though, then you have strike-out candidates in Judge and whoever they decide to bat fourth and fifth typically. Austin Wells is more in the average strike-out range, but Giancarlo Stanton struck out over 30% of the time this year. That means that even if Soto and/or Judge manage to get on base, that sometimes you can work around it.
Saturday night with the bases loaded and no outs the Yankees got two, but that was mostly because of walks. If the Royals keep walking eight a game like they did in Game One, then they will easily lose this series. The only scary part of game one is that the Royals did exactly what you want against Judge. He was 0-for-4 with a walk and three strikeouts. Unfortunately, Soto, Torres, and Verdugo all had good games and when you are bunching good hitters, scoring happens. And of course, Yankees stadium is a factor because it gives up ridiculous home runs that should be outs, see below:
That’s a home run in 1 out of 30 stadiums, as the announcers quickly jump on after he hits it. Luckily Melendez got a cheap one too, though it was hit a bit better than Torres’. Back to my point, we learned that shutting down Judge is not enough. Game one did not come out the way the Royals wanted despite the presumed MVP being a non-factor.
Tonight we get to watch Game Two, and the Yankees lineup will probably look a little different. They have not faced a left-handed starter yet in the playoffs, so I am not sure exactly how, but we know what the front half will roughly look like and that it is the part you really have to take care of. It will help if the Royals can get back to having a significant advantage in strikeouts. Put balls in play, see if something good can happen and keep the other team from doing the same. It worked in Baltimore and it can work in New York too.