'Time to play better baseball': Royals aim to stay in race as Trade Deadline looms
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MIAMI -- The All-Star break can offer a respite and reset during a long 162-game season, but when baseball returns, teams know it’s full speed ahead during the back-half of the season – especially for teams like the Royals, fighting to stay alive in the standings as the July 31 Trade Deadline looms and the stretch run of the season rapidly approaches.
“We do know it’s time,” second baseman Jonathan India said. “It’s time to play better baseball. We can’t be like, ‘Oh my God, we’ve got to do everything,’ but we do need to play better baseball.”
In that regard, the first weekend out of the break wasn’t an ideal start for the Royals with a series loss in Miami. But they salvaged it -- and avoided the sweep -- on Sunday with a 7-4 victory at loanDepot park, surviving an ugly ninth inning that included a two-out rally from a pesky Marlins lineup.
Wins like Sunday, with the middle of the lineup driving in runs and not letting up, could propel the Royals to being buyers at the Deadline. If Kansas City, which is 48-52 and 5 1/2 games out of a Wild Card spot in a packed American League race, plays well, offensive help will likely be the target. But no matter who the Royals might add, their core players will have to be who they rely on to get them back to the postseason in 2025.
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“What’s that law? Every action has a reaction,” designated hitter Vinnie Pasquantino said before the series finale, referencing Isaac Newton’s Third Law of Motion (which may or may not be applicable to the MLB Trade Deadline). “It’s the same thing. If we go undefeated until the Deadline, that changes things. If we lose out the rest of the way, that changes things. If we go .500, even that might change things.
“So it’s just one of those things where it’s like, you understand the consequences of how the game goes and what you’re going to do, but it can’t affect how you prepare and go out there every day.”
What mattered on Sunday is how the Royals responded after a frustrating offensive showing Saturday. It did not start well, with Marlins starter Jansen Junk working the first time through the order without allowing a hit.
The Royals had put together some good swings, though, and saw results in the fourth. Bobby Witt Jr. doubled and then scored on Maikel Garcia’s sacrifice fly. After Salvador Perez hit a ball so hard it got stuck in the left-field wall for a ground-rule double, preventing Pasquantino from scoring, Jac Caglianone came through with a two-out, two-run double to make it 3-0.
“My first AB against [Junk], I got the pitch I wanted, but got too excited and rolled it over,” Caglianone said. “So I was like, ‘If he comes back with it again, I have to make sure to stay through it.’”
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The Royals added on with another three runs in the fifth, and Perez hit his 15th home run of the season -- and second in as many days during a 5-for-10 series in Miami -- in the seventh.
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The six-run lead allowed manager Matt Quatraro to turn to his bullpen following starter Kris Bubic’s five scoreless innings in his first start after the All-Star Game. Bubic was battling an illness earlier this weekend, and his velocity was down across the board, including averaging just 90.5 mph on his fastball -- nearly 2 mph below his 92.3 mph average this season.
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“Other than just being under the weather, it wasn’t something I was too concerned about,” Bubic said of his velocity. “But otherwise, I still wanted to pitch, I still wanted to pitch as long as I could. And for the offense to give us a comfortable lead like that probably made the decision definitely a little bit easier.”
And if the Royals can save an inning or two here and there for Bubic, who is pitching in his first full season following Tommy John surgery, they’ll do it -- because they want him to be pitching big innings for them in the later months of the season.
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Despite the Deadline being just 11 days away, the Royals, at least in the clubhouse, are trying not to look too far ahead. They’ve got a big enough test in front of them at Wrigley Field this week, anyway, with Monday’s series opener against the Cubs.
“Decisions will be made based on how the outcomes of games go,” Quatraro said. “But the outcomes don’t affect your effort, right? You can lose 10 in a row or win 10 in a row, you got to give the same effort the next day. That’s what we’re focused on.”