Royals Authority

A relatively quiet September day off for the Royals. Not much in the way of news. Even McCullough’s Friday mailbag turned to music questions early.

That, of course, leaves plenty of room for angst. Hey, it happens when you win just three out of nine on a homestand.

Frankly, it’s difficult to care about these September games. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it for another 19 days, the contests this month are all about positioning. It’s about determining who is fit and and who is worthy of being on the postseason roster. It’s about getting to full health. It’s about configuring a pitching rotation that makes sense for a short series. Basically, September is a luxury for the Royals. They have this ability to rest and shuffle parts around that other teams in tight pennant races don’t have. This is a good problem to have.

Let’s look at a couple Septembers past for this franchise:

The 2014 Royals clobbered September. They made it their month. Who could forget some of those wins? (My personal favorite would be Terrence Gore scoring from second on an infield grounder.) The club won 15 out of 26 and made up enough ground in that time that they found themselves hosting the Wild Card game. They won that one and swept through the playoffs and ended up in the World Series.

On the other hand, take a look at the 1980 Royals. When September opened, they were 39 games above .500 and held a whopping 20 game lead in the division. They promptly won only eight games that month. Eight wins out of 26 games. Yet they swept through the playoffs and ended up in the World Series.

The point is, every team takes a different path. What works one season isn’t exactly a repeatable blueprint for success.

I don’t think anyone is panicking about finishing second in the Central, or about missing the playoffs altogether. Which is a good thing. But something I’m hearing is fans are worrying about home field advantage in the playoffs. Sorry, but I just don’t understand this line of thinking. Is it because Kansas City fans have been more invested in the team across the parking lot and are applying football thinking to baseball?

I saw in the comments section at Royals Review that in something like the last 48 playoff series, the team with home field advantage has won 24 times. That means they’ve lost 24 times as well. A .500 record. (My recollection - and raw numbers - may be off by a series or several, but the .500 point stands.)

Home field is nice to have, but last October should remind anyone that it’s not imperative. The Royals, of course, won two series when they didn’t have home field. And don’t forget the Giants. Also a Wild Card team, they won three series where they lacked that alleged advantage of home field.

In my mind, the most important thing for the Royals at this moment in 2015 is to win the AL Central. That gets you a flag on the Hall of Fame in left field, and as everyone should know, flags fly forever. Besides, with all the Royals success the last two-plus seasons (they have won more games than any AL team since 2013 - wrap your head around that one for a moment) they have yet to win a division. It used to be a regular occurrence in Kansas City. I’d like to get back to that.

Sure, it would be ideal for the Royals to have the advantage of playing the most games at The K in a short series. This is a team predicated on pitching and defense and speed, which is one way of saying the Royals were constructed with their stadium in mind. Besides, who wants to go to Toronto and face a must-win game? Here’s a dirty little secret: The way the playoffs are built means the Royals will have to, at some point, win at least one game in Toronto. Home field isn’t some crazy advantage. Is it ultimately an advantage? Of course it is. Most teams play better at home than on the road. Is it necessary for postseason success? Absolutely not.

This isn’t to say this is a team without flaws. Right field is an issue. Alex Rios wasn’t driving the ball before he had chicken pox. The starting rotation runs hot and cold. Greg Holland is raising the worry meter with two consecutive appearances where he struggled to hit 91 mph on the radar gun. (The worry meter ticks up a notch or two when you realize there has chatter that the gun at Kauffman has been running hot by a couple of mph. Think about that in relation to Holland. Or maybe you shouldn’t.) The bottom third of the lineup is pretty much three automatic outs. And so on…

Yes, this is a team with some issues. But they’re not the only team with issues. All the contenders have some problems. This is baseball. There are no perfect teams. In October, you only hope those flaws don’t overtake the reasons your team actually made the postseason.

The Royals magic number is in a holding pattern at 13.

The Royals and Twins combined for seventeen hits and twenty-seven baserunners, yet still managed to accumulate a grand total of five runs in twelve innings of play. Games like last night are full of missed opportunities and what ifs. They can eat you up, unless your team is 11 games up in September, in which case you would just like the damn thing to get over.

The Twins’ bullpen allowed just three hits and a run in six plus innings while Royal relievers pitched five straight scoreless innings before Franklin Morales served up a two out home run to Miguel Sano in the twelfth. By then, Ned Yost had gone deep enough into the bench that the Royals sent Orlando, Escobar and Dyson to the plate in the bottom of the inning (with Omar Infante on deck if anyone got on). Hey, if you can’t score with those three….

None of that is a criticism of Ned, who deployed Gore and Dyson in situations that had a chance to get the Royals an edge. After the ever reliable Ben Zobrist reached base for a third time in the tenth, Yost went to Dyson, who stole two bases to get to third with one out and Lorenzo Cain and Eric Hosmer coming up. That seems optimal, until Cain chopped one to the pitcher to get Dyson thrown out at the plate. Managers do effect the outcomes of games, but sometimes they also do things right and still not win.

Random thoughts from last night, the past, the future and beyond:

• The umpires got the Dyson call at the plate right. If Kurt Suzuki does not have the right to go out and catch a ball, even when it is in the path of the runner, without getting called for blocking the plate, then we might as well give up on the tag play. Home plate umpire Greg Gibson was erratic last night, but he got that call right and even the guys in New York knew it.
• In case you had any doubt as to how poorly Jonny Gomes hits right handed pitching these days - or at least how Ned Yost perceives him to be - that he did not pinch-hit in the 12th with his team needing a blast to tie the game is probably a pretty good indication.
• Kris Medlen threw his hat back into the post-season rotation ring with a outstanding outing last night. It has been said a thousand times, but how nice is it to have the choice for your number four starter to be between Danny Duffy and Medlen as opposed to Jeremy Guthrie starting Game Seven of a World Series?
• No, I don’t give a flying damn about whether Johnny Cueto missed a public appearance at BBQ shop.
• Alex Rios got a hit last night. Seems notable due to rarity.
• Speaking of rightfield, what would you do in the post season. I am aware of a segment of Royal fandom that believes Omar Infante is some defensive wizard and Ben Zobrist doesn’t even own a glove. There is really nothing sabremetrically or via the eyeballs that supports that theory, but I imagine some say start Infante at second ‘because of his great defense’ and put Zobrist in right. Thankfully, Ned Yost is not one of those and has pretty much installed Zobrist as his every day second baseman - where is outstanding with the bat and above average with the glove. People love Paulo Orlando, who has a bookshelf of dramatic plays this year. He also has a library of sub-par hitting for most of the year as well. Dyson can hit righties decently, but then you lose his speed for just the right late game situation. Gomes can mash lefties, but really should not be allowed near fly balls in front of small children. Can the Royals carry all four in the playoffs? Will they? Should they?
• No, I don’t give a flying damn what your favorite Kansas City BBQ place is.
• Greg Holland threw seven pitches last night, none faster than 91 mph. This on the heels of throwing ten pitches the night before with, again, none topping out above 91. The results were two scoreless innings. A change in a approach or the approach of doom?
• I like this lineup and batting order (Alex Rios is the exception, but don’t really mind giving him a handful of games just to be sure his bat really is just a noodle), let’s take it out on the road and really see what she can do.

Three times this season the Royals dropped four games in a row. They did not want to lose five consecutive. Not now. Not in September.

Sure, this team is basically on cruise control. Entering Tuesday’s game on a four game skid, the club still held an 11 game lead over the Twins in the Central. Their playoff odds have been at 99 or 100 percent for at least a month. Still, losses incite worry. Worry can lead to panic. Panic… You don’t want to know where panic leads.

While a vocal minority of fans may be worried about the potential for a crash and burn, a four game losing streak isn’t really anything to get bent about. This is baseball. All teams hit lulls at multiple points during the season. The goal is always to minimize those moments and hope like hell they don’t happen in October. And guess what… The Royals have been really, really good at avoiding those during the 2015 season. Truly.

The Royals maintain an image of Zen. They have been through the wars. They know this September is about positioning and preparing for October.

That doesn’t mean they don’t stop working during the regular season. With a relatively healthy team for the first time since early July, they are gearing for the stretch run. On this September night, the Royals came into this game with a plan. Their scouting reports apparently told them that the way to get to Twins starter Kyle Gibson was to attack early in the count. That should be no problem for these Royals, right?

Let’s look at the first inning:

Ben Zobrist - One pitch. Single.

Alex Gordon - One pitch. Single.

Lorenzo Cain - Four pitches. Walk.

Eric Hosmer - Two pitches. A foul and a bases-clearing double.

Kendrys Morales - One pitch. A run-scoring double.

The carnage: Nine pitches, four hits, one walk, and four runs.

The funny thing about those pitches is that Gibson’s worst pitch - his first one to Hosmer - was fouled. All those other pitches weren’t exactly in a poor location. Yet the Royals hitters at the top of the order were ready for them and put them in play. Until that second pitch to Hosmer, they were all fastballs, between 91 and 89 mph. The Hosmer double came on an 84 mph change-up. The Morales double was on a curve.

The next batter was Mike Moustakas. He, too, swung at the first pitch. He fouled it off and then looked at four straight pitches outside the strike zone.

The Twins quickly got someone going in their bullpen. While the Twins have been effectively eliminated from the Central, they are still very much alive for the second Wild Card. The Royals are resting and figuring ways to prepare for October. The Twins are fighting for their spot. Gibson was fortunate to finally reach the lower third of the Royals lineup, otherwise known as Hack City. Salvador Perez looked at strike one, then saw six pitches out of the zone. He swung at four of them. He finally flew out to center on pitch eight, a slider on the lower outside corner of the zone. Alex Rios, now chicken pox free, after fouling off the first two pitches, grounded into an inning-ending double play.

From there, Gibson made adjustments. The Royals did not. In fact, the only Royal to reach base after the first inning barrage was Gordon, who added a double and a single to his tally.

The way the Royals starting pitching has been going of late, four runs isn’t exactly a magic number to get the win. Yet Edinson Volquez was up to the challenge. He got into a spot of trouble himself in the first inning allowing a leadoff single and then hitting the next batter, but like Gibson, Volquez was able to steady himself and get out of trouble with an inning-ending double play.

Here’s the great thing about baseball: While it’s September, there’s always room for adjustments. According to McCullough’s gamer, Volquez has been working with pitching coach Dave Eiland::

In between starts, Volquez credited Eiland for sharpening some imperfections in his delivery. Eiland shortened up Volquez first step, which improved the tilt on Volquez’s pitches and added downward action on his fastball. Volquez required that quality on a fastball to Trevor Plouffe in the first inning. With two men on and one out, Plouffe hit into a double play.

The Royals have lost four in a row: basically taking the Labor Day weekend off just like you and me. They have been outscored 31-9 in those four games. They have lost six of their last eight. It may be the end of times…or probably not.

The last time Kansas City dropped four in a row, they proceeded to win three of the next four games with walk-offs on their way to winning nine of the next eleven. They still have an ELEVEN game lead in the division and a four game lead for the best record in the American League. You don’t care about having the best record? You’re not paying attention. That said, remain calm. (Insert Kevin Bacon picture from Animal House here because I’m too lazy to do so this morning).

You can easily compile a list of all the teams that have lost four games in a row by simply writing down pretty much every team in baseball. These things happen, especially when your starting rotation goes into a collective funk (which happens pretty often as well, by the way) and especially when you are a team with huge lead resting, well, everyone.

Since September 1st, the Royals have not started the same nine position players in consecutive games. Paulo Orlando, who likely won’t even be on the post-season roster has started five of the last seven games. Jonny Gomes, who might not be allowed to bring his glove to the ballpark in the post-season, has started four games in rightfield. Ben Zobrist has started at three different positions (meaning Omar Infante got three September starts and no, his defense is STILL not good enough to justify that bat) and Alex Gordon has only played three games in the field. That is not exactly a prescription to be an offensive juggernaut.

Nor is any of the above a criticism. I wrote some time ago that the tricky thing for Ned Yost for the rest of the season was to decide how much to rest his team and when to stop. Some talking heads have stated that none of September matters, but I would not go that far.

While I have beat this horse enough already, the Royals do not want to give up the best record in the AL and have to travel to Toronto to play Games 6 and 7 of the ALCS. They should want no part of Rogers Centre with the World Series on the line. Additionally, I do put some stock into the ‘dome’ aspect of the game of baseball. It exists because humans, however highly paid, are the test subjects. How much? That is an unsolvable debate for another day, but I do know that a couple of good Johnny Cueto starts at the end of September would be nice to have in the back pocket come Game One of the ALDS.

Therein lies the trick: you want to be rested and healthy going into the playoffs, but you do not want to be rusty or (gasp!) plagued by a little mental doubt. Sure, the Royals could play around with the lineup the entire month and score eight runs in the first two innings of Game One. That said, I would feel better (and it IS all about me) if the Royals had a good week or two of decent production from their playoff lineup heading into the post-season. I would feel better if the bullpen was back in their roles and back in sync well prior to calling on HDH with a 3-2 lead in the top of seventh. I would feel better if Johnny Cueto had gone seven innings his last two starts of the year while allowing just a run or two and if Yordano Ventura had struck out ten…..and not walked five in his last start.

No matter one’s belief in the mental side of the game, you are going to have a hard time convincing me that Kansas City can flounder through September and just flip the switch come the post-season. Flounder away for the next ten days, I say, but then let’s lock in the lineup and batting order and the bullpen and play like it matters.

To his credit, I will give Ned Yost the benefit of the doubt on this one. He has already (or at last, maybe) come around to the idea of batting Zobrist and Gordon one-two in the order. He has essentially benched Omar Infante. He may well be anticipating a plan of action along the same lines. We may very shortly see a set lineup three or four days in a row, followed by a couple of days of ’40 man stuff’ and then back to the set lineup for another string of games. As the season winds down, I expect to see more HDH, plus Madson and Morales, and less Alexander, Chamberlain and Almonte.

Your cautionary tale, however, is last year’s Angels. Who won ten in a row in early September to go up 11 games in the AL West and then lost nine of their last fourteen (including the last three) and then were swept by your Kansas City Royals in the ALDS. The circumstances are not exactly the same as the Angels did not have the luxury of having the first half of the month (or all of August for that matter) to rest regulars.

There probably are instances of teams just ‘flipping the switch’ and the Royals could quite possibly be one of them. I, for one, would not mind allowing a couple of weeks to not only flip the switch, but to change a bulb or two after doing so.

Edinson Volquez gave up six runs in three innings last night. An agonizing 78 pitch outing in a game that was full of runs, hits and took just this side of forever to complete. A game the Royals won by eight runs and it wasn’t even a surprise.

A starter and one of your best relievers out with the chicken pox? No problem. Your All-Star leftfielder playing at something less than 100%? Not an issue. Your third baseman out with a minor injury and your regular shortstop resting? All is well. Your most consistent starting pitcher being flat out awful and leaving after just three innings? Yawn. An eight run win to go 31 games over .500 and 13 games in front of the AL Central? Of course.

Welcome to dream world, kids.

The Royals, after a tough loss to Justin Verlander on Tuesday, have used 28 position players to score 27 runs over the past two nights. Sure, Detroit only kind of sort of cares at this point, but Kansas City just plain pummeled the Tigers and did so while employing more of a Spring Training approach to the games than a ‘coming down the stretch’ style. I remember the mid to last seventies. I liked those years. 2015 feels a lot like 1976 through 1980. There was a time not long ago when I was uncertain the Royals would ever thrill us like that again.

Kansas City finds itself with a six game lead for the best record in the American League this morning and that is really about all there is to play for at this point. I think there is some importance to maintaining that advantage as I have no desire to play Games 6 and 7 of the ALCS at Toronto. Yes, I know there is a playoff series before that one and yes, I bet the Angels were thinking some about the ALCS when they ran aground against the Royals in the ALDS, but I would very much like to have home field advantage in my back pocket. I would also like to see Toronto, you know, lose a game once in a while.

Upsets can and do happen. Houston is a weird-tough matchup for the Royals (should they not win the West) and the Yankees would be interesting just from a historical perspective, but the Royals will be favored in any ALDS series. The scary team is Toronto. The one team in the league I look at and actually wonder if they might be better than the Royals is the Blue Jays. The remainder of the month is, and here is some striking new analysis, about Kansas City getting healthy and getting primed to beat Toronto.

Encouraging signs that the Royals are getting there:

• Alex Gordon is back. His bat looks good, but does anyone else feel like Alex is not quite ready to go full force after balls in the outfield? I don’t blame him and frankly, he probably shouldn’t be laying out for a line drive against the fence with his team 30+ games over .500, but at some point I think Alex has a bit of a mental hurdle to get over. That is not a criticism, it is just pointing out that Gordon is human.
• Ned Yost intimated that he might consider batting Gordon lead-off, Zobrist second and Escobar somewhere else. Just when you think Ned is stubborn and doesn’t get it, he does. Look for the Royals to actually bat their two best on-base guys one and two come the post-season.
• Yordano Ventura has his mojo back. Oh yes, my friends, mojo exists and Yordano has it.
• Lorenzo Cain is a star. Over the winter, I said, you said, we all said “If Lorenzo Cain can parlay his post-season success into regular season performance than the Royals are going to have some fun in 2015”. He did, they are.
• Eric Hosmer is a star. Over the winter, I said, you said, we all said “If Eric Hosmer can parlay his post-season success into regular season performance than the Royals are going to have some fun in 2015”. He did, they are.

Warning signs that the Royals could encounter post-season trouble:

• Johnny Cueto has arguably had the worst three game stretch of his career. Some are panicking. Of course some panic every time Cueto has the audacity to give up hit. ‘Not an Ace’ is the mantra and it is stupid because everyone defines an ‘ace’ differently and most that say cannot be bothered to look up Cueto’s stats, game logs or anything that didn’t happen further back than the previous inning. That said, it is a bad time to have a rough patch for Cueto. He is simply not able to locate any of his pitches with any consistency and in the battle to fix that, Johnny has gone away from using his variety of deliveries and, hell let’s just say it, he has lost his mojo. There are way, way too many great starts (years worth if you bother to look it up) in Cueto’s history to panic quite yet. Concern? Yes, you can be concerned and I won’t scold you.
• Who is the closer? Is it Greg Holland? Is it Wade Davis? Does Ned Yost know? Certainly, we know the company line, but who do you trust with the Royals up one and Troy Tulowitzki at the plate and Josh Donaldson on deck? When Herrera returns, I pretty much expect Yost to go back to the traditional HDH and that might be okay. Are most of Holland’s past issues the result of a minor injury (early) or too much rest (more recently) or is he ‘losing it’? While we like to discount the mental side of the game as it cannot be quantified, it does exist. In the odd world of bullpen minds, certainty of roles seems to be critical. If it is HDH or bust, so be it, but the Royals need to decide well before the end of the season.
• Who plays rightfield? Will Jarrod Dyson hit? Will Jonny Gomes catch the ball? Will Alex Rios be interested? And no, Paulo Orlando has not done enough to ‘deserve’ a spot on the post-season roster. Unlike the delicate mind of a reliever, Yost can mix and match at this spot. Dyson and Gomes have been part-time players most of their careers and Rios? Well, he can’t be worse than when he was out there everyday as the Royals surged to an 82-51 record can he?
• The fourth starter. Ventura’s locked down the third spot in the playoff rotation, so it comes down to Medlen or Duffy. Hell, that’s NOT a problem.

So, remember when we used to have ten bullet points that should the Royals be able to solve them they MIGHT get into contention? We are down to four - three really - that if they are solved the Royals should end up in the World Series.

Don’t wake me up, I like this dream.

Seven innings, one run, eleven strikeouts, just one walk. That was Yordano Ventura’s Wednesday night. That will get a guy into the playoff rotation.

Last night was the fifth decent to great outing in a row for Ventura, covering a stretch of 32 innings in which he has allowed just 20 hits and four runs. Along the way Ventura, who struck out 11 batters for the second straight start, has fanned 43 while walking 13. If you eliminate the August 11th start that began this run - a somewhat odd two hit, six walk outing - Ventura has struck out 35 and walked just 7 in 26 innings. THAT is the guy we saw on Opening Day and the pitcher we expected to see throughout the year.

No need to chronicle Ventura’s string of odd injuries and occasional mental hiccups in 2015. We know them all too well and, knock wood, they all seem to be behind Yordano at this point. Without getting too complicated, Ventura was throwing hard last night:

Of course, Ventura always throws hard. Yet, according the Brooks Baseball, his fourseam fastball is actually slower in August (96.55 average) than it was in July (97.1), but his two-seam or sinker is faster. In fact, what Brooks calls a sinker is averaging 96.97 mph in August: faster than the fourseam fastball. You know what that tells this uneducated onlooker? It tells me the computer is having a hard time distinguishing between Ventura’s four and two seam fastballs and/or all his fastballs have some sink to them.

If that kind of data confusion was happening to a guy getting lit up, that would be one possible indication that a pitcher was throwing piles of slop up to the plate. When it happens with a pitcher on a run of domination, I am going to tend to believe he is throwing some nasty stuff up there and confusing (or maybe just flat out overpowering) batters as much as the machines. That is breakfast table analysis, but something to think about…for a few seconds.

Perhaps it is as simple as using a better mix of pitches. Since July 20th, Ventura has thrown his curveball at least 20% of the time in each of his starts. Last night, he threw it 28 times and induced six swing and misses. At the same time, Ventura has gone less and less to his changeup, particularly in his last four starts.

Oversimplification? You betcha. Funny thing is, when you have Yordano Ventura’s stuff, sometimes it really is simple.

By any account, this has been a wonderful summer. The Royals are the best team in the AL by a large margin. They have won 80 of their first 130 games. They are surpassing heights set previously by a team that took the field 35 years ago. This is a team that has been rolling almost since they won seven in a row to kick of the 2015 season.

They have survived an injury to their all-world left fielder. They have survived having a leadoff hitter with a .301 OBP. They have survived playing a black hole nearly everyday at second base. They have weathered the struggles of their closer.

The 2015 Royals have met each and every challenge head on as they have torn through the American League.

But can they survive chickenpox?

Before the start of the Tigers series on Tuesday, it was revealed the Royals had two cases of chickenpox within their ranks. Alex Rios was sent home from Tampa on a chartered jet on Saturday. Kelvin Herrera travelled the same way on Sunday.

The good news is, the Royals are hopeful that the disease is limited to those two. The bad news is, they can’t be sure.

The chickenpox overshadows the return of Alex Gordon to the lineup, the return of Frank White to the Kauffman Stadium field, the trade for Jonny Gomes, a slew of September call-ups, and the match-up between Justin Verlander and Johnny Cueto. Infectious diseases tend to cast a long shadow.

Fans were probably the most excited about the return of White as part of MLB’s Franchise Four festivities.

White, along with George Brett, Bret Saberhagen, and Dan Quisenberry were voted in as the four Royals who were the face of the franchise. Or something. Honestly, I’m confused by the criteria. Although since it was put to a fan vote, I would imagine there were millions of ballots to shuffle through.

I’m glad White is back in the Royals family, although I’m not as excited about it as I thought I would be. I’ve written about this at length, but I’m not a fan of how the episode was played out in public. Dan Glass is a convenient (and fitting) villain, but White didn’t exactly take the high road in all of this.

I guess what rubs me the wrong way about this is there have been a number of opportunities for White to come back. He could have been part of the postseason celebration. He could have come back for the Mike Sweeney Royals Hall of Fame induction ceremony. Hell, he could have just walked out of the dugout before some random game to deliver a first pitch. Instead, he comes back at a time when it’s more about the individual than about the team and the organization. I’m aware this is probably an unpopular opinion. White is a Royal deity. His number 20 is one of only three on that won’t be worn by a Royal again. Understood.

This isn’t to say White isn’t deserving of a “Franchise Four” designation. We all know his story. He is a Kansas City Royal. Maybe that’s why I have such a difficult time reconciling the estrangement between the team and one of the cornerstones of the franchise.

All water under the bridge. I’m glad he’s finally decided to come back. Whatever the circumstances. Kauffman Stadium is better with him on the field.

A more anticipated return undoubtedly belongs to Alex Gordon. Gordon has been out of the lineup for the better part of two months. In that stretch, the Royals have won 31 of 48 to pad their Central cushion by about 10 games. That’s not to say he hasn’t been missed. Still, it’s unbelievable the way the Royals were able to weather the Gordon Groin Injury of 2015. No small part of that was due to the late July arrival of Ben Zobrist.

Gordon marked his return by hitting sixth in the lineup. The hope here is that after he gets a few games of major league action under his belt, Yost jettisons Escobar from the leadoff spot and puts Gordon in that place. A Gordon/Zobrist one-two punch at the top of the order is dreamy. The two best place-setters up in front of some seriously productive run producers like Cain, Hosmer and Morales? That’s a strong, strong lineup.

Chickenpox arrives to knock this team for a loop, but with the return of Gordon, the Royals just improved their roster.

When the news broke the Royals acquired Jonny Gomes on Monday, the initial reaction was to ask, “Why?” Not that Gomes can’t contribute. As Clark chronicled on Tuesday, there is a role for a guy like Gomes on an October roster.

But with Rios down for the count with chickenpox, now we know why the Royals moved to make this trade.

Chickenpox tends to affect adults more harshly than kids. It doesn’t sound like a fun time. Plus, it’s Alex Rios. A pro tip for when estimating a Rios comeback, take the provided worst-case scenario and add a week. Rios could legitimately be down for four weeks before he returns to full strength. And as we saw when he came back from his hand injury, there’s no guarantee he will be ready when he returns. This isn’t Alex Gordon we are talking about here. Rios has a history of being a slow healer. Given the time of year, I just don’t think the Royals can count on him at this point.

So going forward, I expect we will see that platoon in right field we’ve been hankering for the last couple of months. Jarrod Dyson will start against the right-handed pitchers and Gomes will probably get plenty of time against the lefties. Paulo Orlando - who I thought was surplus when the Gomes deal was announced - is certainly still in the mix.

One very important factor to consider: Gomes is not a good defender. Plus, he’s played only 102 innings in right over the last three seasons. The Royals could use him almost exclusively as a pinch hitter. Although that seems far-fetched as well. Ned Yost has called on a pinch-hitter just 24 times this year, by far the fewest in the AL. The next closest team, the Minnesota Twins, has double the number of pinch-hit appearances. Yeah… Yost doesn’t feel the need to pinch-hit.

In that scenario, I see Dyson starting against the right-hander, then lifted for a Gomes PH if the opposition brings in a lefty. Then, Orlando goes to right to keep a solid defense on the field. Don’t forget, this is September baseball. Anything goes.

The point is, even with Rios down, there are myriad ways for Yost to fill that spot in right field.

Speaking of September, a little housekeeping is in order. On Tuesday, the Royals called up Francisco Pena, Christian Colon, Cheslor Cuthbert, and Terrance Gore, along with pitchers Scott Alexander and Miguel Almonte.

Alexander and Almonte were not on the 40-man roster. The Royals had one spot open after the Gomes acquisition. They moved Jason Vargas to the 60-day DL in order to free up the other one.

And about that game on Tuesday… Not so great. The Royals had chances, but just couldn’t ever grab that lead. It was the kind of game that would really hurt if they were in a tight pennant race. Good thing they have a sizable cushion.

The Royals magic number is 20.

The Royals traded a minor leaguer most prospect hounds didn’t even know much about and got cash back from the Braves last night. Oh, and Jonny Gomes, too. While minor in scale, this is a big boy trade. One we are used to seeing from the big market teams as they stock their bench for the post-season. Your Kansas City Royals are stocking their bench for the post-season….in August. Savor that for a while.

Here is what you need to know about Jonny Gomes:

• He destroys left-handed pitching. For his career, Jonny has a .275/.378/.483 triple slash against southpaws and a 133 wRC+. With the possible exception of Ben Zobrist, Gomes is probably the best hitter against lefties on the Royals roster right now.
• Gomes swings and misses a fair portion of the time (27% career strikeout rate), but he walks as well (10.4% career walk rate) and has gotten better at working the base on balls late in his career, posting a walk rate above 12% in three of the last five seasons.
• He cannot field. You can put him in left (4033 career innings) or in right (1173 career innings) and pick whatever defensive metric you want and it all comes out with a negative sign in front of the number.
• By all accounts, Jonny is helluva a guy in person and in the clubhouse. Some discount chemistry almost completely, some agonize over it way too much. Whatever your position on the issue, most agree the Royals have a ‘good’ clubhouse right now and nothing in Gomes reputation would seem to be a flag that he would do anything to disrupt that.

You can’t win them all.

As much as you’d like to, that’s just not going to happen. Although sometimes, one team may dominate the other to such a dramatic extent that it may seem like it, odds say it’s unlikely. That was the position the Royals found themselves in on Sunday afternoon against the Rays. They were going not only for a series sweep, they were going for a season sweep. The Rays aren’t an especially good team, but the Royals are, which made this possible in the first place. Those odds, though… They can be difficult to scrape by.

The Royals found themselves in a spot on Sunday where they needed length from their starter, Danny Duffy. Length and Duffy are rarely synonymous, and this again proved problematic as he needed 99 pitches to get through just five innings. As usual, it was the foul balls that added to his pitch count. Of his 99 pitches, 70 of them were strikes. Of those 70, a whopping 22 pitches were fouled.

According to Baseball Savant, batters foul off 19 percent of all of Duffy’s pitches. Among starters, that’s the 17th highest foul ball rate. Ahead of Duffy on the list are successful starters such as Jacob DeGrom, Max Scherzer, and Lance Lynn. Oh, and Johnny Cueto. An abundance of fouls doesn’t act as a limit on success. But for Duffy, the foul balls often preclude him pitching deep into games. It wasn’t control that cut his start short after five innings. He threw only 29 called balls on Sunday. It was the foul balls.

It should also be noted that Duffy was a supreme strike throwing machine in his start. He collected 18 swings and misses while striking out six. This was a departure for him. He’s seen his strikeout rate tumble to a career-low 5.7 SO/9 and has generated a swinging strike in just 7.2 percent of his strikes thrown. His swinging strike rate is well below league average of 9.8 percent.

Another way to frame it, in a game where strikeouts are on the increase, 20.2 percent of all plate appearances end with one. For Duffy, he’s striking out just 14.6 percent of all batters faced. His six whiffs were just one off his season high. And in 21 starts in 2015, it was just the third time he has struck out that many batters.

Again, it was the early accumulation of pitches that cut his start short. It was the fourth time in his last five starts that he failed to complete six innings. Since his eight inning outing against the White Sox on July 19, Duffy has averaged just five and a half innings per start. Sure, the Royals bullpen is a weapon, but to rely on it to that extent is a bit much.

The other story to come from the game on Sunday was the bizarre turn of events in the eighth inning when the Royals were threatening to tie the game. With KC down one, Ben Zobrist starts the inning with a walk. (Brief interlude… Can we talk about how great Zobrist has been for the Royals? Seriously. A 13.3 percent walk rate while hitting .327/.414/.509. I knew he would be an ideal addition to this team for his versatility and his ability to get on base, but he’s exceeding expectations. Just a massive pickup for the Royals.) With one out, Eric Hosmer singles him to third.

Up steps Kendrys Morales.

This is one of those times when the Baseball Gods smile on your team. Down one in the late innings on the road, and your top run producer steps to the plate. Forget RBI, Morales has been a rock in the middle of the Royals lineup. He has brought home 21 percent of all baserunners this year. That’s a phenomenal amount, second in the league only to Josh Donaldson among hitters who have had 300 or more runners on base. And he’s second by decimal points. (I don’t know how close they are. Baseball Reference rounds all of their Runners Scored percentages.)

Morales is even better when he comes to the plate with a runner on third and less than two outs. In that situation, he’s bringing the runner home 68 percent of the time. Again, among hitters who have had that opportunity at least 25 times, Morales ranks fourth in the AL.

Simply put, this is the guy you want up at the plate in this situation.

Morales grounded the ball down the first base line. James Loney fielded the ball and threw home to nail Zobrist at the plate. Then, catcher Rene Rivera needed to take just a couple of steps to lay the glove on Morales who didn’t move out of the batter’s box. Double play. Inning over.

So why didn’t Morales run? He thought the ball was foul. Replays seemed to confirm what Morales saw: Loney fielded the ball in foul territory. It wasn’t about being “lazy” as some pegged it on Twitter. It wasn’t about a lapse in concentration as others may claim. It was a guy who hit a foul ball.

One problem with this situation was the wrong umpire made the call. Loney fielded the ball in front of the first base bag, which means the call belongs to the home plate umpire. He made no distinction either way, which is the norm on a close play on the line. Instead, the first base umpire made the call. Except it’s not his call to make until the ball passes the first base bag.

Again, if you follow me on Twitter, you know my position on replay. I think it’s a garbage system. Defenders tell me it’s about “getting the call right.” If that’s so important, why is it limited? Why doesn’t it cover fair or foul balls. It would seem to me, those are among the most difficult calls for an umpire to make. If we are going to look at a blurry play from an out of position camera on a call at second base, why can’t New York look at where a ball lands or where a fielder makes a play in relation to a white line? It just doesn’t make sense to me.

Either way, the call stood. Morales was out. The rally was over. And the Royals chances for a series sweep were over.

An off day Monday, followed by a nine game homestand against AL Central teams. The next time the Royals take the field, it will be September, which means rosters will expand. Which also means we will have the return of Alex Gordon to the Royals lineup. That the Royals have done so well in his absence is a testament to this team. Still, seeing Gordon in the field will be a welcome sight. We are through the dog days and now in the home stretch.

The Royals magic number is 20.