BALTIMORE — You don’t obtain celebrity standing in baseball on pace alone. Proof of Bobby Witt Jr.’s pace is throughout his 10.4-WAR season — 31 stolen bases, 45 doubles, 11 triples — however that’s not why he’s a 10-win participant. He’s a 10-win participant as a result of he posted a 168 wRC+ whereas taking part in elite protection at a premium place.
“That’s what makes him so distinctive is as a result of he’s acquired the ability,” Royals supervisor Matt Quatraro mentioned after the sport. “He’s acquired the bat to ball abilities, however he’s additionally acquired the pace that he will get infield hits, he can do a variety of various things. He’s actually the full bundle relating to bodily potential on the sphere.”
It was that pace that made the distinction in Kansas Metropolis’s 2-1 win over the Orioles on Wednesday night time. The second tense, low-scoring recreation in as many days prolonged Baltimore’s postseason dropping streak to 10 video games over 11 years. The Royals, now certain for the Division Sequence, have gained 9 of their previous 10 postseason collection, courting again 40 seasons.
However again to Witt’s legs. For all his different attributes, it’s necessary to keep in mind that the presumptive AL MVP finalist is freakishly quick. Actually Jordan Westburg gained’t neglect anytime quickly.
The Orioles’ second baseman went up the center to make a diving cease on a Witt grounder with two outs within the prime of the sixth and runners on the corners. It was an awesome cease, made by the hair on his chinny-chin-chin, full extension proof of Westburg’s dedication and his anticipation of a ball hit at 108.7 mph.
Westburg’s reverse quantity, Michael Massey, made a near-identical play two innings earlier to rob Ryan O’Hearn of a possible RBI single and protect a 1-0 lead, and on the time I assumed Massey’s cease was season-altering.
The distinction: O’Hearn is a slugging DH with Sixty fourth-percentile dash pace. Witt, one of many quickest gamers within the league, if not the quickest, hauled ass out of the field and beat Westburg’s throw. Not by a lot, however he beat it. That effort, which may’ve come off the bat of any Punch-and-Judy speedster as an alternative of essentially the most harmful hitter the Royals have had since George Brett, prolonged the inning and allowed Kyle Isbel to attain the go-ahead run from third.
It was Witt’s second game-winning RBI in as many profession postseason appearances.
With a 1-0 Royals win on Tuesday and a 2-1 Royals win on Wednesday, it’d be cheap to imagine that each video games had comparable contours. That wasn’t actually the case. A person-on-man pitchers’ duel in Recreation 1 led right into a buffet of missed alternatives in Recreation 2. Visitors on the bases was fixed. Each starters, Seth Lugo and Zach Eflin, persistently flirted with hazard however prevented going residence with it. Neither lasted 5 innings, although every departed having allowed solely a single run.
The Royals and Orioles mixed to attain three runs however go away 21 males on base and go 2-for-13 with runners in scoring place, each Royals singles on unremarkable groundballs. The truth is, the 2 golf equipment mixed to go 4-for-23 with runners in scoring place. All 4 hits have been singles. One was Witt’s decisive infield hit in Recreation 2; the opposite three maxed out at 90.5 mph. The Orioles’ lone hit with runners in scoring place within the collection, a Cedric Mullins knock within the fifth inning of Recreation 1, didn’t even rating a run.
The Royals, who waited till the sixth inning to attain on Tuesday, drove residence their first batter of the afternoon Wednesday. Massey led off the sport with a double, moved to 3rd on a grounder to the proper aspect by Witt, who was deep into his Freddie Patek tribute act all afternoon, then scored on a single by Vinnie Pasquantino.
Eflin and Lugo traded zeroes for the subsequent 4 innings, however in distinction to Recreation 1, when Cole Ragans and Corbin Burnes may as nicely have been throwing to empty batter’s containers, openings stored showing. The Orioles, having scored a single run in 18 innings of a house playoff collection, will spend all winter tossing and turning over the ineptitude of their offense — and they need to — however they have been on the verge of attending to Lugo.
In distinction to pitchers who may preserve one thing in reserve early within the recreation, in order to provide totally different appears to be like on subsequent journeys by way of the order, Lugo threw eight totally different pitch sorts to his first 9 batters. And it was simply barely sufficient. The Orioles had baserunners within the first and second innings. They put two males on with one out within the fourth, moved them each into scoring place with two outs, and thanks partly to Massey’s acrobatics, got here away with nothing.
Mullins, Baltimore’s lone offensive vivid spot in Recreation 1, crushed a house run to start out the fifth inning, after which the Orioles went to work on a rally. A single, a stroll, and a fielding error by Lugo loaded the bases with no person out, and introduced 40-homer man Anthony Santander, an Orioles lifer taking part in what may nicely be his final recreation in black and orange, to the plate.
The previous decade has been fairly tough for Orioles followers. Due to entrance workplace ineptitude adopted by possession neglect disguised as a half-decade-long tank job, the Orioles went eight years between residence playoff video games. In final yr’s ALDS towards Texas, with the video games approaching a weekend and Baltimore a heavy favourite, there was an irrepressible pleasure within the crowd.
This time round, having been annoyed final October, the environment was just a little extra subdued. This being a giant ballpark in a tiny metropolis on a weekday afternoon, there have been some 6,000 empty seats in Camden Yards for Recreation 2. However greater than that, the happy-to-be-here was gone. The group wouldn’t accept one other runner-up’s ribbon.
As an alternative, they have been begging for a cause to blow up. Lugo, the person of 1,000,000 pitches, grooved a 93 mph four-seamer proper down the pipe to Mullins, who won’t be the 30-homer risk he was a couple of years in the past, however is hitter sufficient to blast a meatball like that into the seats.
Concurrently, decade’s value of catharsis poured out of the stands. When the Orioles loaded the bases and chased Lugo inside the subsequent 4 hitters, it solely acquired louder. This was the second. Clearly. Baltimore’s star-studded offense was about to erupt like an unclogged pipe.
The optimism lasted a matter of moments. Reliever Angel Zerpa managed to strike out Colton Cowser on a pitch that truly hit the Orioles outfielder, inflicting what turned out to be a season-ending hand harm. Adley Rutschman adopted. The star catcher has been mired in a half-season-long hunch, and earlier within the recreation had crushed a ball that might’ve gone over principally any wall within the park, besides the 410 foot mark in deep heart area. Which is the place he put it.
Rutschman grounded out to Witt to finish the inning. No additional harm, and some minutes later, the man who acquired drafted one choose after Rutschman drove within the ultimate run of the collection.
The Orioles scratched out two-out baserunners in each the seventh and eighth innings, however the bases loaded, no out scenario they wasted within the fifth… nicely, they’ll have to attend till April to see one other probability that good.
The Royals pleasure themselves on their pitching and protection. “That’s what we preach as Royals,” Witt mentioned. “We play protection, run onerous, be aggressive, in order that’s what we’ve acquired to do to maintain profitable.”
And you can argue that this sweep is a triumph of Kansas Metropolis’s run prevention. Witt and Massey have been very good defensively, Ragans electrical in his first postseason begin. The Royals’ bullpen had been a legal responsibility for many of the yr, and other than Lucas Erceg, I didn’t have a lot religion in it coming into the collection. In 7 2/3 innings of labor throughout two video games, these relievers have been very good. Flawless, you may say, since they didn’t permit a single run to cross the plate on their watch.
I’ve been impressed with Pasquatino’s toughness, and Massey’s persistence, and Quatraro’s regular hand on the tiller as a supervisor getting his first style of postseason motion. We’ve already seen one underdog Royals group flip right into a postseason juggernaut previously decade. Why not two?
“I feel it’s the beginning of one thing particular,” mentioned Witt. “Like I preserve saying, we didn’t come this far simply to return this far, so we’re going to maintain getting after it, preserve making an attempt to create our personal legacy.”
As a lot because the Royals have seized this chance with each arms, there’s an apparent distinction to their opponents, who did a variety of issues nicely on this collection. Baltimore’s pitching was championship-quality. The Orioles made a number of very good defensive performs, and stored stringing collectively powerful at-bats, whilst they went unrewarded.
However for the second time in as a few years, this group, the product of 5 years of irritating preparation, went out within the first spherical to a heavy underdog after going 0-2 at residence. They don’t want anybody to remind them to be upset. Their two franchise gamers, Rutschman and Gunnar Henderson, will each endlessly be linked to Witt for one cause or one other. And whereas each stored their heads on the sphere, their frustration was seen from the press field after each unproductive out.
The tank acquired the Orioles a preposterously proficient core that has so far gone oh-fer in October. Now Burnes, Santander, and John Means are going to be free brokers this offseason. Mullins can stroll in a yr. Is it churlish to level out that Rutschman, who not like Witt has not been signed till the Rapture, is barely three seasons wanting his stroll date?
We’ll see within the collection to return how a lot of the Royals’ magic is sturdy. Their narrative is, at most, solely half-written. However the Orioles shut the guide on 2024 at a second of nice import. They’re not cute. They’re not the younger upstart with extra baby-faced and towheaded All-Stars than they’ve lineup spots for. They’re a membership that’s quickly approaching a put up-or-shut up second.
The followers are begging for a cause to cheer. How for much longer should they be made to attend?
