Royals 6, Rangers 1
Royals 6, Rangers 1
- And thus doth the latest Rangers winning streak come to an end.
- Not a good outing for Leiter, who struggled with pretty much all his pitches in the game. Leiter allowed exit velocities of 105.0 or higher on four different types of pitches — fastball, slider, changeup and sinker — and generated just eight whiffs in his outing.
- He was particularly rocked by Bobby Witt the Younger and Sal Perez, who combined for five of the eight hits Leiter gave up, with Witt having a double and a homer and Perez a double and a pair of homers.
- Location, location, location is key for both real estate and Jack Leiter, and we can look at Leiter’s pitch map from Tuesday and see how that went:
- Leiter introduced a spiked changeup into his repertoire this spring, and it can be effective, but its very much still a work in progress. Too often the changeup bounces before it gets to the plate or otherwise is way below the zone. The change will be a weapon if Leiter sharpens his command of it, but as of now, its a mystery at any given time as to where it will end up.
- So its been a couple of difficult outings in a row for Leiter, outings where he hasn’t missed bats and has struggled with his command a reminder that he’s still a rookie and still, like his changeup, a work in progress.
- Leiter gave up all six runs in the game. Caleb Boushley came in behind him and did solid mop-up work, retiring all ten batters he faced to end the game, so that’s something at least.
- The offense was unproductive, though they did face a very good opposing starting pitcher in Seth Lugo. The one run scored when Corey Seager reached on a bad hop double and Alejandro Osuna flared two out single into right center, a pair of weakly hit balls that combined for a tally.
- In a normal situation, we’d shrug this off as just one of those games for the offense. The bats having struggled all season, though, one tends to naturally veer into “here we go again, the offense is back to sucking” mode when an egg is laid in such a fashion.
- Jack Leiter maxed out at 99.4 mph with his fastball, averaging 97.3 mph. Caleb Boushley’s sinker hit 93.5 mph.
- Wyatt Langford had a 111.4 mph lineout. Corey Seager had a 103.9 mph single and a 101.0 mph lineout. Alejandro Osuna had a 101.0 mph ground out.
- Shake it off and let’s take the next one.