Daily Clips
March 18, 2018
LOCAL
Moustakas slugs 1st HR since rejoining Royals
Lefty continues hot start to spring; Skoglund battles back; Gordon continues to struggle
March 17, 2018By Allan Eskew/MLB.com
Jay likely to open as Royals' leadoff hitter
Veteran outfielder has career .288 average from top spot
March 17, 2018By Allan Eskew/MLB.com
A contact lens rips, home runs fly for Royals in doubleheader against Rangers
March 17, 2018By Maria Torres/KC Star
Jorge Soler has gone unnoticed in outfield this spring. Here's why that's a good thing
March 17, 2018By Maria Torres/KC Star
Yost, Royals are confident a limited spring will suffice for Mike Moustakas
March 17, 2018By Rustin Dodd/The Athletic KC
Royals notebook: Outfielder Jon Jay positioned to lead off; Hahn to start throwing in April
March 17, 2018By Rustin Dodd/The Athletic KC
MLB TRANSACTIONS
March 18, 2018 •.CBSSports.com
LOCAL
Moustakas slugs 1st HR since rejoining Royals
Lefty continues hot start to spring; Skoglund battles back; Gordon continues to struggle
March 17, 2018By Allan Eskew/MLB.com
There was some concern that Mike Moustakas would not get enough at-bats to get his timing down before Spring Training concludes. But after two games, Moustakas has put any anxieties to rest.
Moustakas did not re-sign with the Kansas City Royals until last week and did not play in a game until Friday, when he laced a two-run single against the San Diego Padres as the designated hitter.
Moustakas did even better Saturday while playing the field. His one-out single ignited a four-run first inning and he homered to lead off the third in the Royals' 7-6 split-squad victory over the Texas Rangers.
"A really good day for Moose," Royals manager Ned Yost said. "It's not taking him long to get his timing back, that's for sure. A good day. He got five innings underneath him defensively and 2-for-3, a homer and a single."
Moustakas drove a 1-0 Bartolo Colon pitch out to right.
"He's been working out some, but to jump right in and face Major League-style pitching is pretty difficult," Yost said. "He's been doing pretty good so far."
Yost said Moustakas would be the designated hitter Sunday against the Angels. After an off-day Monday, Yost said Moustakas would alternate days at third and DH until the club breaks camp.
"Try to get him as many at-bats as we can, see where he's at," Yost said. "I don't think I'm going to have to find a bunch of extra at-bats so far the way we're looking."
Moustakas broke the franchise record for home runs last year, with 38.
Skoglund shows moxie
Left-hander Eric Skoglund yielded three runs on four hits in the first inning of Saturday's early game, but nothing after that. Skoglund finished with six strikeouts and no walks in four innings. This spring, he has struck out 11 and walked none over 10 2/3 innings.
"I need some adversity -- I think that was a good takeaway from it, and just being able to battle back, I think that's awesome," Skoglund said. "Last year, I'd give up three in the first and then kind of let that snowball. I just wanted to nip that really quick, come back in the second and have a 1-2-3 inning."
Skoglund -- the Royals' No. 8 prospect, according to MLB Pipeline -- retired the final nine batters he faced, striking out five.
"It's tough out here in Arizona -- you have this high sky and some miscues," Skoglund said. "So it's going to happen. I was able to get some weak contact, broke some bats and the defense made some great plays. You have to come out here and put up zeroes. I'm trying to simplify as much as I can and try to get better every single day."
Gordon's spring struggles continue
Alex Gordon went 0-for-4 with two strikeouts and two ground outs to drop his average to .103. He is hitless in his last 24 at-bats, going back to March 6. Gordon doubled in his first game on February 24 and does not have another extra-base hit this spring. He has struck out 12 times in 39 at-bats. The 34-year-old five-time Gold Glove Award winner hit .208 last season.
Injury update
Outfielder Paulo Orlando remains sidelined with a strained hamstring.
"He is getting closer," Yost said. "He did a little jogging yesterday and felt it a little bit on the first couple of steps."
Camp battle
Infielder Ryan Goins, who is trying to earn a utility spot, went 1-for-3 with a double. He is hitting .414. Goins started at second base and made two putouts and an assist. Ramon Torres, another utility infield candidate, started at shortstop and went hitless in three at-bats, striking out once, to drop his average to .323. In the field, he had three assists.
Up next
The Royals will host the Angels on Sunday with Danny Duffy starting. First pitch is scheduled for 3:05 CT. The game will be broadcast live on MLB.TV and an exclusive audio webcast. Yost has named Duffy his Opening Day starter on March 29 against the White Sox.
Jay likely to open as Royals' leadoff hitter
Veteran outfielder has career .288 average from top spot
March 17, 2018By Allan Eskew/MLB.com
Jon Jay will likely start the season batting leadoff for the Kansas City Royals.
Jay, who signed a one-year deal with the Royals on March 6, has a career .288 batting average and a .339 on-base percentage in 225 games as the leadoff hitter. Whit Merrifield was the Royals' primary leadoff hitter last season. In 115 games from the No. 1 spot, Merrifield hit .269 with a .299 on-base percentage.
"Right now, we're probably inching a little bit more toward Jon Jay," Royals manager Ned Yost said. " ... Whit stays pretty consistent offensively; we can back him up to the two or the three spot.
"We still haven't finalized it. The options are probably Whit or Jon Jay and I'm kind of leaning toward Jon Jay right now."
Jay played in 53 games as the leadoff hitter for the Chicago Cubs last season, hitting .267 with a .325 on-base percentage.
The Royals have struggled to get production out of the top spot in recent years. Last season, the club's leadoff hitters combined for a Major League-worst .279 on-base percentage, with a .655 OPS and 89 runs scored, both of which ranked 29th in the Majors (and last in the American League).
Jay should upgrade those statistics. He broke into the Majors in 2010 with the St. Louis Cardinals, and has hit .288/.355/.383 across his eight-year career. Jay hit .296 overall in 141 games last year with the Cubs.
"I like what he brings," Yost said. "He's a very experienced player. He's a very routine-oriented player. He's a very smart player. I watch him during the game and he's never not on the top step, watching and really paying attention to particulars and detail. He's always been a very solid offensive player. He's going to hit somewhere between .290 and .300 and he's going to play a very, very smart game.
"He's just a very solid outfielder. I don't think he's flashy, by any stretch of the imagination. He's very smart. He knows how to position himself and be at the best spot at the right time."
Jay went 1-for-4 in a 7-6 victory over the Rangers in a split-squad doubleheader for both teams. In six games this spring, he is hitting .368 (7-for-19).
In addition to the Spring Training signings of left-handed bats Lucas Duda and Mike Moustakas, Jay helps give Yost a more balanced lineup.
"When we came to camp, my only left-handed bat in the lineup was [Alex Gordon]," Yost said. "Now we've got a pretty good left-right, left-right [balance]."
A contact lens rips, home runs fly for Royals in doubleheader against Rangers
March 17, 2018By Maria Torres/KC Star
When the Texas Rangers sent six hitters up in the first inning of Saturday’s split doubleheader at Surprise Stadium, Royals starter Eric Skoglund just shook off the pressure.
He hadn’t been in a situation like this yet in his Cactus League season. Save for a homer his last outing and the six total hits he’d scattered over three other appearances, he’d barely hit a speed bump on the mound.
Instead of panicking, Skoglund ignored the scoreboard in what became the Royals’ 7-6 win in the opener. After escaping the first inning with three runs on four hits, a couple of miscues in the outfield by Jon Jay and a throwing error by Salvador Perez, Skoglund retired the last nine batters he faced.
He recorded six strikeouts in four innings and again didn’t issue any free passes in his fourth appearance of the spring.
After the game, he was grateful to have encountered the adversity.
“I wanted to see in myself I was able to bounce back,” said Skoglund, who appeared in seven major-league games and posted a 9.50 ERA with the Royals last season. “Last year, that would have been something I struggled with — gave up three in the first inning and then kind of let that snowball. So I just wanted to nip that really quick.”
Skoglund’s steadiness on the mound allowed home runs by Mike Moustakas, Lucas Duda and Jorge Soler to loom large for most of the first game of Saturday’s split doubleheader.
Moustakas, in just his second spring game, went 2 for 3 with one RBI. He played at third base for the first time and handled the position with ease. Manager Ned Yost said he’ll rotate Moustakas between third base and designated hitter for the rest of spring training, which concludes with an exhibition game against the Class AAA Storm Chasers on March 26 in Omaha, Neb.
Duda launched a three-run homer into the garden in front of the batter’s eye in center field, where the outfield wall is 400 feet from home plate.
Soler pulled a solo homer into the berm beyond the Royals’ bullpen in left field.
All three homers were allowed by Rangers starter Bartolo Colon, against whom the Royals knocked out seven of their 11 hits.
If not for a two-run double by prospect Emmanuel Rivera in the eighth inning that extended the Royals’ lead to 7-3, reliever Sam Gaviglio might have endangered what is now a four-game winning streak for the Royals. Gaviglio gave up five straight hits, including a three-run homer to Devin Hood, before retiring the next three batters to end the game.
Alex Gordon continued a recent skid, striking out twice. He is now 0 for 24 with two walks and 10 strikeouts in his last eight games.
In the nightcap, Jakob Junis built on his nearly flawless Cactus League season, allowing one earned run in four innings and striking out four Texas batters.
Junis, who's allowed two earned runs and one walk in 10 innings over three outings, was scheduled to throw five frames. But trouble with his left contact lens cost him the extra inning. The lens tore in his eye as he started the fourth inning, in which he walked the leadoff batter and gave up an RBI double to the wall in left-center field.
"I just totally took them out," said Junis, who couldn't acquire a replacement pair of lenses quick enough to re-enter the game. "That was a big mistake. I couldn't see anything. It was really blurry up there the rest of the inning.
"Now I know not to take them out, just to wear the one ripped one."
But even with his lenses discarded on the mound, Junis limited the damage to two runs, one of which scored on an error by shortstop Alcides Escobar.
Later, a homer off the bat of Royals 2017 first-round draft pick Nick Pratto took Junis off the hook. The left-handed hitter roped a two-run shot in the seventh inning to put the Royals ahead in what ended as a 5-5 tie.
Pratto, appearing as the designated hitter in his first major-league spring-training game, struck out in his previous two at-bats. But he barreled a 2-0 pitch in his third plate appearance and buried the baseball in the right-field corner.
Fellow first-base prospect Ryan O'Hearn also clubbed a home run for the fourth time in his last six at-bats.
"He's sure been hot," Royals manager Ned Yost said. "Him and (Frank) Schwindel. ... I'm amazed. It's fun to watch them do it."
The Royals (12-10-2) have scored 53 runs since losing to the Rangers 5-1 on Monday night.
Jorge Soler has gone unnoticed in outfield this spring. Here's why that's a good thing
March 17, 2018By Maria Torres/KC Star
The work took place in blocks, long before the first pitch of a Cactus League ballgame here was ever played this spring.
Before the demotion to Class AAA Omaha, Royals instructor and former first-base coach Rusty Kuntz would set up drills in the Kauffman Stadium outfield last summer and work closely with Jorge Soler.
Sometimes he would take a slow first step on a 45-degree turn to the outfield corner. Sometimes he would nail the quick turn but was too slow chasing down the fly ball that Kuntz skied in his direction.
The bag of results was always mixed. The pre-2017 assessment of Soler’s defensive ability by Jim Bowden, the former Washington Nationals general manager turned baseball analyst, often rang true: Soler, he wrote in an article for ESPN, “is a well-below-average right fielder.
“The Royals can get away with his poor defense because they have the game’s best defensive left fielder in Alex Gordon and a special defender in center field with Lorenzo Cain. So I’m not questioning the deal, but I'm just pointing out they misevaluated his defense if they think he’s average.”
But such is no longer the case. Cain became a free agent and agreed to a five-year contract with the Brewers. Gordon entered spring-training camp in Surprise knowing he’d have to bear some of the weight in center field. The Royals signed Jon Jay to shore up their starting outfield, a move made about a week before it was announced that outfielder Jorge Bonifacio would serve an 80-game suspension for testing positive for performance-enhancing drugs.
There’s no way now the Royals can get by stashing Soler from the field this season. Besides the fact he ran out of minor-league options when he spent the majority of 2017 with Omaha, the Royals cannot justify the post-2016 trade of All-Star closer Wade Davis to the Cubs for Soler if he can't produce at the major-league level.
So it’s a good sign, then, that Soler has drawn nothing but rave reviews this spring. Coaches have heralded him for trimming his weight during the offseason and shedding about 20 pounds so that he can move more freely in the outfield.
“The hips work, the knees work, the feet are much quicker and he’s able to get into a better route quicker, which increases the range as he goes after the ball,” Kuntz said.
Royals manager Ned Yost has also noticed Soler’s progress.
Or not noticed.
“He’s gone completely unnoticed to me in the outfield,” Yost said. “He’s making all the plays. His drop-steps, his turns, his routes have all looked very good to me. … It’s been very noticeable for me because I haven’t noticed it.”
Soler has not looked over-matched in the field at any point through his first 12 games there. The windy conditions will mess with him at times — as in the first game of the spring, when as he went back on a fly ball at the warning track, the ball popped out of his glove. But never to the extent that Yost has called on Kuntz or Mitch Maier, who is in his first season as the Royals’ first-base coach and previously served as a minor-league outfield and base running coordinator, to work something out.
That wasn’t always so last year. Soler only logged 152 innings in the major-league outfield but still rarely seemed to inspire confidence.
Maier, who played for the Royals from 2006-12, didn't think Soler's lacking dexterity would last. Soler, 25, was just inexperienced, undisciplined in a certain regard.
“That’s a normal progression for a lot of players,” Maier said. “… It’s nice to see that he did the proper adjustments.”
Now, after a full season under Kuntz’s and Maier’s tutelage, Soler feels more comfortable than ever. He'd never been taught what to do with his feet when the ball came off the bat. He'd range back with his feet turned the opposite direction of where he needed to go, then flip his stance.
Kuntz drilled it into Soler that the way he once approached outfield play wouldn’t fly. Kuntz worked until it became second-nature for Soler to set his feet in the correct direction as soon as the ball hit the bat, eliminating the unnecessary turn.
It’s paid off.
“I’m breaking faster on the batted ball,” Soler said in Spanish. “I’m seeing it better and reacting sooner.