MINNEAPOLIS – What does career RBI No. 400 mean to Bobby Witt Jr.?
Not as much as the comeback win the Royals put together on Saturday afternoon.
The Royals were sure happy to see both, with Witt’s milestone RBI representing the go-ahead knock in their 3-2 comeback win over the Twins at Target Field. Immediately after the Twins took the lead on Orlando Arcia’s pinch-hit home run in the eighth, the Royals countered with small ball, tying the game again on Carter Jensen's sacrifice fly and taking the lead when Witt lined a splitter over the shortstop Arcia’s glove into left field.
“That’s Royals baseball right there,” Witt said. “Just playing the game. …That was a great team win.”
For the Royals to scratch that win out, it did take contributions from everyone. Witt had the game-winning hit and milestone moment; just over a week until Witt’s 26th birthday, he became the fifth MLB player with 400-plus RBIs and 150-plus stolen bases before age 26 since RBIs became official in 1920. The others on that list: Mike Trout, Cesar Cedeno, Ronald Acuña Jr. and Ben Chapman.
But it took a number of things to go right to get Witt to the plate. Trailing by a run in the ninth, Isaac Collins led off with a single and pinch-runner Tyler Tolbert stole second. When Josh Rojas bounced a ball back to reliever Eric Orze, Tolbert somehow got back to second base, even with a huge lead off the bag, before Orze’s throw. Rojas reached first base, putting two on with nobody out, drawing a sacrifice bunt from Kyle Isbel that moved the runners up.
“When you flip the order over there,” manager Matt Quatraro said, “you really like your chances.”
Jensen got a ball deep enough into right field that Tolbert was able to score easily on the sacrifice fly, bringing Witt up for the game-winning moment.
“There’s so much that goes into it – it’s just good baseball,” Jensen said. “It’s fun to watch, fun to play. Everybody just did their job.”
The job was not done, though. One-run leads are perilous, and Royals reliever Alex Lange walked the tightrope in the bottom of the ninth. He allowed a leadoff double to Kody Clemens and a two-out walk to Victor Caratini. Royce Lewis worked a full count, laying off some good pitches and fouling off a few more, before Lange snuck a cutter inside for called strike three.
It was Lange’s third save in the last four games.
“Big adventure out there,” Lange said. “Long ABs, good ABs by them. … I love being out here, I love being in this locker room, I love being around the guys. Any opportunity I get to toe the mound and wear this uniform is pretty special.”
That capped an impressive pitching performance from the Royals on Saturday, which started with Luinder Avila continuing to, as Lange said, “open eyes around the league.”
Avila’s two starts since joining the rotation full-time have quickly shown his value as a starter, including five innings of one-run ball Saturday. He held the Twins hitless through four innings, a fact he was well aware of, he said with a grin. He was even impressive facing trouble in the fifth when the Twins loaded the bases with two outs. A sacrifice fly tied the game, but Avila got out of it with a double play that he started.
“I knew when I had the bases loaded, I had to bear down and go hard at them to avoid runs,” Avila said through interpreter Luis Perez.
Avila relied on his changeup-slider combination Saturday, with the changeup standing out the most because he hadn’t used it as much (9% on the year) as he did Saturday (24%).
“It’s a testament to him on why we threw it so much,” Jensen said. “It was working so well. It was just setting people up, seeing how hitters react to certain pitches, and the changeup was there.”
The high-stress fifth inning marked the end of Avila’s day as the Royals turned it over to the bullpen. Avila is still working his way up to a full starter’s workload and was limited to the 75-80 range; he ended Saturday at 70 pitches after five innings and two times through the order with the full strength of the Royals’ high-leverage bullpen available, which included a scoreless seventh inning from Lucas Erceg – just as important for the Royals as anything Saturday following his struggles in the ninth inning lately.
“I got a lot of confidence in these guys top to bottom,” Lange said. “It’s a lot of fun to watch these guys compete and work every day. There’s a lot of fight in us.”