MESA, Ariz. -- Five days ago, the Cubs ambushed Cole Ragans at Surprise Stadium for seven runs in 2 1/3 innings. Sure, it’s only Spring Training, where results don’t matter much, but Ragans wasn’t happy with it.
“I get pissed off if I give up a lot of runs, and seven runs, regardless of if it’s Spring Training or not, it’ll keep you thinking,” Ragans said.
The thoughts pestered Ragans until Thursday, when he took the mound again for his fourth Cactus League start this spring, once again against the Cubs but this time at Sloan Park, and this time with better results. The lefty faced 10 batters across three innings, struck out six of them, and only allowed one hit on an infield single in the Royals’ 9-3 win.
It looked a lot more like the pitcher Ragans has become over the last two seasons with the Royals: Their young ace.
“He was locked in,” manager Matt Quatraro said. “... Life on the fastball was really good, not just the velo, but you could tell it had some hop on it. He located his slider. And like [pitching coach] Brian [Sweeney] talks about, he’s got to be unpredictable. He did a good job of that.”
Ragans felt good with his velocity and the swing and miss he generated. Execution was his issue on Saturday; by Thursday, he was finding his spots and keeping hitters off balance.
“It’s in a good place,” Ragans said. “Means my mechanics are in a good place, I’m in the zone, I’m filling it up, everything’s looking similar if I’m getting swing and miss. I’m not babying this pitch where they’re picking up. Everything’s coming out of the same spot, doing what it’s supposed to do.”
In between starts this week, Ragans focused on execution against lefties, putting a left-handed dummy in the box during his bullpen to simulate how his stuff was playing. His goal this year is to be unpredictable to lefties after significant reverse splits last year.
In 2024, righties slashed .195/.274/.321 against Ragans. Lefties slashed .276/.341/.382, although it was in a much smaller sample. He relied heavily on his fastball and slider against the lefty batters, so getting more consistent with the slider this year should help.
But he wants to figure out ways to use his entire arsenal against both sides of the plate.
“Getting comfortable with fastballs here and there,” Ragans said. “And all my offspeed. I use everything to righties, I can’t limit myself to fastball-slider to lefties. It’s a two-pitch mix. I have to figure out how to incorporate all my pitches, when and where to use them.
“And I felt like tonight I mixed well.”
On Saturday, Ragans allowed homers to two left-handed batters in Pete Crow-Armstrong and Moises Ballesteros. Michael Busch, another lefty, hit a double and triple off Ragans, who remembers vividly how well Busch sees the ball against him and noted that even the flyout Busch hit last July was a hard-hit warning-track out.
On Thursday, Busch was 0-for-1 against Ragans. Crow-Armstrong flied out to center. Ragans also struck out Kyle Tucker, another lefty.
“Spring Training is the time to work on stuff, but I want to get outs,” Ragans said. “I want to have good results. You pick and choose where you want to work on things. Even though it’s Spring Training, I still watch video. I still jot down notes.”
Long feels lucky
When a 107 mph line drive came screaming back at Sam Long on Monday, his reflexes took over and his left hand shot up, deflecting the ball from his head. It caused quite the scare -- and a lot of pain.
“I thought it blew up on me at first,” Long said.
Long exited the game and went for testing, but no fractures or breaks were detected. Now he’s just dealing with a large bruise on the palm of his hand -- not ideal for throwing, but he’s able to grip the ball and threw his first bullpen session since the incident on Thursday.
Best-case scenario would be for Long to feel good enough after his bullpen to get back in a game this weekend, but he and the Royals have to assess his hand on Friday first. Long already feels like he’s playing catch-up because he had the flu early in camp, causing him to miss a few days and delay game action. He’s still confident that he’ll get enough outings, and he’s more established in the Royals 'pen after posting a 3.16 ERA in 2024.
“It’s time to lock in and not leave that slider up anymore,” Long said about the comebacker. “Teach me a lesson.”