SEATTLE -- After not starting for two games with lower back tightness, Vinnie Pasquantino returned to the Royals’ starting lineup for their Friday series opener against the Mariners at T-Mobile Park in his normal spot in the order, hitting third and playing first base.
“He feels better,” Royals manager Matt Quatraro said before the game. “It’s a good thing for him to keep moving.”
Of course, any doctor will tell you that the best sort of movement for a sore back is of the lower-intensity variety. That’s how Pasquantino started his day, going for a morning walk around Seattle with his wife. He continued it with two hours of pregame treatment.
And he capped it off with a nice, easy jog around the bases in the sixth inning of Kansas City’s 7-6 win, after blasting a four-seamer from Bryan Woo 404 feet off the facing of the second deck in right field for his fourth homer of the year.
“He had a good day,” Quatraro said postgame. “He took some good, aggressive swings; I didn’t see him favoring [his back] at all.”
A batter later, Jac Caglianone hit a towering fly ball that hung up in the air for 6.9 seconds and didn’t stop carrying until it fell 347 feet away from home plate for another solo home run -- the longest hang time on a Royals homer in the Statcast Era (since 2015).
After the game, Pasquantino said that he felt good, though that was likely to change at least a little bit when the adrenaline wore off. But a 2-for-5 night at the plate, after his brief interruption to the start of the season, certainly helps the short-term outlook. As does a win, in a wild back-and-forth game.
“Still got a lot of work to do physically, just to make sure we’re in the spot we need to be right now,” he said. “But it’s positive that I was able to go tonight, and I’ll be able to go tomorrow, and we’ll take it from there.”
Pasquantino exited Kansas City’s game against the A’s on Tuesday after his at-bat in the sixth inning, and was held out of the starting lineup in the Royals’ next two games in West Sacramento. He did come off the bench as a pinch-hitter Thursday in the ninth inning and drilled a 100.2 mph line drive, though it went straight to Zack Gelof for the final out of the game.
That swing was a good sign for Pasquantino, who told coaches that he wanted to return as the Royals left California and headed north. He kept the momentum going early Friday, pulling a four-seam fastball from Woo into right field for an RBI single to kick-start a four-run frame.
That hit came off Pasquantino’s bat at 107.3 mph. The homer -- on a 2-0 offering -- got out at 107.2 mph.
“It’s always good to do damage in damage counts,” Pasquantino said. “Taking a shot there, getting a good pitch to hit and just letting it rip was a good feeling.”
It’s exactly the sort of comeback the Royals wanted to see from the 28-year-old, who had seen his barrel rate fall from 10.8% last year to 7.2%, and his hard-hit rate drop nearly 10 points, from 44.7% to 34.9%.
“It’s huge,” said Bobby Witt Jr., who said he called Pasquantino’s homer in the dugout when the first baseman bluffed a bunt at the first pitch of the at-bat. “Our three-hole hitter, when he’s doing that, it’s special. When he’s back right, he’s a fun player to watch.”
That wasn’t the only sight for sore eyes from the Kansas City lineup, which came into the day roughly average in most basic offensive statistics -- tied for 16th with a .240 team average, 15th with a .711 OPS -- but had struggled tremendously early and in key spots.
In 31 first innings entering the day, Kansas City had managed a total of four runs, two of which came in the past two days in Sacramento. The Royals’ combined .189 first-inning average sat at 27th, as did their .506 first-inning OPS. Their .621 OPS with runners in scoring position ranked last in the league, and they’d only gotten two RBIs from pinch-hitters.
Friday was a different story. Kansas City plated four runs on five hits in the first inning, finished the night 4-for-10 with runners in scoring position and took the lead for good on Lane Thomas’ pinch-hit RBI single in the top of the eighth.
“Putting up the four runs [in the first] was nice, but being able to claw runs together like that, that’s even better,” Pasquantino said. “It was a really nice night for the offense, and we’ll try to continue that tomorrow.”