Salvador Perez’s 1st Inning homer powers Royals to a rain-shortened 2-1 win

And Kyle Isbel’s freak play helped the Royals get past the finish line

With rain in the forecast, the Royals’ window to get a win and leave Kansas City with a 3-1 series win over Toronto was small. Salvador Perez creaked it open before Kyle Isbel slammed it shut right as the rain came to end a five-inning 2-1 Royals win.

Kansas City improves to 16-10 while the struggling Blue Jays fall to .500. It also marks the Royals’ first five-inning win since July of 2005.

The Royals got off to a quick start against former Twins’ All-Star Jose Berrios. The righty retired the first two Royals before Vinnie Pasquantino drew his 15th walk of the season. Salvador Perez sent Berrios’ next pitch into the Blue Jays bullpen for his 7th homer of the season.

Berrios had entered today’s game with 21.2 consecutive scoreless innings and an ERA of 0.85, the lowest in Blue Jays history through five starts. Salvy ended the streak with his 836th and 837th RBI, tying him with Mike Sweeney for 5th all-time in Royals history. He is also already ¹⁄₄ of the way to 100 RBI. It is April 25. Salvy entered the game on pace for 149 (!!) RBI, which would be a Royals record, and that pace only went up.

Salvy had another chance to add onto the lead in the 3rd after walks from Maikel Garcia and Pasquantino but grounded into a double play to end the inning.

Meanwhile, Ragans cruised through the first three innings before running into some trouble in the 4th as he struggled with a wet mound. Justin Turner’s one-out double started things up, followed by a Davis Schneider walk. Ernie Clement then singled to make it a 2-1 game, moving the tying run to 3rd.

Ragans continued to struggle with the elements, asking for a new rosin bag. Matt Quatraro asked home plate umpire Ryan Additon to check on Ragans after the Additon walk to see if the mound needed extra work, as Ragans was cleaning his cleats after nearly every pitch. Despite that, Ragans battled through, getting back-to-back pop-outs to escape with the 2-1 lead.

The rain started coming down profusely in the top of the 5th. The grounds crew remade the mound in the top of the 4th, but that progress was completely undone by the time Ragans went back out. With the rain potentially getting stronger later in the afternoon, Ragans getting through the 5th was crucial. And it started with one of the best catches from a Royals’ outfielder in some time.

Ragans walked Vladimir Guererro Jr and appeared to have several pitches slip out of his hand during the inning, but managed to get through the inning to make it an official game.

Isbel stayed hot by blasting a one-out triple over Daulton Varsho’s head in centerfield, gently running around the slick infield. Garcia wasn’t able to capitalize though, popping out to 2nd, leaving Bobby Witt Jr the job of coming through with two outs. He chased a few pitches battling, including a pitch that ended up as an inning-ending groundout.

The Chris Guccione-led crew started some confusion after the groundout, as the grounds crew immediately came onto the field to put the tarp on only to be called back by 2B umpire Brian Knight. They again attempted to put the tarp on but were called back by Knight as Guccione and Blue Jays manager John Schneider got into a testy conversation, presumably about a delay.

Matt Quatraro joined the conversation, with it in the Royals’ best interest for a delay to happen. Both pitchers up to that point had been struggling to grip the wet baseballs and standing water could be seen on the infield.

Rather than bring the tarp out, though, Guccione instructed the grounds crew to put quick-dry on a field. This led to an odd and lengthy delay between the bottom of the 5th and the top of the 6th as Guccione continued to monitor the radar and the crew hastily attempted to cover standing water with quick-dry dirt.

Finally, after around 15 minutes, Guccione had another discussion with Schneider before giving the go-ahead for the tarp to come on the field.

Let’s have some rain-delay fun. On the broadcast, Hud said that Salvador Perez isn’t chasing pitches anymore. I get what he was saying. He’s walking a lot more than normal! This isn’t a shot at Hud. However, his chase percentage is still in the 1st percentile. That made me dig a little because his BB% is in the 44th percentile. How does that compare to previous years?

Sometimes life is just good for a hitter and I don’t think any hitter embodies that more than Salvador Perez. When it’s cooking, it’s cooking. How do we get Salvy to a league-average walk rate? Apparently, by chasing a bunch of pitches.

In all seriousness though, Hud and Lefebvre made comments alluding to Salvy playing the best baseball of his career and you’d be hard-pressed to prove them wrong.

We’ve all seen Salvy get molten hot for a month. And that’s exactly what he is right now.

But he’s not just hitting. He is playing as well behind the plate as he ever has. Yes, you are seeing that right. He is in the 9th percentile of all framers.

I am on record saying framing is stupid. Salvy got punished for this pitch not being called a strike.

With that said, it’s good to see him framing better. He leads all catchers in fWAR, trails only Elias Diaz in Def, and is tied for 4th in DRS. Salvy’s framing has killed him in fWAR for years, which is why he is pacing his best fWAR season, even better than his 48-homer season.

After a nearly four hour delay and rain forecasted until late in the evening, reports trickled in of a restart at around 6:00 PM. The Royals play in Detroit tomorrow at 12:10 PM CDT.

However, after some more discussion and meetings, the game was finally called. Kansas City moves closer to Cleveland in the standings as they head on a six-game roadtrip.

Up Next: Royals at Tigers, Friday, April 26, 12:10 PM CDT, Comerica Park. TBD v. RHP Reese Olson (0-3, 3.80 ERA)