Royals baserunning miscues overshadow storylines of Opening Day

Baseball is back, including TOOTBLANS.

The Royals took on the Guardians on Opening Day and lost 7-4 in extra innings. Here are some of the highlights and storylines from the game.

Roster Roles Take Shape

Offense

The starting lineup from yesterday was mostly as expected. Vinnie Pasquantino hit DH due to his tender hamstring (didn’t seem to affect him much going down to hit a breaking pitch into the right field bullpen though). India hit leadoff and played third base. I wonder if Pasquantino at DH led to a chain reaction? If he was DH, then India or Massey couldn’t be DH. To get India and Massey’s bats into the lineup, Maikel Garcia was pushed to the bench. We’ll see how the lineup shakes out when Vinnie is back out at first.

The only slight surprise to me was that Cavan Biggio got the opening day nod at first base, not Mark Canha. As someone who has spent most of his career at second base, a move down the defensive spectrum for Biggio should not be a problem. But Canha has spent more time at first base.

Biggio likely got the start because original starter Tanner Bibee is a right-handed pitcher (so was Lively). Biggio bats from the left, Canha from the right. However, this is flimsy reasoning; Canha for his career doesn’t have much of a platoon split. He was also better against RHP in 2024 than Biggio if you think more recent data is the way to go. Canha is overall just a better hitter too. This was a bit of a head-scratcher but ultimately just a move at the margins.

Bullpen

Angel Zerpa was the first relief pitcher to get warmed up. The game was still 3-1 when he started warming, suggesting Quatraro retains some level of trust in him. Zerpa’s first pitch was deposited over the fence for a 4-3 Guardians lead. Whoops. The next two runners reached base on some seeing-eye grounders, but a double-play and another grounder got him out of the inning. Giving up the homer is not great, but getting a whole bunch of grounders afterward is nice I guess?

The rest of bullpen roles took some shape. Lucas Erceg followed Zerpa and took care of José Ramírez. Then Hunter Harvey, then Carlos Estévez. It was a close game throughout the later innings, so this bullpen configuration is likely the “protect the lead” group. Zerpa —> Erceg —> Harvey —> Estévez. This will change before the end of the season, but this is our baseline bullpen.

Newcomers

Jonathan India

India at third base was tested early and often. The very FIRST ball in play of the season was a spinning bunt from Steven Kwan down the third base line to India. I thought it might be an early test of his arm, but he let the thing roll, hoping it would go foul. Readers, it did not. There was no throw.

The SECOND ball in play ALSO went to India, but this time it was a scorcher that he managed to knock down. He made what looked like a strong throw to first to get the out, but it was incredibly close.

India fielded a bunt in the fifth inning and got the out fairly easily. But then he made a diving play to his left in the sixth and once again managed only to knock the ball down. He got up and threw to first, but it was late and off-target. He did move to left field in the later innings but not really anything of note happened while he was out there.

On offense, India went 0-for-5 in front of Witt Jr. Not a great start, but he had some deep fly balls to left field that might have found the bullpen during the summer.

The Others

The other newcomers - Carlos Estévez, Mark Canha, and Cavan Biggio - all made appearances. Estévez set down a quiet ninth inning to keep the game close at 4-3. The aforementioned Biggio started at first base, managed a walk to start the eighth inning, and was pinch-run for Dairon Blanco. Canha pinch-hit for Blanco in the ninth and struck out with runners on to send the game into extra innings.

Bench Usage

Quatraro emptied the entire bench during the game. It started in the seventh inning, when he pinch-hit Maikel Garcia in place of MJ Melendez against Tim Herrin, a lefty pitcher. Garcia was called out on strikes...so that didn’t work out. That necessitated the move for India to go into left field and Garcia came in to man third base.

In the eighth inning, Dairon Blanco came in to run for Cavan Biggio after a walk. He immediately stole second base - great! - but then combined with Kyle Isbel for a double-TOOTBLAN (more on that later).

Mark Canha came in during the ninth as a defensive substitution and struck out in the bottom of the inning.

At this point, there was only one guy left on the bench - Freddy Fermín. So when Vinnie hammed out a double to lead off the ninth inning, Fermín was the only guy who could come off the bench to pinch-run for him. Fermín did come around to score the tying run!

The Vibes

Ok, back to the double TOOTBLAN. Unfortunately, like Matt LaMar said in the game recap yesterday, the double TOOTBLAN is how I’m going to remember this game.

In case you somehow missed it, here’s how the eighth inning went. Biggio walked, then Blanco pinch-ran and stole second. Kyle Isbel hit a soft grounder back to the pitcher Hunter Gaddis, but he did not field it cleanly so the Royals had runners on first and third with no outs. It was such an amazing situation with the top of the lineup coming around.

With no outs and Jonathan India up to bat, the Guardians defense looked like it was at double-play depth.

India reached for a low-and-outside pitch and pulled it right to a waiting Ramírez at third base. You can see in that screenshot that Blanco looks like he was running immediately on contact. Well, the ball was hit hard enough that Blanco was still pretty far away from home. Ramírez threw home, and Blanco was caught in a rundown and eventually tagged out.

BUT, to make matters worse, Isbel followed by wandering into no-man’s land between second and third base. I imagine he was thinking about taking third base, but he made that decision so incredibly late that his momentum was still carrying him toward third base AFTER Blanco was tagged out.

It’s a little hard to see with that logo there, but Isbel is reaching down to the ground to help stop his momentum toward third base. The Guardians player had already tagged out Blanco and was just salivating to get another guy caught in a rundown.

India made it to second base because of this nonsense, but Bobby Witt Jr struck out to end the threat.

Speaking of our guy Bobby, his only hit of the day was an infield single he legged out. He stole second and scored on Vinnie’s home run. But otherwise, he struck out three times on offense. Witt Jr had a three-strikeout game only twice in 2024, and the last time it happened was all the way back on June 25th, 2024. It’s just not something he does.

For me, the vibes after Opening Day are a little low. Tying the game in the ninth inning was exciting, but it was so deflating for Zerpa to give up a homer on his first pitch, for the double TOOTBLAN, and the poor defensive showing of Hunter Renfroe, which I did not even touch on until now!

It’s a long season. This was just one game. Baseball is back.

The Boys Are Playing Some Ball.