Johnny Cueto crumbles again as Royals lose 8-2 to Orioles

The pitching coach has offered suggestions for Johnny Cueto’s delivery and fed him self-help mantras for his mind. The manager has altered the team’s rotation to fit his preferences. The players have welcomed him with their arms open, trying to treat Cueto as something more than a hired gun, or, in the case of Sunday’s 8-2 loss to the Baltimore Orioles, a dreadlocked anchor dragging down their ship.

Yet the Royals have not reached Cueto and have not fixed Cueto, not across a five-start stretch of misery that has moved from unfortunate to concerning to outright alarming. The latest evidence of Cueto’s troubles resounded off the echoing bats of the Orioles, who bashed four home runs and scored eight runs in 6 1/3 innings against Cueto at Camden Yards.

One of those runs was unearned, which will only really matter when Cueto attempts to market himself as a free agent this winter. For now, Cueto must try to fix himself before his next outing, tentatively scheduled for Friday night in Detroit. The Royals insist Cueto is not dealing with any physical maladies, which only makes his collapse all the more puzzling.

“He’s going to continue to do what he’s always done, and that’s work hard,” said catching coach Pedro Grifol, who translated for Cueto. “Try to finish the season strong. When the bell rings for the playoffs, he’s going to be there for his club.”

But when would that bell ring for Cueto? Asked if he was considering shifting his playoff rotation, which was presumed to use Cueto as the No. 1 starter, manager Ned Yost said, “Not right now. It may, if this continues.”

On Sunday, the barrage started early and never really ceased. Adam Jones wounded Cueto with a three-run homer in the first inning. Jonathan Schoop swatted a pair of solo shots. A fifth-inning homer by slugger Chris Davis rounded out the damage. Cueto had not given up four homers in a game since Aug. 21, 2010.

In the clubhouse and in the baseball operations department of the Royals, alarm bells must ring about Cueto. The club acquired him from the Cincinnati Reds before the July 31 trade deadline in order to complete their rotation. Eight weeks into his tenure as a Royal, Cueto serves as perhaps the team’s greatest concern.

In his last five outings, Cueto has given up 30 runs in 26 1/3 innings. His ERA resides in the cloud-scraping echelon of 9.57. He has lost five decisions in a row. His pitches lack bite. To his coaches, his body lacks confidence.

Kansas City (84-58) lost another series, their third in a row, as their lead in the race for home-field advantage over Toronto has fallen to 2 1/2 games. Before this skid, the Royals had lost back-to-back series just once all season.

Yost explained the club does not intend to skip Cueto during a turn through the rotation. October draws closer by the day, and the organization believes he needs to pitch his way back to competence, trusting his fastball and not overly favoring his offspeed pitches, as Yost felt he did on Sunday. Cueto has not relayed any physical symptoms to suggest he requires rest, Yost said.

“I can’t jump in his body and see what he feels,” Yost said. “All I can do is go by what he says, and he says he feels great.”

Despite the pounding, Cueto struck a defiant tone after the game. His eyes were red and his delivery was forceful. He batted aside the suggestion he could benefit from time off. He insisted his arm felt strong. He declined to discuss the specifics of his outing, instead opting for positive rhetoric.

“When things go bad like this, everybody looks at all the negatives,” said Grifol. “He could have done this. He could have done that. And what needs to happen, and what’s going to happen, is he’s going to keep his head up and keep moving forward and keep fighting through this. This is going to change. And at the end, he’s going to do what he came here to do.”

On Sunday, the offense disappeared after a brief second-inning flurry against Orioles southpaw Wei-Yin Chen. But the scrutiny belongs on Cueto, who has shriveled beneath the weight of expectations with Kansas City.

In his pregame session with reporters, Yost acknowledged the team’s zeal for Cueto to rebound, but he declined to place special significance on this outing, even though the Royals juggled their rotation so Cueto could, at his preference, pitch on Sunday night rather than Saturday afternoon.

“I’m not getting that dramatic about it,” Yost said. “Yeah, we would like to get him going, but if he doesn’t, we’ve got time to get him going. We think we can get him going.”

During the week, pitching coach Dave Eiland counseled Cueto on adjustments to both his delivery and his mentality. Eiland suggested Cueto lost confidence in the wake of his struggles, which caused him to attempt to manipulate the movement of the baseball with excessive movement in his delivery.

The unnecessary exertion wrought several unfortunate consequences. Cueto lost command of his fastball. His offspeed pitches hung over the plate. In addition, Cueto may have been tipping his hand to opposing hitters by exposing the baseball early in his delivery.

As the hitters teed off, Cueto allowed his shoulders to slump and his pace on the mound to slacken. Eiland showed him a split-screen with video from his first four starts as a Royal, when he allowed six runs in 30 innings, and his last four outings. To Eiland, the difference in body language was stark.

“I froze a picture of him in his last game, and he had this glazed-over look in his eye,” Eiland said. “Then I showed him on the mound (in a shutout) against Detroit. He had this look in his eye that was just different, and that comes with confidence.”

In conversations with team officials, Cueto revealed a sense of insecurity about his performance. He worried that he was letting down his new team, which had acquired him specifically to lead a charge back to the World Series.

Eiland reminded Cueto that before the trade deadline, every contending team sought Cueto’s services. He did not need to be anything more.

“What I told him was, ‘We’ve got to get you back to being Johnny Cueto. Be Johnny Cueto,’” Eiland said.

Cueto committed to the part in the first inning. He waggled his backside, part of his arsenal of multiple deliveries, while facing third baseman Manny Machado. But Machado walked and first baseman Chris Davis smacked a fat cutter for a single.

Facing Jones, Cueto missed inside with a fastball. On the next offering, a 93-mph heater at the knees but near the middle of the plate, Jones uncorked a drive over the center-field fence.

The Royals chipped away at the deficit in the top of the second. Salvador Perez and Alex Rios connected on two-out doubles. Perez scored on Rios’ hit. Rios scored on a single by Alcides Escobar.

In the bottom of the second, Cueto faced Schoop, who bashed a homer off him during Cueto’s six-run outing on Aug. 26. This time, Schoop punished Cueto for slopping a cutter over the plate.

From there, Cueto embarked on his best streak of the day, retiring seven batters in a row. Then Schoop came back to the plate. The sequence repeated itself: Cueto allowed his cutter to float toward the plate. Schoop destroyed it.

“What he needs to do, in my estimation right now, is just go out and establish his fastball and pitch off his fastball,” Yost said. “He needs to get comfortable pitching aggressively inside with that fastball. But he needs to establish his fastball, and then his secondary stuff, it opens up a whole world for him.”

A different offspeed choice betrayed him in the fifth. Davis boomed a changeup on the outer half of the plate, the ideal position for Davis, who struggles on pitches inside.

On the mound, Cueto appeared stunned.

Yost stuck with Cueto into the seventh inning. When he gave up a double and a single to start the frame, Yost did not waver. When Baltimore scored a seventh run on a grounder, Cueto stayed in. Yost let Cueto strike out Davis for his last out of the game. There was only one out in the inning, and another run scored on a double allowed by reliever Louis Coleman.

But the Royals need Cueto to pitch his way out of this funk. On Sunday, the team provided him every opportunity to do so. He never could.

“What he’s got to do is keep his head up and keep moving forward,” Grifol said. “He can’t keep looking back at the negatives that have happened here in the last few weeks. And he’s not going to do that. He’s going to keep his head up and keep moving.”

Orioles 8, Royals 2

E: Zobrist (5). LOB: Kansas City 4, Baltimore 6. 2B: Zobrist (30), Perez 2 (21), Rios (18), Jones (24), Hardy (12). HR: Jones (27), off Cueto; Schoop 2 (14), off Cueto 2; Davis (42), off Cueto. RBIs: Rios (25), Escobar (44), Machado (72), Davis (106), Jones 4 (76), Schoop 2 (37).

Runners left in scoring position: Kansas City 2 (Hosmer, Rios); Baltimore 2 (Schoop 2). RISP: Kansas City 2 for 5; Baltimore 3 for 7. GIDP: Moustakas, Machado, Wieters. DP: Kansas City 2 (Hosmer, Escobar, Cueto), (Zobrist, Escobar, Hosmer); Baltimore 1 (Davis, Hardy, Chen).

Inherited runners-scored: L.Coleman 2-1, Guthrie 3-0.

Umpires: Home, Gabe Morales; First, Sam Holbrook; Second, Mark Carlson; Third, Tripp Gibson. Time: 2:37. Att: 22,496.

This story was originally published September 13, 2015 at 9:52 PM with the headline "Johnny Cueto crumbles again as Royals lose 8-2 to Orioles."