Brady Singer’s slider leaves him hanging in Kansas City Royals loss to Twins
This week’s trend among the Kansas City Royals young starting pitchers had been to weather the storm in early innings, but still be standing on the mound late in the game after having righted the ship.
Jackson Kowar and Daniel Lynch each followed that script. Unfortunately for Royals right-hander Brady Singer on Saturday night, the storm didn’t pass.
After turning in maybe his best start of the season and having a night that sparked unbridled optimism in his previous outing — seven scoreless without a walk against the Chicago White Sox — Singer scuffled through one of those other types of nights best categorized as a learning experience.
Singer entered the day having allowed nine home runs in 24 starts (116 innings), but the Minnesota Twins hit five, including four solo blasts, in 4 2/3 innings on their way to handing the Royals a 9-2 defeat on Saturday night at Target Field in Minneapolis.
“I felt like I was doing good getting to two strikes, then once I got to two strikes it was a hanging slider or a fastball more middle,” Singer said. “I’ve just got to do a better job of that for sure.”
All five of the home runs Singer gave up came with two strikes.
Singer tied a franchise record for the most home runs allowed in a single game. The mark had been reached three other times, most recently by Jakob Junis on April 26, 2018, against the Chicago White Sox.
Singer also became the second pitcher to ever allow five home runs in a single game against the Twins. The only other pitcher in that group was the Cleveland Indians’ Gary Bell on April 29, 1962.
“When I got to two strikes, I just couldn’t really bury anything or anything like that,” Singer said. “It was kind of spinning out of my hand. I felt like the slider wasn’t very good all night.”
Singer’s slider has gotten batters to swing and miss 29% of the time this season, but Twins batters swung and missed on just 3 of 22 (14%) on Saturday night.
Singer did record three third strikes on sliders. He had seven total strikeouts. He also walked two.
Singer kept trying to find a feel for the slider and even tried a different grip during the outing, but he couldn’t find the consistency he sought. He said he felt like he may have tried to make it “too good” when he got to two strikes and that led to it backing up over the middle of the plate.
“You definitely have to continue to throw it,” Singer said. “[Salvador Perez] did a great job of that. We kept calling it no matter what, no matter whether I felt comfortable with it or not. But, like I said, I’ve got to go back and work on it. I usually have it most of the time, but I’ve had (nights) where I haven’t had it. I’m not going to have it every time.”
Byron Buxton and Jorge Polanco hit back-to-back solo home runs with one out in the first inning.
“The first two were fastballs that got to the middle of the plate,” Royals manager Mike Matheny said. “After that, his slider — he just didn’t have it today. It was just one of those days where he didn’t have a feel for it. A lot of times it was just spinning and backing up into the middle of the plate. You turn into a one-pitch pitcher at that point.
“He tried to get the changeup going a little bit, but it’s one of those days that reinforces that third pitch and how important it is going to be. Because for whatever reason every once in a while one of those pitches will elude you. It has been the fastball command at times. Today was really the first time he didn’t have the slider all season.”
Nick Gordon, son of former Royals pitcher Tom Gordon, homered to lead off the second inning.
Max Kepler led off the fourth inning with his 17th homer of the season.
Then in the fifth after Buxton’s one-out single, Polanco hit his second homer of the night. The two-run blast gave the Twins a 6-1 lead at the time.
“The solo ones aren’t going to run you out of the game,” Matheny said. “He kept us in that game. We score a run and we’re right back there. It was the two-run shot that really took him out.”
This story was originally published September 12, 2021 at 12:18 AM.
