Whit Merrifield on KC Royals working to break out of slump: ‘This is our entire life’
The hands on hips said it all. Kansas City Royals two-time All-Star Whit Merrifield, mired in a painful offensive slump, poked a ball into center field off the end of the bat on Monday afternoon in Baltimore.
It was hardly a rocket, but it appeared destined to find a patch of grass. It didn’t have enough steam behind it to stay up in the air for long and would surely drop in shallow center field.
Then Orioles center fielder Cedric Mullins, who got a slightly late break, sprinted as if shot out of a cannon and made a diving, backhand catch mere inches from the turf to rob Merrifield of a bloop single.
As Merrifield trotted around first, he put his hands on his hips and stared into the outfield in exasperation.
It’s been that kind of season for Merrifield and the Royals’ offense through the first four and a half weeks.
As if to completely drive that point home, Merrifield saw a similar play steal another hit from him in right field on Tuesday night in Texas. That one came courtesy of the glove of Kole Calhoun, another conspiracy carried out by the apparently spiteful baseball gods.
“Today, it was just kind of laughter,” Merrifield said of his immediate reaction. “I hit it, took a couple steps and as I was running I was, ‘This guy is going to catch that ball.’ And I’ve gone through every emotion with it. The Mullins catch really got to me just because when you’re going bad, that little doinker can kind of get you back on track.”
Prior to Tuesday’s game, Merrifield happened to catch just one inning of the Tigers game and he saw two balls hit to center field like his to Mullins and both times the center fielder dove, as Mullins did on his ball.
Unlike in Merrifield’s case, the center fielder missed the catch and each of those batters came away with a double.
Merrifield cited off the top of his head that he’d had nine hits taken away by diving plays in a between 100 and 110 at-bats this season, a sign of the sort of bad luck that’s led to his dreadful offensive statistics through the first 27 games of the season.
Merrifield, who went 1 for 4 with an RBI single on Tuesday night, went into Wednesday batting .139 with a .179 on-base percentage and a .375 slugging percentage. Merrifield went 3 for 4 with a home run, a stolen base and four runs scored in an 8-2 win over the Rangers on Wednesday.
He continues to tell anyone who asks that he feels good physically and with his swing, despite his struggles. During the team’s previous road trip, he proclaimed he’d be “fine.”
A mainstay in the leadoff position in the batting order for the previous four seasons, he’d been dropped down to the bottom third of the lineup in recent days.
“It’s been something like I’ve never seen before, just kind of the breaks I’m getting — or not getting, I should say,” Merrifield said. “I feel good at the plate. I’m having good at-bats, hitting balls on the barrel at guys. What else is there to do? I don’t know. I’m going to keep doing that.”
Through Tuesday night, Merrifield’s hard-hit rate was higher than either 2018 or 2019 when he led the majors in hits (he earned his first All-Star appearance in 2019), and his sweet spot percentage was also slightly up compared to those seasons. His strikeout rate was also lower than either of those seasons.
Royals collectively struggling at the plate
The Royals entered their series in Texas having averaged 3.0 runs per game, which ranked 29th of 30 teams in the majors, and they’d scored three runs or fewer in 16 of 26 games. The .201 batting average with runners in scoring position ranked 28th.
The Royals don’t have an abundance of power hitters. That coupled with playing in one of the bigger ballparks in the majors, means they’re heavily reliant on multiple at-bats to generate offense as opposed to one swing of the bat.
Their 13 home runs through 27 games were their fewest to this point in a season since 2014 when they hit 11 through their first 27 games.
“As frustrating as it is for you guys and for fans, this is our entire life, what we go to sleep thinking about, what we wake up thinking about, what we talk to each other about, what we do in our spare time, what we do for our job and when we’re away from our job,” Merrifield said speaking to reporters.
“This is what we do. When it’s not going well, it mounts. It’s a tough thing to balance when you’re going through something like this.”
Hunter Dozier carried a mixture of injuries and offensive struggles with him throughout much of last season, but he has seemed to have put that behind him early this year.
Dozier went into Wednesday batting .258 and slugging .461, one of just two players on the current roster to have played in at least half of the team’s games and boast a slugging percentage above .400. The other, Edward Olivares, went on the injured list last week.
“It’s obvious that we’re not swinging like we’re capable of doing,” Dozier said. “I just think the only thing we can really worry about and focus on is the work we do in the cage, game planning for the pitcher and trying to have competitive at-bats. After that, it’s kind of out of our control.
“We have a lot of guys that can hit in this locker room, I believe in all these guys. I believe in myself. It’s going to happen. We cannot put more pressure on ourselves. We might be doing that, just because it’s human nature. When, as a team, you’re not hitting, everyone is trying to get everyone going, extend the inning and get us out of this.”
Dozier, a Texas native, has gone 7 for 22 (.318) in his past seven games. He had two hits in the series opener against the Rangers on Tuesday night and he was on base four times including a walk and having reached on an error as part of the club’s three-run seventh inning.
While he’s certainly felt that pull to want to ignite the offense himself, Dozier said he’s reminded himself to focus on the things like his preparation, approach and “trying not to do too much.”
“It’s almost less is more when you get in those spots or get in situations,” Dozier said. “Every at-bat, right now, is big. Just trying not to feel that pressure, trying not to put any pressure on yourself, trying to understand this is just one at-bat. Try to do your job, and try to do whatever you can to help the team or move the runner.”
This story was originally published May 11, 2022 at 6:45 PM.
