Why this Royals starter will be grumpy on opening day. It’s just how his team wants it
One of the best pitchers in baseball walked through the Royals’ spring training clubhouse on a late morning in Surprise, Arizona.
Cole Ragans had been among the first players to arrive at the complex that day, on the heels of an hour-long road trip to Mesa, Arizona, for a date with the Cubs the night before — even though he’d started that game on the mound.
Pretty good there, too: Ragans went three innings, allowed just one baserunner and struck out six.
The man who sits to his left in spring training every day, Vinnie Pasquantino, didn’t make that particular journey to Mesa — nor did most of the Royals’ regulars — and had yet to see Ragans walking through the clubhouse.
So when Ragans returned to his locker, Pasquantino made sure the rest of the room saw him, too.
“There he is!” Pasquantino shouted, before sticking out his hand for a shake. “Cole! Nice job yesterday, man!”
Ragans knew where this was headed. He obliged the handshake but didn’t utter a word in response.
So it continued.
Pasquantino requested the rest of the team offer Ragans a standing ovation — for his performance in a spring training outing. From the back corner, a patented smile on his face, longtime team veteran Salvador Perez didn’t participate in the standing but willingly provided the ovation.
Ragans broke a smile and then let out a laugh along with it. He knew the origin of the stunt. It came from his own demeanor.
His own, well, grumpiness, as his pitching coach phrases it in the most complimentary of ways.
“I, uh,” Ragans said, “wasn’t a very good locker mate yesterday.
“Vinnie was giving me crap all day because I was locked in.”
A day earlier, and this is the second week of March, Ragans had made that same trek through the Royals’ clubhouse — but quite evidently absent the smile and laugh. After sitting on his chair for a brief moment, he turned it around to face his own cubby, rather than the rest of the room.
A message sent: Don’t bother me.
And a message received.
Why? Five days earlier, he’d stunk on the mound. He had allowed seven runs and couldn’t make it through the third inning. Fourteen batters walked to the plate and nine of them reached base, with six taking multiple bases.
So, naturally, Ragans treated his next start, “like it’s Game 1 of the playoffs,” KC pitching coach Brian Sweeney said.
Again, in spring training.
“I understand spring training is to get my work in, but at the same time, giving up runs sucks,” Ragans said. “I wasn’t good. I still get (ticked) off and aggravated, regardless of (whether) it’s a spring training game or not.”
This is the face of the Royals’ starting pitching rotation — their opening day starter when they meet the Guardians on Thursday afternoon at Kauffman Stadium to kick off their 2025 campaign.
Stoic on the outside.
Competitive as hell on the inside.
The Royals have not only come to live with his day-of-starts grumpiness — and they could not underscore enough it is reserved for game days — they’ve come to embrace it.
And then, eventually, to reward it: The Royals signed Ragans to a 3-year, $13.25 million contract this spring, supplanting two of his arbitration-eligible years.
“This is part of why we felt good about trusting the next few years to invest in him and not worry about any fallout,” general manager J.J. Picollo said.
What is?
That edge.
That, well, prickly game-day nature.
He’s not the only pitcher to have it. But it’s such a contrast from his everyday — or every other day — personality that it stands out. They can’t help but talk about it.
“He’s borderline grumpy (on his starts),” Sweeney said. “But that’s the perfect intensity level for Cole.”
So much of what the Royals are — and where they want to be — is dependent on his left arm. That arm endured two Tommy John surgeries with the Rangers organization, and he not only came out the other side of it, but he came out of it better.
And that’s where he found that edge.
It’s what fuels him, he says. He’s still ticked, for example, about the way last year ended, and last year is a season in which he finished fourth in the American League Cy Young voting. (His teammate, Seth Lugo, finished second.)
But he doesn’t think he went deep enough in either of his postseason starts, and so guess what stuck in his mind?
As the Royals departed for the offseason, they of course sent their pitchers some winter plans. With Ragans, they they offered him some guidance, but they mostly just left him to it. They knew his motivation.
And there is one aspect that drew some particular focus. Ragans had some unusual reverse splits for a left-handed starter. He held right-handed hitters under a .200 average and .600 OPS a year ago; but left-handers found some success against him, batting .276.
That spring training start that drew his ire? The Cubs had stacked their lineup with left-handers that day.
Ragans, along with Sweeney, assistant pitching coach Zach Bove and the Royals’ staff, spent considerable time this winter and spring studying the reasons why. They won’t share the specificity of their findings, other than to say this:
Predicability. Or, rather, unpredictability.
Ragans intends to throw more than a two-pitch mix to lefties this year, but he also intends to not throw pitches strictly based on count.
“Hitters are looking at what I do,” he said. “They have an idea of, ‘All right, in this count, he throws this (pitch) a lot.’ That’s part of it, yeah.”
That comes with this territory — Ragans is a big-leaguer, to be sure, but he’s also a pitcher who is blossoming into one of the best in the game. He tends to demand some attention. It’s his swing-and-miss in the zone that perhaps most aptly evidences his stuff. They struggle to hit the strikes, let alone the chase pitches.
That’s as long as they don’t know what’s coming.
Ragans invoked that in his next outing. He mowed them down. He wasn’t perfect this spring. Who is? But one Royals staffer pointed out that might not be a bad thing. It keeps the edge, you know.
After that game against the Cubs — the second one — Ragans returned to the clubhouse in Mesa feeling a little bit of relief.
Moments after returning to his locker — he’s amazed at the timing of this — Pasquantino called. Pasquantino was on FaceTime, actually, with star Royals shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. by his side.
“Can you talk to me now?” Pasquantino quipped. “Was that good enough?”
Ragans laughed when he shared that story. It illustrates why he loves this clubhouse. They can genuinely badger one another, because they know each other’s true intentions.
Oh, but his answer to Pasquantino’s last question:
“I’ve still got some things to work on,” he said.
In character.
Well, at least on game days.