Kansas City Royals News: Bobby Witt Jr. works out

Brian Murphy at MLB mothership has an update on Bobby Witt Jr’s recovery.

Bobby Witt Jr.’s sprained right knee kept him out of the Royals’ lineup for the third straight game Monday. But prior to the team’s series opener against the Rays, the star shortstop went through what manager Matt Quatraro called a “very encouraging” workout.
Witt — who has been sidelined since suffering a Grade 1 MCL sprain during Thursday’s game against the Cardinals — hit in the batting cage, ran the bases and fielded ground balls on Monday afternoon at Tropicana Field.
He did his on-field activity while wearing a brace over his injured knee, which Quatraro said Witt is still getting used to.
“We’re hopeful that in the next couple days, he’s available,” the manager said.

Jaylon Thompson at the KC Star also covered Witt’s workout.

“Felt good,” Royals manager Matt Quatraro said. “You know, he’s been getting accustomed to wearing a brace. So we are trying to get used to that a little bit, but was very encouraging what we saw today.”
Entering Monday, Witt had missed the last two games and was not expected to play in Monday’s road game against the Tampa Bay Rays.
However, the Royals didn’t rule out a potential return this week. The club is hopeful Witt will play during the upcoming seven-game road trip.

Brian also covers Carter Jensen’s hot streak.

When his streak began on June 6, Jensen had elevated strikeout and whiff rates (30.2% and 32.6%, respectively). Since then, those numbers have plummeted to 15.5% and 18.4%. Meanwhile, Jensen’s hard-hit rate, which was 40.2% prior to the streak, is 53.3% over these past couple of weeks. And that rate went up when he smashed a cutter from Rasmussen back up the middle at 109.2 mph to drive in Nick Loftin.
“I think it all starts with just swinging at my pitches,” Jensen said of his recent success at the plate. “Not getting antsy at the plate to swing at everything or try to get the hit in the first two pitches of the at-bat. I think the strong thing that I do pretty well is take good at-bats. I think earlier in the season I was just trying to do too much with pitches that I couldn’t handle, such as pitches out of the zone.”

Pete Grathoff takes a look at the decision to bunt in the ninth inning of the 12-10 loss to the Cardinals.

But O’Brien got his first out when Kameron Misner’s sacrifice bunt put Massey and Thomas in scoring position. According to Baseball Reference, the Cardinals’ win probability had dropped from 98% to 67% when Misner stepped to the plate. The bunt pushed St. Louis’ win probability 4% higher. O’Brien then struck out pinch hitter John Rave, who was batting for Nick Loftin, and induced a groundout from left fielder Isaac Collins to end the game.

Sam McDowell examines two homers from Jac Caglianone’s recent outburst.

Royals second-year outfielder Jac Caglianone ripped a line drive 110.5 miles per hour and 404 feet into the back of the Cardinals’ bullpen Friday — which is directly to the opposite field.
It’s the kind of thing you rarely see: A left-hander hitting the ball the opposite way that hard and that far.
Except that Caglianone did the exact same thing the night before. On Thursday, he also blasted a home run 110.0 miles per hour, also the opposite way.

Witt remains the top AL SS vote-getter for the All-Star game.

SHORTSTOP
1. Bobby Witt Jr., Royals: 1,701,407
2. Andrés Giménez, Blue Jays: 894,926
3. Kevin McGonigle, Tigers: 460,075
4. Jeremy Peña, Astros: 357,049
5. Colson Montgomery, White Sox: 352,828
Witt is having another fantastic season as he is tops in the AL with 28 stolen bases and 4.4 FanGraphs WAR. However, a recent right knee sprain has his status a little up in the air right now. Barring a late surge from the rookie McGonigle or others, it looks like Witt will take on Giménez in Phase 2. Giménez was the AL’s starting second baseman in the 2022 Midsummer Classic, representing the Guardians. Witt is looking for his first All-Star start.

David Lesky takes a second to note that the recent offensive outburst is taking place without the main players we thought it might before the season.

It’s especially interesting because they’re doing so much of this damage without a good chunk of the crew we expected them to do any damage with. Vinnie Pasquantino is out for a bit. Maikel Garcia has been in and out of the lineup and hasn’t done much, at least power-wise, since April. Bobby Witt Jr. missed each of the last two games, and we have no idea how many more. Salvador Perez has played and had some big moments, but the numbers overall remain putrid. No, they’re doing a lot of this with some players we maybe didn’t expect, or, if we did, not this much. From that perspective, it’s been nice. Of course, it would be nicer if they were doing this with last year’s pitching staff because they’d sure have a lot more wins.

John Schreiber was apparently spitting fire last night. I totally missed that in the recap.

Jacob Milham writes about a few minor league players who may be the next guys up.

Boston Red Sox pitcher Sonny Gray may be open to a trade.

White Sox catcher Kyle Teel returned from the IL.

The Brewers placed Luis Rengifo on waivers.

Possible trade scenarios for Tarik Skubal.

Lionel Messi now is the sole holder of the World Cup goals scored record.

Kylian Mbappé scored two goals yesterday as he tries to catch up to Messi’s new record.

Norwegian Erling Haaland also scored two goals in yesterday’s win over Senegal. Not to brag, but my son picked his number 9 for soccer.

Kansas City doesn’t seem to be experiencing any sort of small business boon.

The Milwaukee Bucks have finally traded star Giannis Antetokounmpo.

Trae Young is signing a 4/$212M deal to stay with the Washington Wizards.