Royals are on pace for an all-time turnaround; can the Blue Jays salvage their season?

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Today: The Royals are on pace for a huge improvement, the Jays’ run-scoring woes, a night of comeback wins and a baseball history lesson. I’m Levi Weaver, here with Ken Rosenthal, welcome to The Windup!

Turnaround in Kansas City

Quick quiz: Which team holds the MLB record for the biggest year-over-year improvement in wins and losses?

It was the 1903 New York Giants, who rode the hot hands of Joe McGinnity and Christy Mathewson to go 84-55-3 — a 36-win improvement over the 48-88-5 squad of 1902.

Even after last night’s 11-5 loss to the Yankees, the Kansas City Royals are on pace to go 92-70. That would be exactly 36 more wins than last year’s abysmal 56-106 squad, tying the record of John McGraw’s bounce-back boys of 121 years ago.

Rustin Dodd and Zack Meisel give us the full backstory on the turnaround in the City of Fountains, including a wholesale change of philosophy a couple of years ago on the team’s use of analytics.

But it’s not just analytics. Most of the sport has learned this the long, slow way over the last two decades — you can have all the best data in the world, but you need good implementation and buy-in. A spreadsheet can barely swing a baseball bat on its own.

The Royals appear to have stuck the landing — from a PowerPoint presentation on “identity” to a busy offseason free-agency spree, to locking in their superstar shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. long term. It’s all coming up Royals: They currently hold the second AL wild card.

Ken’s Notebook: Jays forced to sacrifice defense for offense

From my most recent notes column:

The Toronto Blue Jays adjusted their roster after the 2022 season to improve their defense and balance their lineup. Out went outfielders Teoscar Hernández and Lourdes Gurriel Jr. and catcher Gabriel Moreno. In came three left-handed hitters, outfielders Kevin Kiermaier and Daulton Varsho and first baseman Brandon Belt.

The plan seemed logical enough, and the Jays won 89 games and a wild card before getting quickly eliminated by the Seattle Mariners in the best-of-three round. But the team’s run production this season has been so disappointing — the sixth-worst in the league entering Tuesday — that club officials are increasingly sacrificing defense for offense.

The promotion of Spencer Horwitz qualified as one such decision. Horwitz in the minors was a first baseman and occasional corner outfielder. He played only 18 games at second, including 11 at Triple A this season, before the Jays summoned him Friday to play that position.

Horwitz at second moves Davis Schneider to left, where he is weaker defensively. Schneider in left moves Varsho to center or right and Kiermaier on occasion to the bench. And to make room for Horwitz, the Jays designated for assignment Cavan Biggio, who played four positions and rated as a plus defender this season. (The Blue Jays traded Biggio to the Los Angeles Dodgers on Wednesday morning.)

Which isn’t to say the Jays’ maneuvering is unreasonable. Biggio’s adjusted OPS was 20 percent below league average. Kiermaier’s is 38 percent below. Yet, the Jays remain curiously devoted to Daniel Vogelbach, a pure DH earning $2 million with an adjusted OPS 33 percent below league average.

Twice in early June, the Jays started Vladimir Guerrero Jr. at third base so they could play Justin Turner at first and Vogelbach at DH. If the Jays used that combination along with Horwitz at second and Schneider at left, they effectively would weaken their defense at four positions just to get Vogelbach into the lineup. Biggio, by sheer virtue of his versatility, would seem a better use of a roster spot.

Some of these concerns would be less pronounced if George Springer, Bo Bichette and Turner were performing at their career offensive norms, as opposed to significantly below league average (Turner’s OPS since April 30 is .452, though he has been better of late). Some of the concerns also can be traced to the Jays’ questionable offseason, which included signing Turner for $13 million and Kiermaier for $10.5 million.

The Jays are 15 games out of first place in the AL East but only three out in the wild-card race. Maybe they can salvage this mess. Or maybe big changes — on and off the field — lie ahead.

A night of comebacks

I’m certainly biased, but there’s nothing like a late-innings baseball comeback. Sure, other sports have their own flavor, but I like the ethics of a sport that doesn’t let the clock step in and put an end to things. If you can score the runs — or on the flip side, if you can’t get the outs — that’s on you.

We saw a few exciting comebacks around the league last night …

• In San Diego, we got two comebacks in one game, as the Padres jumped out to a 2-0 lead before the A’s scored three in the sixth and another one in the eighth to make it 4-2. The Padres tied it in the bottom of the eighth before Jackson Merrill, at age 21, became the youngest player ever to hit a walk-off home run in a multi-homer game (he homered in the fifth too).

• Boston trailed Philadelphia 4-0, but roared back for their biggest comeback of the season, winning 8-6 thanks in part to the heroics of rookie David Hamilton. Jen McCaffrey has the recap here.

• Down by a run on the road? Let the left-handed former Dodgers Rookie of the Year hit a three-run homer to give you the lead! That’s what happened last night to the Cubs (Cody Bellinger, seventh inning vs. the Rays) and Rangers (Corey Seager, fifth inning vs. Dodgers). The Dodgers were within inches of tying that game up, but check out the play at home that ended it.

A reader — Patty Evans, from Dallas, Texas — tipped me off last night to this historic nugget that had somehow evaded me, so I wanted to pass it along to all of you!

If it seems rare for a pitcher to throw a shutout in his big-league debut, it is. There have been 68 of those in big-league history (75 if you count shortened games), but it hasn’t happened since Andy Van Hekken did it for Detroit on Sept. 3, 2002, against Cleveland. But the one that came before that was one-of-a-kind.

Jason Jennings of the Colorado Rockies was the NL Rookie of the Year in 2002, but his big-league debut came on Aug. 23, 2001, in New York against the Mets. Jennings — the Rockies’ first-round pick in the 1999 draft — had a combined record of just 9-8 with a 4.42 ERA between Double and Triple A that year, but the Rockies needed a starter, and he was their guy.

Not only did he navigate around 11 baserunners — five hits, four walks, and two Rockies errors — but he did something that no pitcher had ever done before, and has never done since:

Jason Jennings of the Colorado Rockies is the only pitcher in modern-era big-league history to throw a shutout and hit a home run in his debut (in fact, he went 3-for-5 that night).

But I did a little more digging, and found one more historic tidbit from Jennings’ career. Greg Maddux allowed 353 home runs in his 23-year career. Of those, precisely one was hit by a pitcher. Wanna see it?

Yep. That was Jennings. It happened on May 8, 2004, when Maddux was on his second stint with the Cubs. Jennings also dealt Sammy Sosa his 2,000th career strikeout that day, making Sosa the third player to reach that mark (there are now seven on the list).

If you’re anything like me, you’re probably thinking “Wow, I guess Jennings raked. How many home runs did he hit, anyway?”

You just saw them both.

That’s right: Those were the only two home runs Jason Jennings ever hit in his nine-year big-league career. Baseball, you beautiful, bewildering charmer.

Handshakes and High Fives

If you read one story today, make it Dennis Lin’s good old-fashioned profile on a throwback player, Luis Arraez, and his similarities to Rod Carew and Tony Gwynn.

Jeff Berry was one of the top agents in the sport. Then he walked away. Why? Evan Drellich has a Q&A with Berry about his decision, and how he wants to advocate for the improvement of the sport.

There are five relief pitchers, Matt Gelb tells us, with at least 25 innings pitched and a sub-1.00 ERA. Two of them are catch partners in Philadelphia.

Podcasts: Keith Law joins the Rates and Barrels crew to talk (what else?) prospects. On The Windup podcast: Grant Brisbee, Andy McCullough and Rustin Dodd talk gambling in baseball after the recent suspensions.

Jorge Lopez — recently released by the Mets, you might remember — has signed a minor-league deal with the Cubs.

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(Top photo of MJ Melendez: Jason Miller / Getty Images)