Royals turn tables on Valdez for fourth straight win

HOUSTON -- Less than a week ago, Astros ace Framber Valdez quieted a red-hot Royals lineup.

But on Friday night, a young group of Kansas City hitters showed just how much they’ve improved in the second half. The Royals tagged Valdez for seven runs (six earned) to return the favor and quiet a playoff-hungry Minute Maid Park crowd in a 7-5 win over the Astros.

Kansas City has now won eight of its past nine games, in large part due to an offense that entered Friday tied for the fourth-best OPS (.805) in the Majors in September.

Cole Ragans continued his standout stretch with a six-inning, two-run start. He limited the damage from four walks by holding Houston to three hits and an 0-for-8 line with runners in scoring position.

“[Ragans has] been really good lately and making really good pitches,” Astros second baseman Jose Altuve said. “... His curveball is amazing. He threw 99 [mph] up on the zone [and his] curveball mix, it’s almost unhittable. There’s not a lot more we could do against him because he’s tough. He’s probably one of the best guys that we have faced this year."

James McArthur recorded the last five outs for the Royals, earning his second career save and shutting down a potential Astros comeback after a three-run home run off of Jackson Kowar.

But the story of the game was the offensive adjustments against one of the best pitchers in the American League, whose stuff left manager Matt Quatraro even more impressed the second time around.

“He was throwing the ball better today than he did last week. His velo was up right from the first pitch. His curveball was sharper and bigger than it was last week,” Quatraro said. “I don’t know the reason for it, but he had really good stuff today. I mean, the movement on his two-seamer was crazy.”

In his first 29 starts of the season, Valdez had allowed just five runs in the first inning. Kansas City added four to that total in his 30th, striking early after the first five batters reached base, including a Bobby Witt Jr. triple.

It wasn’t without its warts, as Valdez settled in to strike out 10 Royals. But the patient at-bats paid off in the sixth, when Valdez hit two batters on the foot. After a sharp jump from Edward Olivares on a sacrifice bunt allowed him to beat Valdez’s throw to third, Nick Pratto and Kyle Isbel battled to make contact on an RBI groundout and key two-run single.

“A really big part of that game was Pratto getting the ball in play and [Isbel] getting the ball in play against Valdez, who’s been really tough on lefties,” Quatraro said. “Those two at-bats after the bunt were huge.”

For one of the youngest groups of position players in the Majors, Friday represented a sign of how much the lineup has matured.

The Royals are striking out much less in the second half (20.7%, 9th-lowest in the Majors) vs. the first half (24.7%, 4th-highest in the Majors). They haven’t sacrificed power for it, either (.174 ISO (isolated power) in the second half, .139 in the first half).

“Looking at our wOBA, ISO, wRC+, we were all [close to the] bottom five in all those categories before the break,” hitting coach Alec Zumwalt said Wednesday. “We’re now in the middle of the pack. That’s still not good enough. But it’s at least showing things are getting better.

“Our strikeout rate is down. Our hard-hit rate has maintained the entire season, so it’s not like all of a sudden we’re getting lucky. The consistency of hitting balls hard -- that, to me, means you’re swinging at good pitches. But now that we’re seeing the strikeout rate come down as well, now we’re not chasing the pitches that we were earlier in the year. That’s maturity.”

The experience gained through at-bats is paying off, just like it did against Valdez last weekend vs. an even better Valdez this weekend. A huge second-half leap from Witt and sizable jumps from MJ Melendez and Michael Massey have helped, as well as the addition of Nelson Velázquez at the Trade Deadline.

“That’s what we knew going into this was going to be the hardest part of this entire season was running out the youngest group of hitters in the big leagues,” Zumwalt said. “There are going to be nights where we get our teeth kicked in. How we bounce back the next day is more important than anything else.”