Royals extend Seth Lugo with multi-year deal | Kansas City Royals Podcast

Royals extend Seth Lugo with multi-year deal | Kansas City Royals Podcast

Instead of trading him, the Royals lock up Seth Lugo for two more years. We’ll tell you about our thoughts next on Locked on Royals. You are Locked on Royals, your daily Kansas City Royals podcast, part of the Locked On Network, your team every day. You are tuned in to a Sunday edition of Locked On Royals and the Locked On podcast network. I am your host Jack Johnson and you can find me on Twitter, Johnny J_15. That is Joyj_15. You also can catch us on wherever you listen to podcast. That can be Spotify, Apple Podcast, Amazon Music, Google Podcast, Odyssey, and YouTube. Just be sure to hit the follow button and subscribe. For you first-time listeners wondering how this channel works, we bring you episodes Monday through Friday. Unless there’s a move like tonight where Seth Lugo gets the contract extension in Kansas City, we might try to do one of those emergency podcasts like we’re doing tonight. Uh but traditionally and what our format usually is is we bring you those episodes Monday through Friday, 30 minute episodes in length. We also have the Lockdown Royals postcast which is hosted by Chance Lebo. That is seven days a week or really just whenever the Royals are playing. Of course, you wouldn’t have one on the off days, but Chance does a great job getting those up right after the game. He goes live for about 15 to 20 minutes. So, some good insight if you’re looking for that immediate reaction after a Royals game. And as for any comments, questions, you can leave them below on our YouTube channel or you can just reach out to me on Twitter. Let’s dive right into it. Uh, this was something that I guess can be categorized under the jaw-dropping breaking news that you’re not expecting on a Sunday night. I don’t want to say a Sunday night news dump. I guess that kind of would be the exact same thing that I’m talking about, but this was more so of everybody settled in for the evening. might have been watching a show on the couch, maybe you were having a Sunday dinner, and then you get this bomb drop by Jeff Passen that the Royals are extending Seth Luga, which comes as a bit of a surprise. If you were listening to me all last week, you would know that that was not really on my radar. And if I was to tell you my gut feeling, my my thoughts on the matter, I thought that Seth Lugo was going to be traded. um whether the Royals were going to be playing good baseball or not against Cleveland, I just had this sense that it was going to line up with somebody and a move was going to happen. But then on Friday, you get this report from Buster Only, I want to say it was that the Royals just don’t feel the same way as the rest of baseball where they have to trade them, they have to get it done, they have to get value, get offensive help, and go from there. Uh, but it just never seemed when JJ Vicola would speak to the media, when you get the reports out there, that they were ever that close. Um, and going back to when I first started doing this podcast, you’ve heard me use the phrase of where there’s smoke, there’s fire, and you should always believe that. Like when I read these articles from Ken Rosenthal, Jeff Passen, Kylie McDaniel, and they’re referencing players that your team might be linked to or that would be a good fit. That’s not just randomness. Uh there has to be some smoke there. And when it came to Seth Lugo in a potential trade, there was never really any smoke. You heard about the Cubs calling and asking about Seth Lugo. The extent of that though is unknown to the rest of the public. Was it calling in and saying, “We’re interested in Seth Lugo.” The Royals said, “Well, we want these players.” And the Cubs said, “We’re not going to meet that price.” Or was it the Cubs saying, “We’ll offer you these guys for Seth Lugo.” And JJ Vo said, “Nowhere close to to what we would want in a return for one of our top pitchers.” And so, I put this out there on Twitter. Again, you can follow me uh online, Johnny_15. Um, but they never needed to force a trade. And that to me was a little bit of the misconception to a lot of people out there that wanted the Royals to sell. There was this notion that well they got to get it done. They have to get value because they’re not going to have him back next year, right? He’s basically a rental. He’s 35 years old. He’s going to be 36 this off season. and you need to get any type of value that you can before he walks in free agency and gets a three-year deal with somebody or the Nathan Evaldi contract which was three for 75. Um that was something that was certainly possible but the Royals kept saying over and over again we feel pretty confident that we can keep him here. Little did we know that they were confident in it because they could lock him up long term right now. They didn’t need to wait till the offseason. They didn’t need to wait till the opt out period. And that’s kind of the same thing they did with Michael Walka. There was this feeling that, well, once he finishes up the 2024 season, Walk is going to opt out and somebody’s going to give him a lot of money. But he liked it in Kansas City. He wanted to stay with this pitching staff and he wanted to stay with this defense in a ballpark that favors pitching and they got that deal done. Now with Lugo, I mean, you talk about getting it done early in a few days before the deadline, we can squash any trade talk anymore about Seth Lugo. Um, and now I feel 100% confident in saying the Royals are not selling. There is no need for them to sell at this point. You acquired Adam Frasier and Randall Gridic, two rental players, your number one trade ship. You got locked up for the next two years, which has a vesting option for the third year. And that also to you know break it down a little bit more simply uh that is where if you meet certain milestones uh with your your contract like when you we talk about incentive based you get x amount of innings you get x amount of strikeouts you’re an all-star you’re going to get that guaranteed money that’s what the vesting option is he reaches some of those totals which I don’t know the details on that just yet he would get that that option for 2028 but he’s extended for two more years 23 million a year That’s 2 million less than I thought he was going to get on the open market. I really did believe he was going to get the Nathan Evaldi deal, but Nathan Naldi is more of a power pitcher. Seth Luga is more of a finesse guy. And sometimes those pitchers don’t get the massive deals. And for Seth Lugo, I mean, I believe it when guys say, “I love to be here. Um, I want to continue to be here.” And I don’t know when these contract negotiations started, but I imagine when Seth Lugo spoke to the media, they were either just beginning or maybe they were in the middle of it because you just got this sense of, well, they’re not really wanting to trade him and they want to keep him around. They spoke pretty confidently about the situation. There wasn’t a well, you know, we we know it’s a business and we know that we might need to look into fielding some offers and we want to have him back, but not every GM backs that up. The Royals are willing to spend the money. It’s a totally different era that we’ve seen under JJ Bakolo and John Sherman. And we have seen the last two years this pitching staff be completely overhauled and you can’t take that for granted. I mean, we saw today Chris Bubich go on the injured list. He’s got the same rotator cuff strain that Cole Reagan’s done or did, excuse me. And uh that’s kept him out for a long time. I don’t know if Chris Bubich is going to return. So this feeling of well you got to trade Seth Lugo and get value there and then just call up guys in Triple A to make starts that was never going to be the way the Royals were going to operate. In fact, the more injuries that piled up in the rotation, the less likely I thought it would be that he would, you know, be traded somewhere unless you were going to be getting some pitchers in return. And the Royals needed offensive help. Hence why they went and got Randall Griick yesterday and why they wanted to improve their bench with Adam Frasier over Cam Deainy. Um, but the Royals were not going to be that reckless of, well, just start Dallas Kel, just start Thomas Hatch, just start, you know, Chandler Champlain, all of these guys, and just see what happens. Who cares? Punt the 2026. And I don’t believe that this is me making too much out of a situation, but when you make moves like that, you trade away Seth Lugo and and the Royals are not right there for a playoff spot. They’re still four games back. There are some teams that are playing bad baseball and honestly now they’re a lot closer to first place than I thought they would be. Um, considering they haven’t played tremendous baseball. They played good baseball in July, but the Tigers have been horrific. They just won their second game in their last 14 tries uh today against the Blue Jays. The Royals have gone from like a 15game deficit to eight and a half and they’re a half game out of second place, which of course is Cleveland. But if you’re in this spot where you’re two games under 500, I understand that players, you know, are responsible for that. So if your team is selling, you got nobody to blame but yourself. But if you’re right there and you feel that your team is good enough, and of course these players are going to say that, but they’re good enough to make a run in the second half. Well, I would say this that trading away pitchers when you’re already having the injury list pile up with starting pitchers and then you just slosh together a rotation, that’s going to turn off a lot of players and baseball players can be very online and they know what’s happening out there. And for a team that’s right there, it’s not to say that selling would have been, you know, catastrophic to these these players egos and their belief in what the Royals are trying to do, but to not really have a backup plan and say just start the AAA guys, they’re it’s more complicated than that. They just made a trade to replace Rich Hill in Omaha um earlier this week because that rotation is completely banged up and they’re just piecing it together at this point. So, you call everybody up there. Well, now you got to replace people for Omaha’s rotation and then does that screw with the Naturals rotation. So, it’s not as simple as that. And seeing Chris Bubich go on the injury list. I did not get the feeling of, well, now this is when you trade Lugo. Uh, cuz Michael Lorenzan, yeah, he could be coming back soon, but maybe look into trading him as well because he’s on a one-year deal. They want to not take for granted what they have and the consistency with Seth Luga, the consistency with Michael Walka, the unbelievable rookie season that Noah Cameron has had. All of those things were factors into this decision. And I believe it’s a win-win for both sides here. The Royals did not have to overpay for Lugo. It’s not an absurd amount of years where you’re paying him into his age 39 and 40 season a lot of money. You’ve got your rotation intact for this year and next year. and you’ve been a little bit you’ve been a little bit snake bitten with some of these injuries uh to your starting rotation, but you still have youth there and you’ve got the veteran experience from guys like Seth Lugo and guys like Michael Waka. But that was the breaking news of tonight, the Sunday night news dump, which I didn’t want to call it first, but now thinking about it, it’s basically what it is. We always hear it with the Friday news dump. This was the Sunday night news dump. even less expected um than the Friday night news dump there. But wanted to make sure we got an emergency podcast up and kind of get some thoughts on that deal and also the deal that happened yesterday in the middle of game two of the double header which was Randall Gritic coming over from Arizona in exchange for Andrew Hoffman who’s just been a blocked reliever for the Royals all season long. We’ll talk about that acquisition next on Locked on Royals. You are tuned to Lockdown Royals and the Lockdown Podcast Network. I’m your host, Jack Johnson. Catch us on wherever you listen to your podcast. The breaking news of tonight, of course, was Seth Lugo getting an extension in Kansas City. He’s not going anywhere. It’ll be a 2-year deal, third-year vesting option. Um 46 million over those two years there, so 23 million per year. Thought he might have gotten the Nathan Naldi deal in the open market. Royals didn’t want him to get to the opt out phase or the open market in general. Um, and they expressed a lot of confidence in getting it done. And you talk about having the uh the power move there, telling people, well, we’re pretty confident we can keep them here. All the while they’re working on an extension to get it done before the trade deadline. So, that squashes any more rumors. If you were on the fence about what they were going to be doing, I personally believe it’s very clear now that the Royals are going to try to make a push in the second half. Whether it works out or not, I do not believe that Randall Gritic and Adam Frasier will be the only outfield bats they acquire. I’m not going to be surprised in the slightest if they acquire a pitcher in the next few days. And that’s probably going to be a rental as well. um you know, a name that comes to mind. We we talked about Jeffrey Springs with the Athletics. Not sure what that would cost because he’s got a couple more years of control. Um but if you didn’t want to give up anything, you wanted to give up a lottery ticket kid or you wanted to give up another blocked prospect in Triple A, I think, you know, Aaron Seaval with the White Socks makes some sense there. He’s pitch pitched pretty well over his last three starts. We’ll see though. There there’s still a couple more days to iron things out. Uh there are going to be rental pitchers that the Royals need to replace um uh in the rotation or replace guys with in the rotation. And for some people out there this morning when I put that tweet out there, a lot of backlash of well that’s stupid. They need to be selling now that Chris Bouage isn’t coming back or at least for a while. We don’t know when Cole Reagan’s is going to come back whether it’s middle of August, late August or at all. Michael Lorenzan should be back pretty soon. But you still need to make trades to have guys make starts. Like you’re not just going to throw Dallas Kel out there. You’re not just going to throw Thomas Hatch out there. Uh you’re not going to be throwing guys out there that have not been that great in TripleA. The Rich Hill thing is not a long-term thing. It’s until they can get Michael Lorenzan back, which hopefully after this start that he makes tomorrow, Lorenzan will be making that next start in the rotation. Now you need to find somebody to replace Chris Bubich. And I feel pretty confident they are going to acquire somebody to make starts for Chris Buvich cuz that would be in line with what they’ve done over the last few weeks. Acquiring players to make a push in the second half. You don’t do all that and then just say, “Well, we’re going to throw whoever out there every fifth day.” Pitching is the lifeblood. It’s the strength of this organization and they want to make sure they can have some depth there. And even if Chris Bubich wasn’t going to be going on the injury report or the injury list, I still thought they were going to make be making a trade for a starter because they need depth there if they are to be able to make it close to postseason contention at the end of the year. Let’s go to the offensive side of things here, though. Randall Gritic is traded for yesterday. Um, this was a name that I can’t recall if we talked about it truthfully. I know we did in the offseason because the Royals wanted Randall Gritic. And when you got that report out there that the Diamondbacks are going to be looking to trade five or six players, Randall Gritick lined up with, you know, those five to six names there. And the Royals immediately, you know, jump to the top of that list of we need an outfielder that’s got some flexibility, can hit lefties pretty well. Jack Kaggle Leone going on the injury list with the hamstring strain or the hamstring tightness, whatever it was, they need somebody to start out there in right field. And Randall Gritic doesn’t have overpowering numbers. He’s also a league average bat. And I know for a fact, we talked about that because we said, well, what do they need to do? They need to acquire two bats that are league average to help this out this outfield. And the outfield this year has been arguably worse than last year. Kyle Isel’s played better, but in the corner outfield spots, you’re just not getting anything. And Randall Gridic is one of those guys that gives you something. And you know, the Royals are that type of organization or that type of team and it’s how JJ Beako operates where when they’re interested in somebody in the off season, they always seem to circle back to that player at the trade deadline if they’re in a buying situation. And Randall Gritic is somebody I don’t believe they ever really lost touch with. uh not that they would be talking to him or talking to the Diamondbacks in April or May, but he was on the radar clearly, otherwise they wouldn’t have acquired him yesterday. And what you gave up was a blocked AAA reliever. And for the most part, this deal was pretty wellreceived by a lot of my followers out there. From the national baseball point of view, I think it was a fine deal for both sides. Arizona is selling. The Royals need outfield help. They want to be making a push in the second half and they gave up Andrew Hoffman who really doesn’t have a spot in the bullpen and wasn’t going to the rest of this year. He’s just he’s fine. He had great numbers in Triple A. He’s got that that dominant kick change. He hasn’t been that great in the two outings or three outings the Royals threw him in. And if he goes and shines for Arizona and he’s a great reliever like Gabe Spire in Seattle, then sure, you can be upset with it. But it’s also a different age of Royals baseball. They have shown an ability to turn pitchers into something special. They’re no longer the team that, you know, has a reliever that just sucks in Kansas City and then goes somewhere else and dominates. It’s also not the end of the world if that does happen because relievers do that all the time. It’s not just a Royal Centric thing where they can’t pitch well here and now they pitch well elsewhere. I mean, Steven Cruz was given up on by Minnesota when they traded, you know, him and Evan Cisk for Michael A. Taylor. The Royals have turned him into an absolute power arm in the back end of the bullpen. And the Athletics gave up Lucas Erskin and his five years of control for prospects that haven’t done much in their organization. So, you trade away a reliever and he ends up being good. It’s kind of a dice roll there. The Royals desperately need outfield help. They need offensive production. They get that in Gritic and I don’t believe they gave up much. And in fact, they upgraded their bench with Frasier and Gritic and gave up a 28-year-old prospect, if you even want to call him a prospect, and then a blocked AAA reliever. And when I look at moves like this and why you trade those relievers, if you’re scared that that player is going to turn into something, I believe you’re not doing things the right way because the Royals have full confidence they can replace Andrew Hoffman with another Andrew Hoffman. uh they’ve got that that confidence in turning a a talented arm into something special for their big league bullpen. They probably believe they could do the same thing with Jonathan Bowen, assuming he’s not traded before the trade deadline. They’ve got that on their side now, where in the past, I think you’d have a reason to go, man, I don’t want to see Andrew Hoffman included in a deal like that because that’s a a reliever with years of control for a rental bat you’re probably not going to have back next year. But this is kind of how the market has been. Um, not a lot of teams are jumping all over it. There’s not an uber aggressive team and this is maybe the best way the Royals can go about it. Uh, you’re not going to give up a ton from your system to go get a bat that, you know, might be able to help your lineup. I mean, I even have changed my my heart on this this idea of it. Uh because the Royals don’t want to give up a Blake Mitchell or a Carter Jensen or a David Shields for a bat that could be here next year and the year after that. They want to keep those guys in their system. And now if the right deal comes along, then it would make sense to make that trade. But if this is the way you want to go about it, I also see the side in it. Okay, you’re counting on some of these guys to improve in the second half and you feel that you are still going to have a chance in September to compete for the postseason. If you’re giving up guys that were never going to be on your team in the first place for a rental player, I see some of the logic in it. I really do. I I don’t see it being a downside move if you don’t make the postseason. I mean, you didn’t give up much and you got guys that you felt could help you and get this team closer to contention. Um, now if they make a deal that’s the biggest one of them all, uh, more than Gritic and Adam Frasier, then all right, I would be wrong on on this idea of they’re only going to bring in rental players. But if they were to go out there before the 31st on Thursday and acquire a starter, a rental starter, and go after another bat, that would be a rental and all you’ve been giving up is guys outside of your top 30 and players that are just blocked in Omaha. I don’t think that’s a bad thing at all. And so for Andrew Hoffman getting dealt, I mean, Cam Dei is hitting 227 and slunging 227 for Pittsburgh and Triple A. um Andrew Hoffman might join Arizona’s bullpen or he might go down to triple A and the Royals boosted their offense a little bit. So that seems to be the thought process behind some of these moves. We don’t want to give up top prospects in our system, but we want to upgrade this team a little bit. That’s what they’ve done. You know, Adam Frasier because of the numbers is an upgrade over what they had on the bench. Randall Gritic is the best outfielder they’ve put out there all season long. And that says more about the state of the outfield than it does about Randall Gritic. But they do not have a league average bat in the outfield. They have not for the entire season. And I’m not counting it when, you know, Jack Kaggleon was, you know, hitting fine in the first couple of games, right? He had the four hit game in Chicago and then technically he was like a league average bat. I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about right now at this point in the season, large sample size. They have just not had a league average bat. Now he is that guy. And I do believe it’ll be a little bit of an upgrade over what you’ve seen offensively, but there’s still a few more days to get moves to happen. And I do feel they are in the market for two more players to add to this team. A starter for the rotation and then I’d imagine another outfield bat to boost this offense because that’s going to be the way you get back into contention here and really make a strong push in the second half. You need to get as many league average bats as you can. And I believe it is a good start for the outfield in going after somebody like Randall Gritick. What did you think of the Randall Gridic move? Let us know in the YouTube comments below or let us know on Twitter. For our final segment, let’s recap what happened this weekend between the Royals and the Guardians. And look ahead to their next series that begins tomorrow against the Atlanta Braves. That’s coming up on Lockdown Royals. You are tuning in to Lockdown Royals and the Lockdown Podcast Network. I am your host, Jack Johnson, and you can find me on Twitter at johnnyj_15. It was a massive series for the Royals this weekend. Um, I know that not everybody agreed with that statement on Friday when I said it, but that was a series that could have broken them. That was a series that could allow them to take off, really give them a a clear headsp space on what they wanted to do before 5:00 p.m. on Thursday. And uh the Royals walk away a winner in this series. Uh they’ve got the double header on Saturday. You get the dramatic walk-off three-run home run from Jonathan India. Chris Bouic has his worst start of the season. Maybe the worst start of his career in game two, but the Royals did make it interesting. It was a competitive game two. And then today, pure domination from Noah Cameron. Offense did enough. and you go to bed tonight feeling much better about this team than maybe you did going into Friday. And I know for a lot of people this wasn’t going to not to uh you know play on with words here with buying and selling but that wasn’t going to sell you on this team to really believe that they were bound for something special. But they couldn’t have been able to sell anybody on trying to make a push in the second half if they lost this series. Like if they would have lost today, I I just don’t know how you could go into the Atlanta series, the final series before the deadline and say, “Well, we still want to add some more pieces here.” And I know that’s crazy because it’s a oneame difference there, but it’s the momentum that you could have. Atlanta’s coming in 1 and seven over their last eight. They got bombed by the Rangers, who the Royals are still chasing, and they’re now tied for the final playoff spot. Uh, so there’s a lot of changing around in the standings that feel like it’s going to happen. And the Royals probably look at a team like Cleveland and think we are better than this team. And when we get our rotation back to full strength, when we get uh a few more pieces for this offense, get some more depth, we’re going to be a team that’s playing better baseball than them in August and in September. They’ve still got matchups with um Boston. They’ve got matchups with Texas. They’ve got matchups with Minnesota. They’ve got another matchup with Cleveland, too. They’ve got matchups with Detroit, who all of a sudden now is free falling in the second half. I’m not going to say the Royals can storm all the way back and win the division. But Detroit’s not playing the same good baseball that they were, you know, back in April and May when they built such a large lead in the American League Central. Um, but this was an important weekend and it was important for the Royals to show up and show out against Cleveland. They were on the verge of losing game one of that double header and I don’t believe that if they would have lost game one, they would have miraculously won game two. I believe that would have been a sleep sweep for Cleveland. And even today, you turn to Noah Cameron who’s been so special for this team all season long and he gives five innings of shutout ball. Hunter Harvey makes his return for the first time since April. return to the mound I should say and he was electric. Velocity was good. One, two, three inning for him. Ersid got things done. Est got his 27th save. Garcia homered. They did damage in the first inning. You are starting to see this team play the type of baseball they needed to a month ago when the offense couldn’t get anything going. You are starting to see a different version of this offense, a more consistent group. And if they can just tread water with their starting rotation and keep hope alive, uh maybe that is too dangerous of a thing to be a believer and get in the postseason when you’re much further out than you really are. But I’m not going to put it past them at this point if their goal is to add more pieces to beat teams like Texas, to beat teams like Minnesota, to beat teams like Cleveland. And uh this series against the Braves, once again, I’m not going to say it’s as big as the one against Cleveland because Cleveland is a half game ahead of you in the standings and you want to make sure you can leaprog them. Atlanta’s in the National League and they’re free falling. They’re now 16 games under 500. They’re not going to be buying at the deadline. They’re going to be selling and maybe before Thursday they make a couple of moves to weaken that lineup a little bit. But if you were to lose that series, get swept against Cleveland, not play inspired baseball, I just don’t know that you could match up with what your hope and desires would be for this team. And I’m speaking more so about JJ Bakolo here. If you did not play well, what are you waiting for, right? What are you still hoping is going to happen? And is that going to be with players you acquire or is it when you get healthier? Um, but I did see a team that knew how important this series was and how much pressure uh there was on them. I mean, they they understand where they are in the standings. They can’t afford to lose series against teams that they are chasing. They have to win all of these series against teams that are ahead of them. when they see Boston at at Fenway Park, the only three times they’ll play him for the rest of the year, you got to take two of three. When you face the Rangers in Kansas City, you got to take two of three. When you take on Minnesota, again, a team that’s behind them and is likely going to be selling, you got to take two of three. Angels, you got six games against them. That’s important, right? So, you’ve got these matchups against teams that you can actively, you know, leapfrog them. you can take games away from them and not just hope that somebody else is doing it for you. All the while you are taking care of your own business, but the way I watched this series was, okay, I want to see how they match up with Cleveland. How how are these games going down in the losses? Are they close when they’re winning? Are they dominating? How do they match up? And I thought that the Royals in this series were not a much better team. I’m not going to go that far because it still was a close series, but they were the better team top to bottom. And I don’t believe I could say that back in April when Cleveland was just smacking around Kansas City. I believe this is a Cleveland team that is probably headed toward not doing anything at the deadline or selling off some pieces. And the Royals apparently are are pretty adamant about adding some pieces of the deadline, even if they’re just minor upgrades here and there. Now, you turn the page. You look at Atlanta, a team that is not playing well but still has a lot of star power with Ronald Luna Jr. You got Matt Olsen. You got Brooks Baldwin who’s played great this season. You’ve also got Austin Riley. You got Aussie Alb’s. You’ve got a lot of former Allstars in that group. Problem is for Atlanta, they are just barely hanging on by a thread with their rotation. I mean, they’re throwing Spencer Strider tomorrow, their true number one ace when he’s at his best, when he’s healthy. Uh, but, you know, Chris Sail has been, you know, great for was great for them last year. It’s just not the same type of Atlanta team, though. And they’re going to be starting Eric Fetty, who got traded for, you know, the Cardinals DF8 him. He’s starting on on Tuesday. And then on Wednesday, maybe it was uh maybe it was Wednesday when he was slated to start. Joey Wentz actually a former local product here out of Kansas City saw that he was going to be scheduled to start on Wednesday. So maybe it’s Strider, Fetty, and then Wentz. Um so it’s still WZ with his 5.76 RA on Wednesday afternoon. Believe Fetty will go against Lugo on Tuesday and then it’s Rich Hill vers Spencer Strider tomorrow night. Like I said, not as big of a series as it was against Cleveland. You still got to take two of three. That’s got to be the goal for the rest of the way. You need to play 10, 15 games over 500 to give yourself a chance. You can’t be losing many series of teams that are 16 games under 500. Um, and right after this Atlanta series, they go to Toronto, who’s one of the best teams in baseball. And that is a a a good test. I say a big test, but just a really good test for how this team is constructed. Uh they need to show that for the rest of the baseball world, we’re not going anywhere between now and September. And maybe that was not the best choice of words because you could take that as we’re not going anywhere in terms of u postseason contention. I mean it more so as we’re going to be in the thick of this thing. Like we’re not going to bottom out here. We’re going to put a lot of pressure on these teams that we are chasing. And after they took the series against Cleveland, they took the series against Chicago. And by the way, the Miami series loss, I I think at the time did not look that good. Man, the Marlins are playing good baseball. Uh they were very impressive against Milwaukee. They were very impressive against San Diego after the Royals left. That’s a team that it would have been a very good thing to take the series, but they’ve responded well. Series win at Wrigley Field, series win against your division rival and the Cleveland Guardians. Now it’s the slumping Atlanta Braves coming into town. Rich Hill throws tomorrow. His second start as a Royal. Spencer Strider is going for Atlanta. That’s going to do it for another edition of Lockdown Royals in the Lockdown Podcast Network. I have been your host, Jack Johnson. Now, tomorrow, depending if there is a move, we could have another episode, but I plan on just reposting this episode tomorrow, mainly just on Twitter so that we can get more eyeballs on it. Uh, but this might count as our episode tomorrow unless a trade happens. So maybe until Tuesday, which is when I’m planning on having that episode. You take it easy, Kansas City.

We react to the breaking news of the Royals extending Seth Lugo instead of trading him at the Trade Deadline. Next, we give our thoughts on the Royals trading for Randal Grichuk. Lastly, we recap the series win over Cleveland.

Host Jack Johnson talks about it all next on “Locked On Royals”!

0:00 – Lugo
11:41 – Grichuk
22:52 – Guardians series

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