Bobby Witt Jr. is unfathomably good, Royals win 10-4

So close to a cycle!

There’s something special about winning baseball. Maybe it’s because I’m a fan of the Kansas City Royals and they have been bad for my entire life outside a miraculous two-year stretch. There’s just nothing like it, the energy infecting every single moment.

Tonight, the Royals won big, 10-4. Cole Ragans was solid outside of one inning. Salvador Perez hit a honkin’ home run, as did Hunter Renfroe. But the story tonight is about how electric the game felt and how outstanding, how unbelievable, how mind-bendingly amazing Bobby Witt Jr. is (even if he didn’t quite hit for the cycle).

Let’s start with Wit. Witt has been the hottest hitter on the planet. I haven’t seen anything like it. In the last four games, he’s hit .667/.688/.933. In July—July! Like the month!—he had been hitting .491/.500/.836 coming into tonight.

And then Witt tripled in the first inning, of course.

Witt then doubled to lead off the third inning. Vinnie singled, then Salvy homered. It was great. But then...but then! After chasing Diamondbacks starter Yilber Diaz out of the game in the fourth inning, Witt homered on a godawful first pitch middle-middle fastball.

If you were doing the math, that was Witt’s third hit of the game. It was also his third different hit of the game, putting him in position to hit a single and get the Royals’ first cycle since 1990.

The Royals continued to do good things, but let’s fast forward to the sixth inning. This is when Witt came up to bat again. This time, the pitcher for the Diamondbacks was Miguel Castro, who immediately hit Witt with a pitch on the forearm.

Listen to those boos!!!!! Those boos were electric. Royals fans were incensed. Rex and Ryan immediately identified that the Royals would hit one of the Diamondbacks batters, and sure enough that was the case. After getting two outs in the top of the seventh inning, John Schreiber hit Gabriel Moreno with an inside fastball.

Royals fans at the stadium were delighted, immediately cheering for the hit batter. The umpires proceeded to have a little meeting and then warned both teams. Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo was thrown out for arguing this with the umps, which then sent the entire stadium into a frenzy. Salvador Perez, who cameras had caught being pissed at Witt getting hit by a pitch, had to be held back by three people chirping at the umpire and Lovullo.

This doesn’t really sound that wild, but the electricity in the building during this event was almost physically palpable. The Diamondbacks hit our best player, taking away one opportunity to hit for the cycle. Royals fans (and the team itself!) took it personally. And it was just a glorious example of everyone just...being into it in a way that I haven’t seen in almost a decade.

After the kerfuffle, the rest of the Royals bullpen didn’t do very well but managed to hold it together. Chris Stratton and Will Smith gave up three walks, two hits, and a run, but they had such a lead that it didn’t matter.

The Kansas City Royals stand at 56-45. They have arguably the best player in Major League Baseball. And they just matched last year’s win total—on July 22.

The boys are playing some ball