Fun with Arbitrary Endpoints: The Royals in June

June was an interesting month for the Royals. It started out well, as they went 13-3 in their first 16 games. In typical Royalcoaster fashion (credit to Pine Tar Press’ David Lesky for the perfectly descriptive term), they then lost 7 of their next 9 games. They wrapped up the month by winning 2 straight. That’s not quite a winning streak, but it’s also not a losing streak, which is a thing the Royals should try to avoid moving forward.

As you might guess, many Royals produced some very fascinating stat lines during the last month, and this is a post to put some of those stat lines on display for you. If you’re not sure what I’m talking about, you can read the posts from April and May, but the general idea is that numbers are fun to look at and share with your friends. So here you go.

– The Royals as a team had a wRC+ of 106, which was their first above average offensive month since July 2012. Raul Ibanez was a Yankee then.

– The team’s .140 ISO last month was the 12th highest in the majors. Their 23 home runs ranked them just below the Athletics, who had 24.

– The team’s best hitter (min. 15 PA) in June was Alcides Escobar, because of course he was. He had a 158 wRC+, barely edging out Salvador Perez. Escobar also had a higher wRC+ than Troy Tulowitzki (155).

– Escobar’s BABIP last month was .410, but he also had a line drive rate of 28.4%, so it looks slightly less crazy. Then it looks crazy again when you see that he hit more fly balls than grounders, and also had an infield fly ball rate of 15.6%.

– Eric Hosmer was the worst hitter on the roster among those with 15 or more plate appearances, and it wasn’t particularly close. His 42 wRC+ was nearest to Omar Infante‘s 77 wRC+. Hosmer did post the same wRC+ as Josh Donaldson, however.

– Only 3 regulars had a wRC+ below 95: Hosmer, Infante, and Nori Aoki. Those three made up the top of the order for much of the month.

– The Royals only stole 16 bases in June. Jose Altuve stole 17 by himself.

– In the last two weeks of the month, no Royals hitter accumulated more fWAR than Jarrod Dyson, with 0.7.

– The Royals’ team ERA- in June was 80, trailing only the Mariners in the American League rankings.

– Danny Duffy pitched 37.1 innings last month, and had an ERA of 1.69, which was the 10th best ERA in baseball. He also struck out 7.47 batters per 9 innings.

– Duffy did not lead the Royals’ starters in K/9, however. That honor goes to none other than Jeremy Guthrie, at 7.52. Sure, why not?

– Guthrie’s fastball value came in at 5.8 runs above average last month. Clayton Kershaw‘s fastball value was 5.9 runs above average.

– Duffy did lead the starters in lowest line drive rate allowed, at 14.0%. That number was only slightly higher than his opponents’ infield fly ball rate (12.5%). Weak contact is a very good thing, in this instance.

– Greg Holland and Wade Davis combined to pitch 22.1 innings. They struck out 33 batters and allowed 4 total runs. Two of those runs came from the bats of Brad Miller and Logan Morrison.

– Bruce Chen struck out 8 batters in his 5 innings of work in June, which is as many strikeouts as the Orioles’ Chris Tillman had in 29 innings of work in June. Jason Vargas struck out 15 batters in 35.1 innings.

– James Shields had an ERA of 4.88 in June. He did not bounce back last night.