Royals Star Cole Ragans Makes Early All-Star Case In Gut-Punch Brewers Loss
In this story:
The Kansas City Royals have now dropped both of their first two series of the season, but at least Cole Ragans is giving them something to smile about.
On Wednesday, the Royals lost a 3-2 heartbreaker against the Milwaukee Brewers in 11 innings. Kansas City was mystified by Brewers starter Freddy Peralta for eight innings, then second baseman Brice Turang dropped down a walk-off safety squeeze bunt to seal the victory.
The Royals' offense clearly still needs to wake up, but Ragans was ready to go for his second start of the season. After a so-so outing on Opening Day (five innings, three earned runs), the hard-throwing lefty demonized the Brewers offense all afternoon.
In five innings against the defending National League Central champions, Ragans allowed one earned run (a first-inning blast by Brewers superstar Jackson Chourio), and diced up everyone else he saw, striking out 10 Milwaukee batters.
The strikeout column is going to be one of the most important for Ragans all season, so the fact that he hit double digits in such a short outing is excellent. He struck out 223 batters in 186 1/3 innings, a major reason he made the All-Star team and finished fourth in Cy Young Award balloting.
Sure, there are still things to nitpick. Ragans threw 97 pitches and couldn't make it to the sixth inning, which will be a problematic trend if it happens to continue. He threw 66 strikes, though, so it's not like he was all over the map. The Brewers, as they tend to do, were grinding out at-bats.
But the bottom line is this: Ragans needs to be an ace for the Royals to have a shot at back-to-back playoff appearances, and he looked like one on Wednesday. Kansas City just has to hope he can keep building on that to put himself in All-Star consideration for a second-straight year.
More MLB: Royals $13 Million All-Star Predicted To Make First All-MLB Appearance In 2025
Jackson Roberts is a former Division III All-Region DH who now writes and talks about sports for a living. A Bay Area native and a graduate of Swarthmore College and the Newhouse School at Syracuse University, Jackson makes his home in North Jersey. He grew up rooting for the Red Sox, Patriots, and Warriors, and he recently added the Devils to his sports fandom mosaic. For all business/marketing inquiries regarding "Kansas City Royals On SI," please reach out to Scott Neville: scott@wtfsports.org
Follow jrobertsbsbl