Royals’ Whit Merrifield loses sleep after ‘pretty embarrassing’ defensive mistakes

Yes, it hurts Kansas City Royals star Whit Merrifield to see his mistakes in the field loom large in the outcome of a game.

Even as he collected accolades such as an All-Star selection, back-to-back hit titles and a stolen base title, the thing he wanted most to do in a Royals uniform was to win for Kansas City.

It was just two seasons ago when reporters assembled in the Royals clubhouse to ask Merrifield about chasing George Brett’s franchise-record hitting streak — which Merrifield eclipsed — and he turned the moment into a plea to the fans.

After a 2-8 start in 2019, Merrifield stood wearing a backwards cap and speaking in soft tones as he urged everyone, “Stay with us because better days are coming.”

Now the Royals, who entered Wednesday night in first place in the AL Central Division and with maybe the most formidable lineup in Merrifield’s tenure, are in a position he’d been champing at the bit to reach. They’re competitive, so he definitely feels every bit of the impact of his costly miscues.

The club’s most versatile defender as well as the offensive catalyst, Merrifield by his own admission slogged through a “rough patch” in the field this week with errors in the first two games of the series against the Tampa Bay Rays, both defeats.

“Bluntly, it has been pretty embarrassing,” Merrifield said on Wednesday. “I don’t know. It has just been a pretty poor performance individually defensively the last couple of nights. Last night — I can’t think of a worse defensive game that I’ve had in my life. Not just my professional career, but my life.”

Merrifield failed to field a potential double play ball in the first inning on Tuesday night, having been caught between hops, and that allowed a run to score and extended the inning for starting pitcher Brad Keller.

In the second inning while playing behind second base, he fielded a ground ball to the shortstop side of the bag with a runner on first and flipped to Nicky Lopez sprinting to the bag instead of throwing to first for the sure out.

Merrifield, batting .306 with three homers and 12 RBIs through 16 games, described that play as a “mental lapse” as he instinctively wanted to turn two, but playing in the defensive shift made that highly unlikely.

“What kept me up last night and made me lose sleep was the fact that Keller has been grinding,” Merrifield said. “That first inning — yes, he got into a little bit of trouble — and we had a chance to turn a double play and get him out of the inning. Really, I think that would have turned the entire game around and given him a chance to have a good game.”

Instead, no outs were recorded and that put two men on with no outs to start the inning. Keller, who walked three batters in the second, didn’t make it through the inning.

Ultimately, the Royals had to turn to the bullpen in the second inning and gave up four runs to fall behind 5-0 before the heart of their own lineup had even swung a bat.

In the sixth with Kyle Zimmer pitching, Merrifield gloved and knocked down a sharply hit ball off the bat of Brandon Lowe that loaded the bases. Merrifield felt that if he’d judged the ball better, he had a chance at a double play there as well.

“Keller got that early outing and I felt like a lot of it was on me,” Merrifield said. “We talked for a long time last night. He’s one of my best friends on the team. I just felt so terrible for him, same with Zimmer.”

Royals manager Mike Matheny appreciates accountability and loves to see players, coaches — himself included — take ownership of things they can each do better.

That said, Matheny clearly felt harping on Merrifield’s recent defensive lapses would be making a mountain out of a molehill.

“As far as Whit goes, Dayton (Moore) was in here and we were talking the other day,” Matheny said. “When you take away these last few games here, this guy has played really good defense. So to get hyper-focused on a smaller sample, I don’t think it accurate and fair.

“But it is what it is, everything gets sometimes blown out of proportion because there is such a microscope on every move, every breath. But overall, he’s done a nice job and I know he’s going to continue to work to even get better.”

Merrifield didn’t make any excuses, and he still expressed the utmost confidence in his ability to play second base deftly. He has made 396 of his 593 major-league starts at second base.

“Fortunately, I’ve had a lot of games and innings at second base in my career,” Merrifield said. “I know that I’m a better player than that. (Tuesday) night was a tough game. Hopefully, nothing like that will happen again.”