Monday, July 27

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DETROIT – Isaac Collins had a lot going on in his mind at the beginning of the 2026 season, getting adjusted to a new team, a new ballpark and a new city after the Royals acquired him from the Brewers this offseason.

Any player new to a team wants to start hot, but Collins was anything but – and it was magnified by the Royals’ poor start as a team.

“I feel like the first few months of the year, I was trying to do way too much,” Collins said.

Now? Collins is looking much more settled in, and he’s producing like the hitter the Royals believed they were acquiring.

“I really just honed in on what I’m trying to do each time I get to the plate,” Collins said. “Looking where I need to look and getting my pitch. Just staying on my approach and just being really convicted. That’s kind of been the big theme for me lately, is just being convicted in who I am as a hitter and who I am as a player.

“There were some good games in the first few months of the year, but then it would just feel like I would take a step back two or three games later. But lately, it’s just been building, keep climbing the mountain.”

Just like we did for Lane Thomas in the last newsletter, it’s easy to break Collins’ season into two stints. And for him, like much of the Royals’ offense, the production started when the calendar flipped to June: 

From March 27-May 31…

188 PA, .217/.335/.318, 7 2B, 3 HR, 13.3% walk rate, 26.6% strikeout rate, 88 wRC+

From June 1-July 24…

155 PA, .279/.359/.441, 11 2B, 3 HR, 9.7% walk rate, 19.4% strikeout rate, 123 wRC+

Entering Saturday, Collins’ wRC+ for the season was up to 104 – just above league average.

“Far more consistent at-bats, far more consistent control of the strike zone,” manager Matt Quatraro said. “I think that’s why we’ve seen the on-base and results go up.”

Collins is not an overly mechanical hitter, and his prep is simple. He explains his approach as finding his best swing against the pitch he wants to do damage on and not swinging at anything else or making any last-minute decisions, especially when he has fewer than two strikes. It helps him not get sped up during an at-bat, or if he does get sped up, to make quick adjustments the next time.

“A lot of it is just timing,” said assistant hitting coach Connor Dawson, who worked with Collins in Milwaukee. “When he’s right, you see him using the entire field, not just center field, which I think we’ve seen a lot of lately.”

Staying with that approach proved to be the most difficult when he was struggling at the beginning of the year.

“I always think of it like a beach,” Dawson said. “It’s easy to think you’re close to the beach when you’re in the ocean, but you can drift off quickly if you don’t have an anchor. Isaac’s got a great anchor in his work. He needs to be consistent with it, and keeping him tied to his anchor is really the main thing.”

Collins can’t just erase the first two months of the season, and neither can the Royals. Their performance is why they’re in the spot they’re in right now, out of contention and operating as sellers at the Trade Deadline. That’s not where they imagined they would be.

But the season continues no matter what your record is after May, and there’s no use in digging a deeper hole if you can figure out ways to play better. That’s the mindset Collins and many other hitters took, and they’re seeing the benefits of it.

“It’s not easy,” Collins said. “It’s uncomfortable. Difficult. But that’s the big leagues for you. This game will get you questioning stuff. It’ll really test you, see if that doubt in your mind will stay there. You have to overcome it. But I’m just trying to stay positive and convicted in who I am as a hitter and player.”

Reliever Nate Pearson joined the Royals on Friday night in Detroit, two days after the club acquired him in a trade with the Astros that sent High-A pitcher Max Martin to Houston.

The Royals will bring Pearson along slowly because he hasn’t pitched in a game since July 8, partly because of the All-Star break and Houston designating him for assignment on July 19. We’ll see him in some low-leverage opportunities to begin with, but if he pitches well, the role could quickly expand.

“We’re just going to get him out there and get him comfortable and see if the pitching guys have some suggestions to fine tune things,” Quatraro said. “I think [the key] is just being on the attack, like we say with a lot of guys.”

Finding the strike zone and generating more swing and miss are going to be Pearson’s biggest hurdles. He has a 19% strikeout rate this season across 16 appearances with the Astros but an elevated 14.3% walk rate. His swinging strike percentages the last two years have been 7.9% with the Cubs and 9.8% with the Astros.

The Royals pitching group will probably focus on Pearson’s slider and curveball, the latter a pitch that he said “has taken some steps forward the last couple of years.” He’s still throwing 98 mph with his four-seam, so locating that is an important part of Pearson’s plan.

Salvador Perez’s next home run will be the 318th of his career, and it will break a tie with George Brett for most home runs in Royals history. But let’s talk about No. 317 for a moment.

You have to appreciate that the record-tying blast came at a point in the game in which the Royals had really nothing going offensively. But leave it to Perez to ignite a daytime crowd at Kauffman Stadium with the two-run homer – and credit to the Royals for following it up by keeping the line moving and taking the lead, giving their captain a win on a very special day.

“I always say the most important thing is to win,” Perez said. “That made the day, to me, a little bit more special.”

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