Royals - April News and Notes

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Duffy was fantastic yesterday (well, besides the walks). The kid has all-star type stuff.

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Where is bubba starling at?

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Where is bubba starling at?

Extended Spring Training right now. There was some talk of him starting in Kane County but I suspect he'll be in Idaho Falls when their season begins in mid-June

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DAM YOU BROXTON

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DAM YOU BROXTON

Seriously.

K
E6
BB
BB
FC -ties game
HBP
HBP - game over

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I dont i have ever seen a back to back HBP to end the game, that just inexcusable.

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Broxton can't close it as the Royals fall in 12 - I still can't believe that happened. Chen pitched alright. Herrera, Collins, Mijares and Holland pitched great.

Broxton Blows It In 12th

It was a game that the Royals and their fan base would love to soon forget. After taking a lead in the top of the 12th inning, Royals closer Jonathan Broxton melted late and Kansas City fell to Oakland, 5-4.

The demise came after Billy Butler drove a double into the left field corner to score Eric Hosmer from first with the go-ahead run in the top of the 12th to take a 4-3 lead. But Broxton, who had wobbled but not broken this season, seemed to snap after Alcides Escobar booted a routine one-out grounder. Broxton followed with a pair of walks to load the bases before inducing Coco Crisp to roll into a fielders choice to second base where Yuniesky Betancourt’s only play was to first. A run scored to tie the game, 4-4, with runners at second and third and two outs.

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Perez off crutches as knee rehab is proceeding

Starters have second-lowest ERA in Majors

KANSAS CITY -- Pitcher Luke Hochevar, who'll start the Royals' home opener against the Indians on Friday afternoon, is part of a five-man rotation that manager Ned Yost predicted would surprise the skeptics.

And, after the first six starts, that's been the case. The Royals' starters have the second-lowest ERA in the Majors, 1.85 compared to the leading 1.67 by Philadelphia. Maybe that could be expected from Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee, Cole Hamels and Vance Worley. But Bruce Chen, Hochevar, Jonathan Sanchez, Luis Mendoza and Danny Duffy?

Cain on 15-day DL

KANSAS CITY -- Center fielder Lorenzo Cain will miss the Royals' home opener after being placed on the 15-day disabled list with a strained left groin on Thursday. The move was retroactive to Wednesday.

Outfielder Jarrod Dyson was recalled from Triple-A Omaha to take Cain's spot on the roster for Friday's home opener against the Cleveland Indians.

It's All Good, But It's Pretty Bad

Two weeks ago, I think the Royals’ community would have unamiously accepted a 3-3 start to the season. That is what good teams do: play .500 ball on the road and take care of business at home, right? As ugly as yesterday’s 12 inning loss to Oakland was, Kansas City accomplished step one of that theory. Sure, you hate to lose a game like that, but it is, after all ‘just one game’.

Except ‘just one game’ begins to add up after while.

I am not sure that Denny Matthews came up with this theory, but he refers to it from time to time and I think it makes some sense. Denny will say that every baseball team plays 50 games that they win no matter what, 50 games that they will lose no matter what and the determination of a team’s season is what they do with the remaining 62 contests.

Using that theory, I think it is safe to say that the season opener against Jared Weaver was one of those 50 that the Royals were just plain going to lose. The following two games, in my opinion, would both fall into the category of the 50 that the Royals were destined to win, ditto for the 3-0 rain shortened game on Tuesday night. However, yesterday’s debacle and Monday’s 1-0 loss to Tom Milone have to fall into the critical 62 game column. There, after just six games, the Royals are 0-2.

Finally Here... Opening Day At The K

A few thoughts as we get set to open another season at The K on Positive Friday. Hope the weather holds!

– Six games into the season, and I’m a little torn on how the bullpen has performed. Yeah, the Broxton meltdown was spectacular and that eighth inning on Opening Day was rough, but there have been some stellar individual performances. Aaron Crow has pitched two of the best innings I’ve seen a reliever throw in recent memory. Tiny Tim Collins has conquered his command problems for the time being. And Kelvin Herrera’s change-up gives me nightmares and I haven’t swung a bat in years.

Collectively, they posted a SO/BB ratio of slightly better than 4:1, which is fantastic. Their 12.1 SO/9 is the fourth best in baseball and trails only the Yankees in the American League. On the other hand, they have collectively inherited 12 runners and allowed five to score. And Broxton kind of has occasional control issues.

Overall, though, we have to be pleased, right? The bullpen had been advertised as a strength of this team and even though there have been a couple of speed bumps on the way, there’s nothing I’ve seen in the first week that would lead me to believe otherwise.

Speaking of the bullpen, has anyone seen Everett Teaford? Seriously, every reliever has been in three games – except Herrera who’s appeared twice. And Teaford hasn’t set foot out of the bullpen. Yosty has a full compliment of relievers, yet refuses to use a guy who figures to be an asset.

Maybe he forgot Teaford pitched in KC last year and figured him for a Rule 5 guy he’s obligated to bury. If anyone can figure out the logic behind Nervous Ned’s Bullpen Management Scheme, I’m listening… Because I’d really like to know.

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Not a good series at all for KC. No starter pitched more than 4 and the bullpen got worked hard.

Maier lends right arm for taxed Royals' pen

Maier did more than just eat an inning. He faced the minimum three batters, giving up one hit, which was quickly erased on an inning-ending double play.

Maier's appearance could almost be classified as necessary after the workload the bullpen had in the series against Cleveland.

In three games, no Royals starter recorded an out past the fourth inning. Two relievers pitched five innings on Friday in relief of Hochevar, and six men combined for 7 1/3 innings on Saturday after Jonathan Sanchez made an early exit. Sunday's starter, Luis Mendoza, was pulled early with none out in the fifth inning, leaving plenty of work for the Kansas City bullpen.

And we're going to leave the weekend series at that.

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Duffy gives Royals strong start in defeat

KANSAS CITY -- Danny Duffy played the role of stopper on Monday night.

Maybe it wasn't the most traditional version of the role, as that title is usually assigned after a pitcher stops a team's losing streak. The Royals lost the game, 3-2, to the Tigers, but Duffy ended a streak of nightmare outings for the Kansas City starting staff.

Duffy took the loss, but he threw 6 2/3 innings, allowing three runs on seven hits and three walks. He struck out seven.

Royals come up short against Verlander

KANSAS CITY -- Justin Verlander, as usual, was too much for the Royals. But this time, they pushed him to the limit.

Detroit's MVP and Cy Young Award winner and Kansas City's nemsis pitched the Tigers to a 3-2 victory on Monday night, boosting his career record against the Royals to 14-2.

The 14,039 fans at Kauffman Stadium watched the Royals lose their fifth straight game, despite a strong outing by left-hander Danny Duffy. They got some ninth-inning excitement, though, when the Royals got within one run and had the bases loaded.

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Witnessing Greatness

I’ll get to the headline in a minute (and I’ll warn you that there’s some rambling going on in this post), but I want to talk about a moral victory first. I know we really should be past the point of moral victories, and we most definitely are, but I need to find a victory in something. Since the Royals aren’t providing any real victories on their schedule, if I want to look for the silver lining, I don’t really have a choice but to look inside the game within a game. Trust me, I don’t want to do it, but I sort of have to in order to stay sane at this point. Last night’s silver lining was Danny Duffy who went 6.2 innings, gave up three runs, struck out seven and walked just one. He admittedly made two mistakes that obviously ended up costing the Royals the game, but they’ll take that performance from him every day of the week.

Everybody PANIC!

The Royals are already 10 whole games into the season and it’s certainly safe to make some completely accurate assumptions about the team. Since there are only 152 more games in this season, it’s safe to say that there just isn’t enough time to make drastic changes in what has already transpired. What have we leaned from this season?

• The Royals are a last place team. That’s a given. The team is 4 entire games out of first place with only 152 left to make up the difference. It’s just not enough. It’s true that they’re tied with the Minnesota Twins at the moment, but the Twins won last night and the Royals didn’t. That trend absolutely will continue. It’s over.

• Humberto Quintaro is an offensive juggernaut. He’s hitting .368 and at WORST will have the 2nd highest single season batting average in Royals history. Although he sucks compared to…

• Yuniesky Betancourt! Holy crap! The guy is hitting .389 and on pace to hit 27 bombs if he were to play in every game, which he absolutely should, I can’t see a reason not to. Another acquisition that the Royals should be proud of. Sure he has no walks, but when you hit .389 you can live without them.

• More of that in the article...

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Royals picking fifth in First-Year Player Draft

KANSAS CITY -- The Royals are a team that has built through the draft.

They'll have a chance to add to their stockpile of young talent on June 4, when the annual First-Year Player Draft kicks off. The draft order was announced Tuesday, and the Royals hold the fifth pick in the first round.

The Royals have already reaped rewards of high draft picks. Current players Alex Gordon, Luke Hochevar, Mike Moustakas and Eric Hosmer were all selected with top five picks. Last year, the Royals selected Bubba Starling with the fifth overall pick. They'll have another crack at landing a future big-leaguer come June.

Chen again solid, but Tigers rally late - It'd be nice if the pitching and hitting would get on the same page. Seems the only time the offense is working is when the pitching isn't. And the pitchings has been pretty good for the most part.
Moving to DEFCON 5

After the outrage and invective that emanated from Twitter in the moments following the Royals sixth consecutive loss – and fifth straight at home – I was tempted to just cut and paste Nick’s post from yesterday.

Look, I understand the frustration. It sucks. There are a bunch of problems with this team and with this organization. They didn’t magically disappear in February and March. They didn’t suddenly reappear in April. They’ve always been there.

Clark has talked about the 62 games that can go either way… Win or loss… And how the season really hangs in the balance of those games. Catch some breaks and things look good. Have things go against you and it turns to crap in a hurry. We’re neck deep in crap.

Maybe I’m numb to the whole “Royals as a losing entity” thing. Twenty-seven years of horrible baseball can have that effect. In any case, I’m trying to keep my sanity and part of that is writing this blog. And part of that is telling myself that in the big picture, this team isn’t as bad as the first 11 games have represented.

Here’s why I feel this way…

The Gloves are Off

Usually it takes longer than this. Eleven games into the 2012 season and I’m done trying to look for the bright side of things. Of course I’m going to cheer for the team and I’m going to root for the winning streak and I’ll secretly look to see which teams had 3-8 stretches last year, but treating this team with kid gloves is just not the answer. Not that anything I write is actually the answer to helping the Royals get better as this disappointing season spirals quickly out of control, but I’m sick of looking for the moral victory in things. This is supposed to be “our time” and quite frankly it’s been everybody else’s time but ours through the early stages of this season.

You can tell me all you want that this season is only 11 games old and there’s still 151 to go and that it’s a marathon and blah blah blah, but the fact is that this team looks as bad as some of those 100 loss teams that graced our presence in the mid-2000s. Yes, the future is still bright, though with every Mike Montgomery start, it gets a bit bleaker. But six years into Dayton Moore’s regime, a bright future simply isn’t enough. The Royals have started their home schedule in the most anticipated season in years by absolutely wetting their pants against division rivals in Cleveland and Detroit. This is following one of the worst ways to lose a game I have ever seen at the end of the opening road trip.

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And the pitchings has been pretty good for the most part.

Pitching is ranked 23rd in runs allowed, 23rd in opponents BA, 4th in walks allowed, 21st in ERA - Not only has it not been good, it is not even average. Unfortunately, the hitting is as good as their pitching which adds up to 3-9 start and any expectations are quickly being squashed.

That being said, plenty of time to get things going but that is only going to happen if their hitters lead the way. Gordon (0.149/0.245/0.234), Hosmer (0.167/0.259/0.333) and Moustakas (0.233/0.250/0.419) is really disappointing.

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Chen and Duff have been great. We knew Mendoza wouldn't last. Sanchez is what I expected. Hoch is the question. The pen has been roughed up. Starters as a whole I believe have been better than expected by most. Pen worse. The bats will come around

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Royals can't hold on against Tigers

No Title - No Need

Article titles are overrated, don’t you think?

A sixth straight loss at home and a third straight game where the Royals had runners on base in the bottom of the ninth with a chance to extend or even win the game. As I said on Monday, almost every team losses five out of six at some point and even three straight at home, but I am not convinced that every team is going to lose eight out of nine and six straight at home. I could be wrong, probably am, and certainly the losing is exacerbated by it coming at the beginning of the season.

The Royals were hoping for big crowds this year and, from a public relations standpoint, this losing streak could not come at a worse time. The fans will flock back to Kaufmann when (if) the winning starts, but it will take a lot of wins for the pre-season excitement felt throughout the Royals’ fandom to be rekindled. That’s a shame.

As for last night’s six straight loss, two divergent sources offered up some pretty good commentary on the night. Jeff Zimmerman at Royals Review broke down the bottom of the seventh inning and Lee Judge, who decided not to take a jab at stats, bloggers and anyone who has not been paid to play baseball, and instead offered up a decent rundown of the loss as well.

I will chime in with a few notes as well:

Explain This To Me

Following last nights game Ned Yost talked about the mistake he made by pitching to Prince Fielder with Jose Mijares calling it “pure stupidity” instead of walking him and bringing in Louis Coleman to pitch to Delmon Young. Obviously we all know that Fielder succeeded against Mijares and drove in the lead runner after a wild pitch by Mijares had already tied the game but my question is why isn’t he talking about the hitter prior?

In that 7th inning Yost made a move to Mijares to face Brennan Boesch with one down and a runner on base, that move to the LOOGY is a good move even though Boesch career stats actually line up better versus lefties and it worked out with Brennan flew out to Alex Gordon in left field. With two down Yost chose to go with Mijares against the uber talented Miguel Cabrera instead of bringing in righty specialist Louis Coleman. Lets look at the stat comparisons quickly