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**SubGod22** · June 1, 2012, 01:47 PM

The Royals return to The K where they look to build on their league worst 5-17 home record. Just about the most bizarre split I can remember since Brian Bannister dominated the day. In 22 home games, they’ve allowed 122 runs, or 5.5 per game. In 27 road games, they’ve allowed 97 runs, or 3.6 per game.

They’re scoring more on the road (4.3/g vs 3.8) but the spread isn’t as extreme. As always, it’s all about the pitching.

A couple of notes following an off day where we popped the champagne on a winning record in May…

Can't really argue with anything in this one.

Friday Notes (Pine Tar Press)

Now it’s time for my favorite piece to write of the week. I love Friday Notes because I get the chance to go over a few different things that have been rolling around in my head all week but I just didn’t have enough for a whole article. It’s also more fun to write anything when things are going well for the Royals, though I’ve had a hard time getting terribly optimistic about this team. Maybe it’s the ridiculously rough start or maybe it’s the fact that guys like Vin Mazzaro are still getting starts, but regardless, it’s much more fun to see them winning than that drivel we were exposed to in April.

**newshock1234** · June 2, 2012, 05:16 PM

time to get rid of hochevar

**SubGod22** · June 3, 2012, 08:29 AM

That's a bit extreme at the moment. One, we don't have arms ready to replace him and two, he's pitched well enough the previous 3 starts I believe.

**newshock1234** · June 3, 2012, 04:04 PM

Originally posted by SubGod22 View Post

That's a bit extreme at the moment. One, we don't have arms ready to replace him and two, he's pitched well enough the previous 3 starts I believe.

well when we do bring up some of younger arms, hes the 1st one to go IMO, he let the worst hitting team in MLB torch him. Vin Marazzo had no problem with the A's, but Mr. #1 overall pick Hochevar gets torched.

**shockmonster** · June 3, 2012, 06:08 PM

Originally posted by SubGod22 View Post

That's a bit extreme at the moment. One, we don't have arms ready to replace him and two, he's pitched well enough the previous 3 starts I believe.

Hochever's an "enigma".

**ShockerGorilla** · June 3, 2012, 08:04 PM

While we're at it, can we rescind the Melky Cabrera for Jonathan Sanchez trade with the Dodgers? I would love to have that .375 BA in our lineup.

**RoyalShock** · June 3, 2012, 11:13 PM

While I'd love to have Melky back patrolling center, Dayton did "sell high" on him. No one expected him to repeat last year.

And until Hochevar figures out how to best use his abilities, I'm calling him the next Kyle Davies.

**SubGod22** · June 4, 2012, 08:41 AM

Looks like Falu was optioned to Omaha in favor of the Yunigma. I haven't looked over everything from this weekend yet, but Gio better be starting at 2nd for the majority of games.

Paulino helps Royals school A's in victory

Needing to bulk up their mark at Kauffman Stadium, the Royals, with right-hander Felipe Paulino showing the way, polished off the Oakland Athletics, 2-0, on Friday night with 29,527 fans viewing their handiwork in the series opener.
That improved the Royals' home record to 6-17, better, but still in stark contrast to their 16-11 record on foreign fields.

Including a strong finish to their last road trip, the Royals have won five of their last six games. The A's, though, have lost nine straight.

"It's just one of those stretches where the baseball gods don't seem to be in your favor," said the A's Josh Reddick.

But the baseball gods have been favoring Paulino. This was the fourth time in his six starts that he's shut out his opponent. He boosted his record to 3-1 and lowered his ERA to 1.70.

Royals' bullpen among AL's best

KANSAS CITY -- Give the Royals' relievers their due. They've not only been the busiest in the American League, they've been pretty effective as well.

"It's one of those things where we took what we built on last year into this season. I struggled a little bit, but for the most part we've been doing really well as a group," right-hander Greg Holland said. "We've got a lot of guys with great stuff down there. So if we get ahead and keep our walks down. ... I mean you've seen the way Timmy [Collins] has [been] throwing strike one and then going from there. [Aaron] Crow, too. So if we can stay ahead of hitters, we're going to be successful."

Going into Saturday's game against the A's, the Royals' bullpen had amassed the most innings in the AL (193) and also led the league with 168 strikeouts. The collective ERA of 3.08 was fifth best.

Hochevar roughed up as Royals fall to A's

"It was sloppy all the way around, really," Yost said. "We just didn't pitch good, we had some opportunities to score some runs and we didn't capitalize on [them] and we made some errors that ended up hurting us."

The pitchers, notably starter Luke Hochevar, yielded nine runs on 10 hits. The hitters were 2-for-11 with runners in scoring position. The fielders made three errors, and they all helped the A's score.

On top of that, an apparent blown call by an umpire went against the Royals, with the same umpire later ejecting catcher Humberto Quintero.

Mazzaro, Royals tough on A's in rubber game

KANSAS CITY -- Vin Mazzaro did a little sleight of hand on the mound, Alex Gordon worked some of his outfield magic and the Royals made another shutout appear out of thin air.

Mazzaro dodged his way through six scoreless innings against his former club, and the bullpen finished the job against the A's on Sunday for the second 2-0 victory in this series. The Royals won a third straight series by a two-to-one count and have won six of their last eight games.

Eric Hosmer blasted a homer off A's starter Tommy Milone, his first this season off a left-hander, for the Royals' first run. Johnny Giavotella's single knocked in Jarrod Dyson, who'd singled and stole second, with the other run.

But when day was done, the 21,111 fans left Kauffman Stadium talking about the crucial and spectacular play executed by Gordon and catcher Brayan Pena in the fifth inning.

**SubGod22** · June 4, 2012, 10:50 AM

Video of the play at the plate with Frenchy. The umpire must have had the worst possible view as Suzuki wasn't even close to making the tag.

And here's the play at the plate where Pena held his ground. Heck of a throw my A1.

**SubGod22** · June 4, 2012, 03:29 PM

Rany is back! Time In.

Time to make the donuts…

Well, I guess I’m back. I was hoping to make a more dramatic reappearance, like after the Royals rattled off 12 wins in a row or clinched a playoff spot or hired me as their VP of Common Sense, but none of those things are likely to happen anytime soon. But in my absence, the Royals did their best impression of a competent major league franchise. Since bottoming out at 3-14 after their 12th loss in a row, they’ve won 19 of 33 games. They were 15-13 in May, their first winning record in that month since 2000. They’re 16-11 on the road, which quite remarkably is the fourth-best road record in all of baseball.

At 22-28 overall, they’re not great, or even good. But they’re not the laughingstock of baseball, and really, that’s all I was asking them to be. Narrative is shaped by chronology – if the Royals had, say, started the season 22-16 before losing 12 in a row, the story would have been about how the Royals looked like their youth movement was bearing fruit even faster than expected, how they could be the surprise contenders of 2012, before they flew too close to the sun and their wings melted.

The last time the Royals lost 12 in a row, all the way back in…[cries]…2008, they were 21-22 when they got off the plate in Boston on May 19th. Then Jon Lester no-hit them, and on the morning of May 31st they were 21-34. The Royals have a better record today than they did then, but the narrative is entirely different.

The narrative may be different, but narratives are simply stories we tell ourselves to make sense of what has happened. So the narrative I now choose to believe is this: that 12-game losing streak wasn’t representative of who the Royals are; that it was a fluky two weeks that just happened to occur at a time when we were still forming our opinions on the 2012 Royals.

**SubGod22** · June 5, 2012, 09:26 AM

Moustakas' big night not enough in Royals loss

Smith surrendered three long balls in a start for the second time this season, and the Royals dropped the first game of their series with the Twins, 10-7, on Monday night at Kauffman Stadium.

The homer troubles began early for Smith. In the first inning, Josh Willingham crushed a two-run home run 388 feet to left to give the Twins a 2-0 lead.

Then, with the game tied at 4 in the top of the fifth, Smith issued a one-out walk to Willingham. Justin Morneau followed with a two-run homer just over the wall in right-center field to make the score 6-4. Two batters later, Trevor Plouffe smacked a home run into the Royals' bullpen to extend the lead to 7-4 and chase Smith from the game. The Twins wouldn't trail again.

Draft day and daft decisions

The Royals hit a couple of singles, the Twins looked like they had never fielded a ball before and then the young stud Mike Moustakas blasts a two-run double. Still no outs. Then Francoeur and Hosmer reach on astonishing errors by the Twins the last of which allows Mike Moustakas to score.

Tie game.

No outs.

Opposing pitcher on the ropes.

Warm, run-scoring wind blowing.

Third most effective hitter this season at bat, followed by two of the worst.

Ned Yost thinks to himself and calls out for a

BUNT!

Escobar gives up a free out, the next two batters strike out and the Royals lose.

**SubGod22** · June 5, 2012, 02:05 PM

I just saw in the draft chat over at PTP that the Royals have sent down Will Smith and called up Ryan Verdugo. Some talk that Myers may be called up in the next week or so. I think they'll wait until after the All-Star game.

**SubGod22** · June 5, 2012, 03:32 PM

Verdugo headed to the pen

Verdugo will pitch out of the Kansas City bullpen. He has been a starter over the last two seasons in the Minor Leagues. In 11 starts this season with Omaha, Verdugo is 3-1 with a 3.61 ERA. He has struck out 52 batters in 62 1/3 innings pitched.

**SubGod22** · June 6, 2012, 11:19 AM

Chen deals seven strong innings in shutout

KANSAS CITY -- Maybe Bruce Chen should get into auto racing. He sure knows how to punch the accelerator and then hit the brakes at just the right times.

Chen worked that ability with precision on Tuesday night, winning for the fifth time in his last six starts as the Royals defeated the Minnesota Twins, 1-0, with 23,934 fans enjoying pleasant weather at Kauffman Stadium. It's a season turnaround for Chen, who was 0-4 in his first six starts and is now 5-5 overall.

"Bruce was tremendous. He did a great job from the first hitter on, really working the accelerator," Royals manager Ned Yost said. "He'd speed their bats up and slow 'em down. He had a perfect mix. When they were looking slow, he'd throw his 88, 89 mile-an-hour fastball. When they started speeding their bats up to catch up with the fastball, then he threw his changeup and curveball. He had very good location, good tempo, was banging strikes."

Royals In The Clutch

A lot of fans of the Royals have noticed a trend this season that has cost the Royals the opportunity to win some games and have some big inning and that is that the Royals just don’t seem to do well when there are runners in scoring position. I thought I’d take a look at the numbers and look at every season from 2007 to 2011 and what we’ve seen so far in 2012 with all stats for this season current prior to yesterday’s game. I’ll first present the numbers then I’ll see if I can’t make some sense of them.

RISP
2007: .278/.350/.414
2008: .286/.350/.412
2009: .260/.328/.406
2010: .269/.334/.398
2011: .276/.333/.426
2012: .258/.314/.351

The number that jumps out at me here from this season is the ridiculously low slugging percentage from this season. That sort of jives with what seems to be the case as the Royals seem to be getting mostly singles. The isolated OBP here is .056 which is a little lower than in past seasons, but not egregiously low. But these numbers mean nothing without context as to what the team does as a whole. Let’s take a look.

Dominant Chen

What can we say about Bruce Chen?

The guy is simply a freak of nature.

Yeah, the Twins offense is dreadful (except on Monday when it was pretty good) but whenever a starter puts up a line like this…

7 IP, 4 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 5 SO

You’re thrilled.

Chen threw 88 pitches and 62 of them were strikes. He was cruising.

And they were largely low stress innings. The Twins put a couple of runners on second, but both reached there with two down – a double by Dozier and a single and a steal by Mastroianni.

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