Pitching woes continue

Twins 8 Royals 3
W-Roa (2-1), L-May (0-3)
Royals Season Record 4 Wins, 8 Loses

Darrell May threw 120 pitches during his third outing on Sunday, giving up 4 earned runs in 5 1/3 innings. His ERA for the year is now 8.80. He's not this bad. Really he's not.

Before last season began I thought he might be. I saw him pitch early in the season last year and thought Pena should have pulled him late in one game. He pitched his way out of trouble and made me a believer. Then he pitched well the remainder of the season—hitting his spots and throwing strikes.

That's the difference this year. He isn't throwing strikes. He had a bad outing his first time out and he nibbled during his second start. He did strike out 8 hitters on Sunday during his third start, but he also walked 3 guys.

Pena has little choice but to keep giving the ball to May, Affeldt, Anderson—the three starters who are struggling right now. And as I said in the last post, these guys are not bad pitchers. They'll come around. But they must throw strikes for that to happen.

Joe Randa hit a home run during Sundays loss and he's now hitting .341 for the season. After his slow start last season, it's nice to see him off to such a hot start.

Oddly, Andres Blanco started at short again. What is Pena thinking? Is Blanco better than Lopez? Blanco is going to be with the team for two weeks until Berrora returns from the DL and I can understand wanting to give him a little playing time in the bigs, but starting over Lopez doesn't make sense. We are already four games under .500. Lopez has proven to be an ample replacement during the past two seasons. Let's use him.

Graffanino went 3 for 4 on Sunday, raising his average to .324 for the season. He's been a pleasant surprise so far and if we didn't have him on the roster, we'd really be hurting up the middle.

Brian Anderson (0-0, 8.62 ERA) goes up against a familiar name tonight, Chad Durbin (1-1, 8.59 ERA). Looking at his ERA, he'd fit right in on our staff right now. Actually though, it's nice to see him in the majors and in a rotation.

I have a soft spot for most former Royals.