Bautista Dominates the Angels

Tony Pena brought his 6-19 career record into Anaheim tonight and handed the ball to Denny Bautista who made his sixth career start. Denny didn't disappoint, leading the Royals to a 6-2 victory. Last season, he made five starts at the end of the season for the Royals going 0-4, with a 6.51 ERA. He has better stuff than those numbers indicate and tonight he proved that.

Bautista was obtained in the Jason Grimsley trade with Baltimore on June 21, 2004. One quick correction: A couple of days ago the Kansas City Royals official game notes indicated that Jason Grimsley had retired. Today is says that he is on the DL and still with Baltimore.

Bautista had 8 strikeouts tonight and his breaking stuff was knee buckling nasty. His fast ball was popping and at one point in the middle of the game he retired 14 straight hitters. He pitched eight innings and only gave up 1 run on 3 hits.

One key moment in the game came in the top of the fifth inning. DeJesus ripped a ball down the first base line and legged out a triple with one out. Pena put on the suicide squeeze with Graffanino at the plate and Graff laid down a beautiful bunt that got past a diving Paul Byrd on the right side of the infield—scoring the run. Sweeney then came up and ripped a ball down the third base line and scored Graffanino who was running hard all the way. That's the way baseball is supposed to be played and it's fun. The Royals led 5-1 after the inning was over and they never looked back.

Sweeney made several great plays in the field tonight. He made numerous long stretches on errant throws and he went way into the hole to field another ball. After seeing so many balls get by Teahen over at third in the first few games of the season, it's nice to see a corner infielder actually making plays. Speaking of the hot corner, Pena started Graffanino at third base tonight instead of Mark Teahen. I wouldn't mind seeing that happen once a week or so.

Notes:

• The Angles swept the Royals in 2004, 7 games to none
• The Royals are now 242-232 all-time against the Angels
• David DeJesus continues to swing a hot bat, picking up 2 more hits and he has now hit safely in every game
• Tony Graffanino is red hot, picking up two more hits and he's now hitting .538
• Mike Sweeney continues to be an RBI machine and drove in 2 more runs tonight, bringing his season total to 5 already

Tomorrow Jose Lima takes the mound against Kevin Gregg. Let's hope it really is Lima time.