Offense Falters Again

Here we go again. The Royals dropped their fourth straight game last night to bring their dismal season record to 7-22. The Royals managed only five hits in the ball game.

Sidney Ponson threw inside all night and Royals hitters couldn't get around on the ball. He struck out 8 and looked to be in total command.

Denny Bautista on the other hand did not. His stuff looked nasty, but I think Guy Hansen needs to pull Bautista and Greinke aside and say something like, "Okay guys. You have nasty stuff. You can throw your main pitches at 267 different arm angles and you can change speeds with the best of them. But let's chose your out pitch and work from there. You don't need all these arm angles and you can't throw major league hitters big looping 12-6 curve balls every plate appearance. And one other thing. Your fast balls and sliders are above average. You don't need to throw them harder. Just throw them. You'll get guys out."

Bautista kept throwing curve balls and too often he got them up. And when he did throw the hard stuff, he overthrew it and left it up over the plate. The Orioles didn't exactly smash balls in the gaps against him, but they took advantage of a guy who was trying to do too much.

"He was trying to make everything extra nasty," Buck said. "And his slider came up. His breaking ball came way up. That's usually what happens when he does that. He just kept throwing harder and harder. Most of the time, that's not better."

On a positive note, Angel Berroa and Mark Teahen made several outstanding defensive plays. Teahen made one bare handed throw on a trickler up the third base line that brought back fond memories of Joe Randa. And Berroa went way up the middle behind second base and made a strong throw to get a guy at first. It was nice to see a little defense on the left side of the infield.

Kyle Snyder looked outstanding again out of the pen, going 3 1/3 innings and giving up only 1 hit and 0 ER to lower his ERA to 1.46. He kept us in a ballgame that we probably shouldn't have been in.

Jose Lima (0-2, 6.40) goes against Bruce Chen (3-1, 3.78) this afternoon in Baltimore. Lima is showing signs of turning things around. This would be a good time for the designated stopper to end a four game skid.