A Ranger Sweep

I'm glad that series is over, aren't you? Richard Hidalgo killed us. Four home runs in three games. And when you look at the rest of that line up, well…we just don't match up well. The result—a Ranger three game sweep for the first time since 1999.

Jose Lima looked awful again last night. Unfortunately Schaefer doesn't appear to have many options with Lima though.

"I don't know what we're going to do," Bob Schaefer is quoted as saying on the Royals website. "We can't keep getting behind. After the last outing, I thought he was going to get better. He showed some promise. Today I thought he had decent stuff, but the home runs balls kill him. Lima has got to keep the ball in the ballpark and he hasn't been able to do it so far."

With Runelvys Hernandez pitching poorly (2-6, 5.11 ERA) and two guys that we didn't even plan to have in the rotation, D. J. Carrasco (0-1, 5.40 ERA) and Ryan Jensen (1-0, 3.60), we're kind of stuck with Lima hoping that he can turn things around because we can't look to Omaha for the answers. Jimmy Gobble is 1-5 with a 7.61 ERA. Chris George is 3-3 with a 5.68 ERA. And the rest of the staff in Omaha is unproven.

It's hard to even find anything positive to say about Lima's performances at this point. He has started 11 games, won 0, and has had just one quality start. His ERA is 8.13 and he has only worked beyond the sixth inning twice. He does bring a positive attitude to the club, but that only goes so far. Ask Tony Pena.

Before the game, the Royals purchased the contract of RHP Steve Stemle from Omaha and optioned Jaime Cerda to Omaha. Cerda just wasn't getting the job done out of the pen. In 20 appearances, he had a 6.63 ERA. Stemle was 1-1 with 3 saves and a 0.45 ERA in 14 games with Omaha (20 IP, 13 H, 3 R, 1 ER, 3 BB, 12 K).

Stemle was called upon last night and pitched three perfect innings, striking out three guys in the process. Perhaps we can add Stemle to a growing list of good young arms in the organization. Now we need some of the guys who have been around a few years to step up and pitch well.

The Royals open a new series in Los Angeles tonight. D. J. Carrasco (0-1, 5.40) goes against former Royal Paul Byrd (4-4, 4.19).