Baserunning Blunders Costly

If you've ever played baseball at any level, how many times did you practice situations like the one the Royals faced in the second inning yesterday against Boston? With guys on second and third and no outs, John Olerud was playing back at first base. Can't you just see your baseball coach yelling out that scenario while standing at the plate and then slapping a ball toward your first baseman? And when the scenario unfolded in an actual game, your third base coach reminded you that since the right side of the infield was playing back that you are to run on anything hit on the ground to the right side.

I don't know what Emil Brown was thinking, but when Mark Teahen finally managed to pull a ball with runners in scoring position, he hit it to Olerud, who was indeed playing back, and for some reason, Brown got a bad start. Olerud figured it out pretty quickly and fired home. Even with a bad start, Bell thought Brown should have scored, but he retreated to third base—where Angel Berroa was standing. Berroa was called out and Brown acknowledged his mistake after the game, but those types of things just can't happen. I don't mind seeing a guy thrown out trying to take an extra base (well okay, sometimes I do if they never had a chance), but this scenario is fundamental baseball that is taught at all levels. How is it possible for a major league team to be making these types of mistakes in the middle of August?

You'd think that we'd still be able to score since we had a guy on third with only one out, but when John Buck hit a weak shallow fly ball to left field, Brown held at third. Bell claimed the Berroa would have scored from third if he'd been there, so in his mind, Brown's blunder cost the Royals two runs. Donnie Murphy struck out to end the inning and the Royals didn't even score once. And Bell shook his head in disbelief.

In the fourth inning, Chip Ambres didn't take third on a single by Long down the right field line and that ended up costing the Royals a run. Ambres isn't a product of our system, so we can't blame his poor baserunning on that, but I can't figure out why so many major league players seem uncertain about how to run the bases. Being slow is one thing, but being out of position or unaware of what to do in various situations is unacceptable.

Zack Greinke's nightmare season continued last night. He gave up 5 ER in 7 IP. He took the loss and his record is now 3-15 and he has a 6.04 ERA. His stuff, coupled with our lack of depth in the rotation, has kept him in Kansas City (instead of Omaha). But you have to wonder how a guy bounces back after such a horrific season. He doesn't appear to have learned anything about pitching this season—including how to minimize potentially big innings, and now with 7 starts left, he is quoted as saying that he's starting to wonder about the possibility of losing 20 games.

Tonight, the Royals send D.J. Carrasco (5-7, 4.89) against Matt Clement (11-3, 4.38). Let's hope that we don't run ourselves out of this ball game as well.