Losing Streaks, Mistakes, and Changes

Beyond all of the quotes you'll probably read about how this losing streak "has been a real learning experience," for once, that phrase might actually have merit since this team is about to be embarrassed by the presence of a team (the 1985 Royals) who would have never accepted a 13-game losing streak. Shame can be a good thing. After a person is shamed once, he'll do almost anything to avoid it in the future—maybe even play fundamentally sound baseball.

The Royals made so many mistakes last night that it was painful to watch. In the fifth inning, the Royals were up 2-0, with DeJesus on third and one out. Mike Sweeney went after the first pitch and popped it up on the infield—a rare offensive blunder by Sweeney, but it cost us a run.

In the sixth inning, with the score still 2-0, Brown tripled to lead off the inning. Teahen, who seems incapable of handling the bat when he needs to advance runners, struck out. After Berroa, who was down in the count (1-2) as he always is, reached on a fielder's choice, but Brown got thrown out in the process. They had a guy at third base with no outs and couldn't get him home.

The most costly blunders came in the seventh inning. Carrasco walked Hafner to lead off the inning and you just knew he was going to score. Victor Martinez singled and then came the turning point in the game. Ronnie Belliard laid down a sacrifice bunt that Carrasco fielded. With two players yelling "three," Carrasco turned and fired to third. Hafner beat the throw and the bases were loaded with no outs. Paul Phillips was behind the plate and he was one of the guys telling Carrasco to go to third base. That's a decision the catcher can never be wrong about. If the guy advancing to third can definitely be forced out, then you do it. If he can't, you must take the sure out.

You know what happened next…the very next pitch in fact, Jeff Liefer smashed a grand slam home run and this game was over. By Bell's own admission, this team quit after Liefer's home run. "When they score four, we've got to keep going," Bell is quoted as saying on KCRoyals.com. "We've got to keep playing. The focus was just not there after they got four runs. We played well until then."

So he held a 30-minute closed door meeting. If we still need to try to motivate guys to play hard and fundamentally sound baseball in August, then we have the wrong group of guys in uniform. Baird is beginning to take heat from fans and David Glass is beginning to sound like an owner who says he supports his GM, while at the same time, putting him on notice that this team better improve this season…or else.

"None of us are willing to go through another season like this,” Glass is quoted as saying in Jeff Passan's column in the KC Star today. "If this team turns it around—if we’ve bottomed out now—and we play .500 or a little better the rest of the year, it would be something totally different than if we struggle."

He went on to say that he supports Baird.

The Royals send Jose Lima (4-9, 6.84) to the mound tonight to try to stop this train from flying off the cliff. The Tigers will counter with Jason Johnson (7-9, 4.06).