Royals Drop Eighth Straight

You know you are having a bad season when you're number two starter gives up six runs in five innings and his ERA goes down. I guess it could have been worse for Mays. He gave up five runs in the first inning. And it's the same old story:

"Just sitting there trying to aim the ball too much—not being aggressive and up in the zone," Mays said.

At least he's honest. He's nibbling, passive, and that almost always puts pitchers behind in the count and forces them to throw strikes on hitters counts. I don't know what the Royals ought to do about Mays. They are paying the guy $4 million to be a starter. But after the Lima fiasco last season, you have to be a little gun shy about a guy like Mays and you have to wonder if he's ever going to get it turned around. He hasn't had a good season since 2001 when he went 17-13 with a 3.16 ERA. But that's the only season in his six year career in which he's even been over .500 and it's by far his best ERA.

At some point, you've got to chalk this up as a mistake and take the ball from him. But of course, admitting a $4 million mistake won't be easy for Baird—who must already be looking around his office and wondering if this will indeed be his last season. Our problem of course is that we don't really have a number two starter to take his place, so we'd have to move another guy there who doesn't match up well with numbers twos on other teams. But somebody has to be at the top of the rotation and I hope that the next time through, Joe Mays is not one of those people.

Of course, it hardly mattered that Mays was awful last night. Jose Contreras one-hit us for seven innings and we lost 9-0. While his stuff was nasty, I'm getting a little tired of that being an excuse, aren't you? First it was Rogers, then it was Buehrle, and now it is Contreras. All three are fine pitchers and all three can be dominant at times, but that hardly excuses the .174 average of DeJesus, the .114 average of Sweeney, the .216 average of Teahen, the .220 average of Brown, and the .231 average of Buck.

Thankfully, Stemle was placed on the DL and Joel Peralta was called up to fill his spot—hopefully for good. He made 28 appearances for the Angels last season and was 1-0 with a 3.89 ERA. Peralta didn't look all that steady though when he came in last night during mop up duty. He gave up one run and he walked two guys in 1.2 innings.

Tonight, Jeremy Affeldt (0-1, 14.73) goes against Jon Garland (1-1, 13.94).