Royals Lose Eleventh Straight

The 6-5 loss last night to the Indians extended our losing streak to eleven games, but at least we still have a little fight left. We were down by three runs early, but we fought back to tie the game in sixth inning—only to give up three more runs the next inning. But we rallied for two in the bottom of the ninth—falling one run short of extending the game.

With that said, you have to question the idea of pulling Mientkiewicz from the lineup and giving the start to Graffanino at first base. If this were a platoon situation, you could understand it, since Cliff Lee is a big lefty, but Mientkiewicz was right on the ball against Randy Johnson last week, and he doesn't appear to bail out against lefties, so the move didn't make a lot of sense. And it ended up hurting us defensively.

The left side of our infield is bad. Mientkiewicz makes Teahen and Berroa much better by scooping their bad throws and by coming off the bag when necessary. Nothing against Graf. He's just not a first baseman. And when Grudzielanek and Teahen made poor throws yesterday, Graf wasn't able to make either play. First basemen must be able to scoop the ball.

I suspect that David DeJesus' injury was one of the reasons that Graffanino was in the lineup. We really don't have a leadoff hitter when DeJesus is out, but since Graf handles the bat well, he's a good candidate in a pinch. But we've got to find a place for him to play defensively where he can excel. Right now, I'd even vote for having him play short, but for whatever reason, Berroa seems entrenched in there—even though he ran into another out on the bases last night.

The Royals added relief pitcher, Joe Nelson, to the roster before the game and they placed DeJesus on the DL. Nelson pitched one inning last night, striking out one, walking one, and he didn't give up any runs. He's the twelfth pitcher on the roster, and I'm thinking that the way things are going, we need at least twelve pitchers.

I'm headed to the K tonight to see Joe Mays (0-2, 11.68 ERA) go against former Royal Paul Byrd (2-1, 7.02).