Reporting from the 'Blatt

Not a lot to say about the Royals 7-0 defeat in Oakland this afternoon. The A's took the lead in the first inning and didn't look back. Joe Blanton only gave up five hits and he pitched a complete game shutout.

I decided to catch an Omaha Royals game tonight. They took on the New Orleans Zephyrs (the Nationals Triple-A team) and won 6-4. Omaha jumped ahead early. Justin Huber tripled to lead off the second inning and Ricky Bell got him home on a sacrifice fly to center field.

Here's how the lineup looked (by the way, the scoreboard looked much better this time--it's not littered with nearly as much advertising, and all of the stats were displayed):


David Elder started for Omaha and he pitched five strong innings, only giving up three hits and 1 walk. He tends to overthrow his fastball when he gets into trouble and when he does that he leaves it way up. He has a nice change and he doesn't appear to be afraid to throw it early in the count. I don't sense that he has the confidence to throw it late in the count though. Here's a picture of him in action:


As you can tell from the picture of the scoreboard below, Mark Teahen continues to knock the cover off the ball in Omaha. He was 1-for-3 tonight with an RBI and he drew an intentional walk.


Here's a shot of Mark at third base:


And here's a shot of Teahen at the plate early in the game, facing former major leaguer Pedro Astacio:


Alberto Castillo is now the catcher for the Zephyrs. He was 2-for-4 against us tonight. Here's a shot of him after he doubled in the fifth inning:


Here's Casey being Casey:


Dee Brown was 2-for-3 with a walk. Paul Phillips was 2-for-4, including a bunt single. Kerry Robinson was 3-for-4. Ruben Gotay looked awful at the plate. By my count, he failed to get a bunt down four times in two different plate appearances when we needed to move runners. And his fifth attempt was so bad (with two strikes) that the pitcher was able to jump on it and force our runner out at third.

Ryan Baerlocher was tough in relief. But Shane Loux almost blew the game in the ninth, even though the Royals had a five run lead going into the inning. He gave up three runs, but in the end, he finally got out of it and the Royals won.