Royal Reflections: Two in a Row

Saturday, June 10, 2006

Two in a Row

Yeah, our winning percentage is .271 and we’re 21 games out of first place. But we’ve managed to win two games in a row after blowing an unbelievable pitching performance by Bobby Keppel on Wednesday night. We were down in both games and came back. And while we have a long way to go, let’s just enjoy the last couple of wins for a few hours. Then we can get back to our regularly scheduled complaints about a team that does so many things incorrectly.

Last night, Mark Redman finally looked like a guy who deserves a spot in the rotation. He gave up two runs in eight innings of work and he had several Devil Ray hitters frustrated with his change up—one of whom was slugger Jonny Gomes who struck out twice. Redman’s ERA still stands at 6.06, but at least we now know that he’s capable of getting guys out on occasion. Seeing Burgos trot out on the field for the ninth with the game on the line for the third straight night is a little tough on the heart (I still can’t believe we have a closer who has a 7.36 ERA in June.), but after walking a guy, he was able to close out the game for his eighth save of the season.

Two veteran hitters stepped up big last night. Tony Graffanino came up with the game-typing RBI single in the bottom of the eighth inning and Reggie Sanders plugged the right-center field gap with a two-run double to give the Royals the 4–2 lead, and that turned out to be the final score. Having a guy like Sanders on the club is vital right now. Here’s a guy sitting on career home run number 299 on a last place team. He could easily just be thinking about himself right now and swinging for the fences every time he’s at the plate. But last night, he went with the pitch and plugged the gap. That’s how the game is supposed to be played and I hope some of our younger players realized and learned from what Sanders did.