What's Going On?

“What’s going on?”

Remember that call by Denny Matthews in early April of the 2000 season after Rey Sanchez hit a walk off home run against the Baltimore Orioles? It was the third game in a row that the Royals won with a walk off home run, which is an incredible feat, but to see Sanchez do it left Matthews almost speechless.

After the worst start in franchise history to start this season, the Royals are beating up on other bad baseball teams and all of a sudden, they’ve won 8 of their last 11 games—which includes winning three series in a row. They are getting timely hitting. They are playing relatively good defense. They are patient beyond belief at the plate. And their bullpen is almost unhittable (with the exception of Burgos).

So, what is going on?

Regarding the timely hitting—I suspect that it has a lot to do with their newfound patience at the plate. Royals’ hitters drew 15 walks in the Milwaukee series, and by working the count better, they had better pitches to hit. They aren’t missing those pitches right now. But where did all of this patience come from?

The Royals currently rank 27th out of 30 teams in total walks with 206. But since Dayton Moore took over on June 8, they have walked 62 times. So, nearly 30% of their walks for the season have come in the last 17 games. The Royals are 10-7 since Moore took over and you have to wonder if his initial team meeting didn’t go something like this…

“Guys, I’m honored to be your new GM, but you need to know something. If you continue to swing at every pitch, and if you continue to show more concern for your individual stats than the success of the team, and if you continue to play poor fundamentally, you will be gone faster than Juan Gonzalez at game time. Got it?”

The Royals get a day off today. Tomorrow, things get tougher. The Royals play a surprisingly good Cincinnati team and then the Royals are off to St. Louis over the weekend. Let’s see if they can continue to play good baseball against better competition.