Hochevar Tosses Seven Shutout Innings

Game Date: June 29, 2009
Minnesota @ Kansas City
Royals 4, Twins 2 / Box Score
WP: Hochevar (3-3), LP: Blackburn (6-4), SV: Soria (10)
KC Home Runs: Olivo (12), Callaspo (5)
Royals Record: 33-42 / Record in June 10-15

The entire day had a damper on it after news began to surface that the Royals may be looking to move players since their season has been disappointing thus far. In reality, I can’t see Dayton Moore getting much more than prospects for most of the guys he might be able to move, with a couple of exceptions. And besides, doing so is an admission that he was wrong about the choices he’s made when he put this team together. He didn’t bring all these guys to Kansas City, but he did choose to keep all of them here.

I’m not in the mood to see a bunch of guys who don’t belong at the big league level playing out the year in Kansas City simply because Moore wants to dump salary and start over again. Royals fans have already suffered too long with make shift line ups and line ups that didn’t really contain big leaguers. We don’t want to see that again. At least I don’t.

Okay, I got that off my chest.

I was at the Omaha Royals game tonight, so I didn’t see much of the game in Kansas City. I could see a small TV in the press box that was showing the game, but it wasn’t quite close enough for me to have one eye on Kansas City and one on Omaha. I did follow along on Game Day and saw the updates come through Twitter.

One thing I know is that Hochevar was battling his control early in the game. He walked several guys and then it seemed like he figured something out. Or course, the most important thing is, he figured out a way to keep the Twins off the scoreboard for seven innings.

Meanwhile the offense had 12 hits, including two solo home runs. Not bad. They didn’t score a ton of runs, but enough. And the Royals have now won two games in a row. Any kind of positive streak feels good right now.

The Omaha Royals game looked quite similar tonight. They defeated Albuquerque 2-0 behind a strong starting effort by Lenny DiNardo—who also threw seven shutout innings.

John Buck was the DH for Omaha and he looked pretty good at the plate. He singled in his first at bat to drive in a run in the first inning. He made the third out of the inning when he tried to stretch the single into a double, but the run had already scored. In his other at bats, he seemed to be right on the ball—fouling several straight back and hitting a couple of others right at fielders. He also struck out once after fouling a number of pitches off.

Tomorrow night in Kansas City, Brain Bannister (5-5, 4.17) will go up against Scott Baker (5-6, 5.17). Bannister is 3-1 in his career against the Twins with a 3.60 ERA in 45.0 IP. Baker is 5-3 against the Royals with a 3.03 ERA in 68.1 IP.