Royals win back-to-back games

Game Date: September 8, 2009
Detroit @ Kansas City
Royals 7, Tigers 5 / Box Score
WP: Yabuta (1-1), LP: Seay (5-3), SV: Soria (23)
KC Home Runs: None
Royals Record: 53-85 / Record in September 3-4

Nice to see the Royals win back-to-back games. It feels like it’s been forever since they’ve done so. Looking back over the schedule, it’s been more than a month. Wow.

Billy Butler had two more hits. Some guy named Mike Jacobs did too. And how about Yasuhiko Yabuta picking up his first win of the season? I know, it’s hard to get too excited, but you have to celebrate the small things in a season in which the big things threaten to crush you.

The Royals added Alex Gordon and Lenny DiNardo to the mix. DiNardo is scheduled to pitch on Thursday. That’ll give Zack Greinke an extra day off to recover from his last outing when he threw 125 pitches.

In case you missed it, Dayton Moore chatted with fans online today. Some of his answers surprised me, but there wasn’t anything earth shattering. The answer that stood out to me came in response to a fan who asked about the role that sabermetrics and high-level statistical analysis has with the Royals. Here was Moore’s response:

“It is an important part of every decision that we make. In acquiring talent, we blend traditional scouting and statistical analysis with every decision we make. When we acquire a player, we recognize that there are deficiencies in some areas, but often times we are picking from a pool of players where there are many of those deficiencies but we use statistical analysis by evaluating every talent pool that exists. I was trained that way through John Schuerholz and others.”

How can this possibly be true when Yuniesky Betancourt is on the roster? When the Royals traded for him he was hitting .250 with a .278 OBP in Seattle. He’s actually gotten worse since coming to KC. His average is down to .235 and his OBP is a pitiful .266 for the season. If this is an example of the way they are blending traditional scouting and statistical analysis (a good combination in my opinion), then I’d love to see their scouting reports and statistical analysis because they must have some sort of top secret information about Betancourt that none of the rest of us can see.