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.

Royal Trade Rumors, Meche’s Arm, Quirk on MLB

Bob Dutton said the following in the Star this morning: “The buzz on the rumor mill is that the Royals are openly offering some veteran players in response to their disappointing season. Names making the rounds include David DeJesus, Mark Teahen, Kyle Davies, Brian Bannister and virtually all of their relievers.” To deal DeJesus, Teahen, or Bannister right now would seem to me to be a huge regression.

We should know more about Gil Meche’s dead arm today. Meche’s velocity was down to 87-88 mph in his last start. Dutton says that if Meche can’t make his start on Wednesday that Sidney Ponson would be his likely replacement. I don’t like the sound of that.

Lorraine DelliCarpini, media relations manager at the MLB Network, sent me an email today letting me know that Jamie Quirk will be a guest analyst on MLB Network’s “MLB Tonight” tonight and tomorrow starting at 7:00 PM CT. If you have the MLB Network, check it out.

Greinke Wins Number 10

Game Date: June 28, 2009
Kansas City @ Pittsburgh
Royals 3, Pirates 2 / Box Score
WP: Greinke (10-3), Morton (0-1), SV: Soria (9)
KC Home Runs: DeJesus (6)
Royals Record: 32-42 / Record in June 9-15

Too bad the rain stopped the game for a while in the seventh inning. I’m always interested in seeing Zack Greinke going deeper in the game whenever possible. But his efforts, along with solid bullpen help, were enough.

The Royals sure didn’t manage much offense, but David DeJesus drove in two, including hitting a solo home run. I know it’s late June, and I know that DeJesus is hitting just .239, but with him back at the top of the line up—presumably for the rest of the season with Coco Crisp out—I really do expect his numbers to improve drastically.

It’s always fun to see Greinke hitting. He hit a double in the seventh inning. You almost wonder if Hillman shouldn’t use him as a pinch hitter sometimes given the light hitting bench players he often has to choose from. Yeah, it’s ridiculous, but still . . .

The Royals open a new series at home tonight at home against the Twins. Luke Hochevar (2-3, 5.87) will go up against Nick Blackburn (6-3, 3.11). Hochevar is 0-1 in his career against the Twins with an 8.44 ERA in 5.1 IP. Blackburn is 1-0 against the Royals with a 2.00 ERA in 18.0 IP.

Chen Unable to Stop the Pirates

Game Date: June 27, 2009
Kansas City @ Pittsburgh
Pirates 6, Royals 2 / Box Score
WP: Maholm (5-4), Chen (0-1)
KC Home Runs: None
Royals Record: 31-42 / Record in June 8-15

I don’t think anybody envisioned the Royals being 3-8 against NL competition since sweeping the Reds in the middle of the month, but that’s the reality we face going into the game today. So many poorly played games. So many blowouts. It wears on a fan. But yet, we continue to hope that things will change in the next series. Because that’s what we do. We hold out hope.

We still have one more game in this series to play though.

Last night, Bruce Chen didn’t look awful. His missed badly with a change up to Delwyn Young in the fourth inning and Young smashed a three-run home run. You sort of had the sense then that we weren’t going to win this one. But Chen hung in there. He didn’t walk anybody. He made a great defensive play on a bunt. We could do worse at the back end of the rotation.

The bats were relatively silent again. Willie Bloomquist and Billy Butler had two hits each, but the rest of the team only managed three more hits. We only drew one walk—and that was Bruce Chen.

I’m anxious for the Royals to finish off this miserable stretch of games against the NL. I don’t know why though, really. I guess because I’m like any other fan. Things might just turn around with the next series.

Meche Lacks Command, Loses His Seventh

Game Date: June 26, 2009
Kansas City @ Pittsburgh
Pirates 5, Royals 3 / Box Score
WP: Vasquez (1-0), LP: Meche (4-7), SV: Capps (17)
KC Home Runs: Teahen (9)
Royals Record: 31-41 / Record in June 8-14

I only caught bits and pieces of this game, but it seemed like every time I looked up, somebody for the Pirates was launching a home run. I’m not too concerned about solo shots. I’d rather see a pitcher going after a guy and giving up a long ball every once in a while instead of seeing him nibbling and ultimately walking guys before giving up the home run. Two of the Pirates’ home runs were solo shots. One was a two-run shot.

Gil Meche gave up the two-run shot and a solo shot. My bigger concern was his lack of command. Here’s what he said afterward:

“I hadn’t felt real smooth out there, obviously. Tonight was terrible. Just didn’t feel great, didn't have good arm speed, couldn’t locate—pretty much the same story as the last start.”

I can’t speak much about the offense since I missed so much of the game. I could mention the base-running debacle in the second inning, but unfortunately we’re used to that by now, even though such things still grate on my nerves.

Tonight, Bruce Chen will make his debut with the Royals. He hasn’t pitched in the big leagues since 2006. He’ll go up against Paul Maholm (4-4, 4.48). Chen is 1-3 in his career against the Pirates with a 4.15 ERA in 30.1 IP. Maholm is 0-1 against the Royals with a 12.45 ERA in 4.1 IP.

Royals Can’t Complete the Sweep

Game Date: June 25, 2009
Kansas City @ Houston
Astros 5, Royals 4 / Box Score
WP: Wright (2-1), LP: Bannister (5-5), SV: Valverde (6)
KC Home Runs: None
Royals Record: 31-40 / Record in June 8-13

This loss was a result of three things:

1. Brian Bannister not quite having the control he needed.

2. Lance Berkman taking advantage of Banny’s poor control by hitting two two-run home runs.

3. Failure by the Royals to take full advantage of an atrocious defensive game by the Astros, during which they committed three errors.

Mark Teahen had a nice game, going 2-for-4 with 2 RBI. And David DeJesus drew a walk, scored a run, and saw 28 pitches in four plate appearances—which isn’t too bad considering he didn’t even have a hit. But the Royals only managed six hits and generally speaking that’s not going to win you many ball games.

At least we won this series.

Now it’s on to Pittsburgh. Gil Meche (4-6, 4.11) will go up against Charlie Morton (0-0, 3.00) tomorrow night. Neither pitcher has faced the other team.

Royals Win a Bizarre Game

Game Date: June 24, 2009
Kansas City @ Houston
Royals 4, Astros 3 / Box Score
WP: Soria (2-0), LP: Fulchino (2-3), SV: Bale (1)
KC Home Runs: Pena (1), Olivo (11)
Royals Record: 31-39 / Record in June 8-12

So much to talk about in this one:

• Dave Owen got Mitch Maier thrown out at home in the third inning by waving him home on an attempted inside the park home run. There was no reason for it since Maier was leading off the inning. Granted, Luke Hocehvar was up next, but David DeJesus flew out to center after that. Owen’s track record of getting guys thrown out at home this season is not good. Maybe it’s time to move him to first base and give Rusty a shot at third, huh?
  
  
• Luke Hochevar looked incredibly sharp. His breaking stuff had a ton of movement and he kept the ball down for the most part. He eventually gave up a two-run home run to Darin Erstad, but that was after Alberto Callaspo didn’t field a double-play ball cleanly and wound up only getting one out.
  
  
• With the Royals trailing 2-1 in the ninth and a guy on first with one out, Mike Jacobs launched a ball to left field that wrapped around one of those crazy outfield walls in Houston and deflected into Jason Michaels’ glove. He made it look like he caught the ball but after the umpires had a discussion they determined that the ball had indeed deflected off the wall. Good job by the umpires getting the call correct. But it bugged me that Jacobs wasn’t on second base. He couldn’t have been running hard and as a consequence he kept the double play in order for Houston. Thankfully, DeJesus picked him up by singling in a run to tie the game.
  
  
• In the Royals’ half of the tenth, Pudge Rodriguez apparently accused Brayan Pena of peeking back to see where he was set up and Pena went on to hit a solo home run. If Pena did indeed do it, you really can’t defend that sort of thing. It just shouldn’t be done. I couldn’t tell on the replay if he was guilty or not, but Pudge sure seemed to think so. Trey Hillman removed Pena from that game before the bottom half of the inning—did he do so to keep the situation from escalating since Rodriguez was leading off the next inning?
  
  
• In the bottom half of the inning, Rodriguez raced home after a single and Jose Guillen had a chance to throw him out, but for some reason Miguel Olivo came way up the right field line and left the plate wide open for Rodriguez. Sure enough, Rodriguez slid in safely to tie the game again. Both Olivo and John Buck continue to do this and I really don’t understand why. Neither have shown a lack of desire to take a hit in the past so you have to wonder if this isn’t something the Royals are teaching catchers, but if that’s the case, the obvious answer is why?
  
  
• And since I’m asking a lot of questions: What is the deal with Joakim Soria? He blew another save and he still doesn’t look right. He has a good ERA (2.16), but you don’t feel secure when he’s in the game like we did when he entered games last season.
  
  
• In a bizarre twist of events, Miguel Olivo crushed a ball over the left center field wall in the top of the eleventh and that run held up when John Bale retired the Astros 1-2-3 in the bottom of the inning for Bale’s first save.

Lots of craziness in this one. But a win is a win. Now let’s hope the Royals can complete the sweep tomorrow. Brian Bannister (5-4, 3.89) will go up against Brian Moehler (4-4, 6.43). Bannister has never faced the Astros. Moehler is 2-1 against the Royals in his career with a 4.62 ERA in 39.0 IP.

Greinke Wins His Ninth Game

Game Date: June 23, 2009 
Kansas City @ Houston
Royals 2, Astros 1 / Box Score
WP: Greinke (9-3), LP: Ortiz (3-3), SV: Soria (8)
KC Home Runs: Butler (7)
Royals Record: 30-39 / Record in June 7-12

So Trey Hillman pulled a La Russa tonight and hit Zack Greinke eighth. It’d didn’t backfire on him, nor did it help much. Both Greinke and Mitch Meier, who hit ninth, were 0-for-3. Greinke had a good night on the mound though, pitching eight strong innings and picking up his ninth win of the season.

After Billy Butler crushed a solo home run in the third inning to give the Royals a 2-1 lead, I didn’t think it would hold up, but it did. Greinke didn’t have great control of his fastball, but he was able to get outs when he needed them. And the defense wasn’t horrible behind him. At least they didn’t commit any errors.

Joakim Soria wasn’t exactly stellar in the ninth inning. He gave up a single to Miguel Tejada and another single to Lance Berkman. But he got two big strikeouts and a ground out to end the game.

The Royals needed this win. They haven’t won a game since last Tuesday when they beat the Diamondbacks 5-0 in the first game of that series. Since then they have been outscored 53-21. Let’s hope they can win one of the next two in Houston to capture this series.

Tomorrow night, Luke Hochevar (2-3, 6.61) goes up against Roy Oswalt (3-4, 4.48). Hochevar has never faced the Astros. Oswalt is 1-0 in his career against the Royals with a 1.13 ERA in 8.0 IP.

Royal Reflections Podcast #5 with Brian McGannon

I recorded a new episode of the Royal Reflections podcast this afternoon with Brian McGannon, a communications major at the University of Missouri. We had a great time talking about Royals baseball.

Listen as we talk about Brian’s experiences as a child in the Royals clubhouse (his father is Paul McGannon, a former trainer for the Royals from 1983-1991); his thoughts about George Brett, Steve Busby, Joe Randa, Amos Otis, Bo Jackson, and others; his memories of listening to Denny Matthews; the 2003 season when the Royals spent the first half of the season in first place; his opinions about Allard Baird and Dayton Moore; and his thoughts about the current roster.

Here are a couple of photos of Brian participating in the father/kids game at Kauffman Stadium as a young boy:

• Listen to this episode
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• Subscribe to the Royal Reflections podcast in iTunes
• Visit the Royal Reflections podcast archive

Cardinals Sweep the Royals

Game Date: June 21, 2009
St. Louis @ Kansas City
Cardinals 12, Royals 5 / Box Score
WP: Wainwright (8-4), LP: Meche (4-6) 
KC Home Runs: Guillen (8), DeJesus (5)
Royals Record: 29-39 / Record in June 6-12

When you get your lunch handed to you the way the Royals did this weekend, there’s nothing you can do but admit that the other team is much better and then try to move on. The Cardinals scored 29 runs in three games against us. In our ball park. Albert Pujols annihilated our pitching staff, going 6-for-12 with 3 HR and 10 RBI.

Mark Teahen summed up the problems we had during the series and the losing streak pretty well after the game:

“It’s been all-around. We haven’t really been performing that well at the plate, in the field or on the mound. You’ve got do all those well to win games, and we’re not doing any of them all that well right now.”

Is there any relief in site? Are there any changes on the horizon? Royals Review linked to a Mark Bowman (the MLB.com beat writer for the Atlanta Braves) blog post saying the Royals are eyeing 25-year-old, Jeff Francoeur with the intention of finally ridding themselves of Jose Guillen. I surely wouldn’t mind seeing it happen, but I don’t think it’ll be an upgrade on the field. Francoeur does stay healthy; obviously, Jose Guillen does not. But he doesn’t have a lot of power and his career OBP is just .309. I don’t know much about Francoeur defensively, but he must be better than Jose Guillen in that regard. Overall, I don’t see how this move will matter once way or another except to help the Royals trim salary to use elsewhere.

Thankfully, Monday is an off day and we can all forget about it for a day.

Royals Still Searching for Answers

Game Date: June 20, 2009
St. Louis @ Kansas City
Cardinals 7, Royals 1 / Box Score
WP: Carpenter (5-1), LP: Bannister (5-4), SV: Franklin (17) 
KC Home Runs: None
Royals Record: 29-38 / Record in June 6-11

The Royals optioned Kyle Davies to Omaha after his performance last night. Rightfully so. His numbers were awful (3-7, 5.76 ERA). He couldn’t locate any of his pitches. A stint in Omaha may do him some good. Robinson Tejeda came off the DL and took Davies’ spot on the roster. The Royals won’t need five starters for a while so they’ve got some time to make up their minds about what they want to do next.

But what about the rest of this team?

I’m beyond looking for moral victories at this point. Yeah, the Royals hung close until the ninth inning when our bullpen gave up four runs. And yeah, Chris Carpenter was on the mound against Banny today and he has a 1.53 ERA. Okay. But we still got beat soundly. Again.

We only had five hits—three of which came from the bottom three hitters. And we made two more errors. And seriously, how much longer is Luis Hernandez going to be on this roster? Hitting second, really?

When I look at the Royals’ record, I can’t believe it isn’t much worse. We ought to be looking forward to the two upcoming series against Houston and Pittsburgh, but I don’t know how we can. We got beat by Arizona. We’ve lost the series to St. Louis. We can’t get anybody out. Our defense is beyond bad. And we haven’t won a game since Tuesday.

Even though the All-Star break is just 20 games away, it feels like it’ll never get here.

Royals Trounced Again

Game Date: June 19, 2009
St. Louis @ Kansas City
Cardinals 10, Royals 5 / Box Score
WP: Thompson (2-2), LP: Davies (3-7)
KC Home Runs: Olivo (10), DeJesus (4), Butler (6)
Royals Record: 29-37 / Record in June 6-10

In the last three games, our pitching and defense have given up 34 runs. It’s hard to get too up set about the poor performance of any one player. Our starters are struggling. Our bullpen is too. And while we didn’t technically have any errors last night, there was plenty of bad defense to go around.

I don’t know what the answer is at this point. With so many weaknesses, we’d have to make a series of changes to even have a chance for them to make a difference. I don’t expect the Royals to make a lot of trades to fill in their defensive gaps because we don’t have a lot to offer. We could send a couple of players down to Omaha and bring a couple up because the mixture of players we have at the major league level right now is quite odd.

We’re carrying Willie Bloomquist, Alberto Callaspo, Luis Hernandez, Tug Hulett, and Tony Pena—all of whom are middle infielders, four of whom are second baseman. Pena doesn’t belong on the roster. We’re only carrying three outfielders, plus Bloomquist, which means that when it comes time for Hillman to pinch hit, he’s mostly stuck doing so with a back up middle infielder who little or no power.

Hulett probably still has options. I’m not that concerned if B. Pena or Hernandez have any.

Scott Thorman, a LF, is hitting .306 with 11 HR and 26 RBI in 40 games. Why not bring him up? I’d like to see us bring up J.R. House and use him as the back up catcher until John Buck returns. Bruce Chen is 4-2 with a 3.38 ERA in Omaha.

Of course, none of these guys are going to make enough impact to turn things around at the big league level. It seems to me that we’ve got what we’ve got and now we have to watch, sometimes in agony, to see how it all plays out.

This afternoon, Brian Bannister (5-3, 4.10) will go up against Chris Carpenter (4-1, 1.59). Bannister is 3-1 in his career against the Cardinals with a 4.01 ERA in 24.2 IP. Carpenter is 4-5 against the Royals with a 4.14 ERA in 71.2 IP.

More Disastrous Defense

Game Date: June 18, 2009
Arizona @ Kansas City
Diamondbacks 12, Royals 5 / Box Score
WP: Haren (6-4), LP: Hochevar (2-3)
KC Home Runs: None
Royals Record: 29-36 / Record in June 6-9

You are going to find this hard to believe, but statistically speaking there are worse teams defensively than the Royals. The Nationals, for example committed 61 errors going into play last night, while the Royals committed 47 errors in one less game. But, of course, they had three more in this train wreck of a game.

Can I just say the obvious? Brayan Pena is not a catcher. He’s a misser. I know that Luke Hochevar throws a sinker and that sometimes the ball is going to bounce, but Pena knows when its coming—he’s the one calling the pitches for crying out loud. But that didn’t seem to matter much. The Royals ended up with four wild pitches and a passed ball. The Royals need to get J.R. House in uniform for the game tomorrow night. He couldn’t possibly by any worse behind the plate than Pena, who will hopefully be Omaha bound soon. And we know that House can hit a little. He had 18 HR and 60 RBI for Triple-A Round Rock in 127 games last season.

No matter how well Alberto Callaspo is hitting this season, it’s not well enough to justify keeping him on the roster because he’s embarrassingly bad with the glove. Let’s give Tug Hulett a chance there for a few games. Even if he just makes the routine plays, we’ll be miles ahead of where we are with Callaspo. When Alex Gordon comes back, Mark Teahen will presumably move back over to second, but he hasn’t played the position in months and you have to wonder what he’ll look like over there. I don't think we can hand the job to Willie Bloomquist unless we want to start TPJ at shortstop every game. How good would Mark Grudzielanek look in a Royals uniform along about now? Yeah, he’s almost 39 and his knees are shot, but he’d be far, far better than anybody else we’ve got in our organization right now.

After being crushed by the Diamondbacks the last two games, the Royals will begin a new series against the Cardinals tomorrow night at the K. That should be fun. Kyle Davies (3-6, 5.14) will go up against Brad Thompson (1-2, 3.60). Davies is 1-2 in his career against the Cardinals with a 2.79 ERA in 19.1 IP. Thompson is 1-2 against the Royals with a 4.84 ERA in 22.1 IP.

It Got Ugly

Game Date: June 17, 2009
Arizona @ Kansas City
Diamondbacks 12, Royals 5 / Box Score
WP: Scherzer (4-4), LP: Greinke (8-3)
KC Home Runs: None
Royals Record: 29-35 / Record in June 6-8

While watching the fiasco on defense tonight, a friend told me that it looks like Dayton Moore put together a ballclub and forgot about defense. I couldn’t agree more. I’m not going to rehash the things that all of us already know. But after we made the third error of the game, I began trying to come up with at least one example of a staring position player who has played good, solid defense all season long.

Butler, no.

Callaspo, definitely no.

Avilles, no.

Teahen, no.

DeJesus, yes. No errors at least.

Crisp, what’s a cut off man?

Guillen, ahhhh no.

Olivo/Buck, no.

Bloomquist has been good, but he’s not a starting position player, or at least he isn’t supposed to be.

When you lose a game 12-5, a lot more has gone wrong than just the defense though. Zack Greinke didn’t pitch well. Neither did John Bale, or Roman Colon, or Ron Mahay.

Tomorrow is another day.

Meche Shuts the D’backs Down

Game Date: June 16, 2009
Arizona @ Kansas City
Royals 5, Diamondbacks 0 / Box Score
WP: Meche (4-5), LP: Davis (3-8)
KC Home Runs: None
Royals Record: 29-34 / Record in June 6-7

At the end of last season, the Royals had a Jekyll & Hyde vibe. Were they the awful team that endured two long losing streaks or were they the team that won 18 games in September?

Nobody really knew.

We still don’t.

We started well, then went into the tank. And now we have this nice four game winning streak thanks largely to some extremely good starting pitching.

Ever since Gil Meche moved to the first-base side of the pitching rubber, things have been different for him. Here’s a blurb from Bob Dutton’s article last night showing how different:

This makes four straight “quality starts” for Meche, 4-5, since his move to the first-base side of the pitching rubber. Further, he has allowed just three earned runs in 29 innings in those four games.

His ERA is down to 3.31 from 4.55.

Last night Meche was dominant and a bit old school because he convinced Trey Hillman to let him go back out for the ninth inning even though he’d already thrown 109 pitches. He ended up throwing 23 more in the ninth inning to finish with 132, but afterward Hillman said he wasn’t concerned about Meche’s pitch count. I like that.

Mark Teahen had a nice game, even though he was hitting in the eight hole, going 3-for-4 with an RBI. He’s hitting .333 in June. And Mike Jacobs even had a couple of hits off Davis, who is a lefty. You don’t see that very often.

The Royals will take their winning streak into their match up with Arizona tonight. We’re in a portion of the schedule in which we have to play good baseball if we have any hope of salvaging the season. So far, the Royals aren’t having many problems with the National League. Let’s hope their success continues.

Tonight, Zack Greinke (8-2, 1.72) will go up against Max Scherzer (3-4, 3.63). Greinke is 0-0 against the Diamondbacks in his career with an 8.74 ERA in 11.1 IP. Scherzer has never faced the Royals.