It's Time To Turn Things Around.
It's
Time To Turn Things Around.
Royals Record as of 8/5/08: 53-60, .469, 4th
Place
10 games behind Twinks.
ESPN keeps a great schedule of Royals upcoming games, and records from previous games. You can follow along here:
Visit these great Royals web sites and get all the latest poop on the boys in blue:
Kansas City Royals Official Team Web site
Before we get started: It's another year of tracking the daily antics of those lovable losers, the Kansas City Royals. But after 20 years of being lovable losers, Royals fans are hungry for a respectable team. Things seem to be turning in the right direction. Kauffman Stadium is under renovation. We have a second year GM and a new manager. We have Billy Butler and Alex Gordon. We have Gil and Alex and Brian. We have Soria in the pen. We have hope for something other than a 100 loss season in the toughest division in baseball.
So here we go again. I'll write occasional thoughts and rants during the season. Don't look for daily updates. I'm way too lazy to do that, and sometimes the season just makes me speechless.
August 1st: Well, July is over, and the Royals put on a 4-game winning burst to end the month with a two game under .500 month. Still 11 games back in fourth place, nine games under .500 for the season. The Royals swept the A's in Oakland for the firs time in twenty years. Trade deadline comes and goes. Grudz, Mahay, DeJesus and Guillen all discussed in trade rumors, but no moves are made. The division gets a shake-up with players coming and going; most notably Pudge Rodriguez moves to the Yankees and out of Detroit, Ken Griffey, Jr. moves out of Cincy and into the center field for the Chisox. His first game back in the AL is tonight against KC. The Good News: Mike Aviles might be a player after all. Tonight is his 50th game of the season, and he's pretty much sent Tony Peña, Jr to the bench for good. Aviles is hitting .325 with six homers. He has 31Ks with only seven walks, so he needs to cut down on the strikeouts. He also has had more than a few gaffes on defense. He needs to work closely with Frank White and Joe Randa next spring training on infield defense. Besides Aviles, KC has two other players, Grudz and DeJesus at .300. Billy Butler seems to be on track, hitting with power, even putting a dent in the left field foul pole on a go-ahead homer vs. Tampa Bay. On the mound, Greinke and Davies both have winning records as starters. Ron Mahay has been tremendous. He's 5-0 with a 1.75 ERA. Perfect for a bridge guy. Soria has continued to be phenomenal. He has the most saves of any Mexican born reliever in the history of MLB. In 46 games he has 32 saves and a 1.47 ERA. Peña pitched a desperation ninth inning against Detroit and did great. He retired the side, also struck out Pudge Rodriguez. Perhaps his best showing of the year. Seriously, Royals should consider turning him into a reliever, kind of a "reverse-Ankiel." With his bat, he has no future as a major league infielder. The Bad News: Jose Guillen continues to be an asshole. On the final road swing in Oakland, he tells the press that he's not on speaking terms with Manager Trey Hillman, that KC is "a living hell," and he'll do anything, even give money back, to get out of KC..ESPN reporter (Enrique Rojas) breaks the story, then the next day, Guillen denies the story says he's happy here. Whatever...lighten up, Francis. Royals had the first serious bite of injuries to everyday players in July. Grudz, DeJesus and Teahen all missed games for back problems. Guillen has sat out because of a groin and hip flexor problem. Leo Nuñez is back in the bullpen after injury rehab. Jimmy Gobble may find himself on another team next year. In 31 games, Gobble is 0-2 with one save, and a career-killing 11.31 ERA. So far, the Royals have blown through Tomko, Peralta, Yabuta, Bale, Fulchina and Nomo. Its true that you can never have enough good pitching. Other Stuff: Trey Hillman got kicked out for arguing with an ump on a blown call at first on Alex Gordon. He was nose to nose. Beauty. He's only been run once earlier, in June vs. Texas. Seems he's kept the same arguing style. Royals have had some cool promotions. Gave away straw Cowboy hats, Santa hats and Golf visors in a three day weekend. Attendance has been pretty decent again this year, despite the torn up condition of the sports complex. The construction is starting to take shape, and you can start to see the transformation. Rough stretch coming up here to start the dog days with series against Chisox, Red Sox and Twins, all teams condending for the playoffs.
July 12th: The first half is over, and the Boys in Blue are 10 games under .500 at 43-53, and are 12.5 out of first behind Chicago. Good luck to Joakim Soria, our lone All Star.
Let's take a break!
June 26th: The Royals are on a roll, out of the cellar, climbing over Cleveland and 7.5 games out of first place. Royals have fattened up on the National League, sweeping St. Louis on the road and Colorado at home winning 10 of their last 11 games, and almost evening up the pathetic 12 game losing streak they suffered back in May. The Royals have been schitzo, to say the least. The big win came last Sunday when the Royals overcame a 6-1 deficit to beat San Francisco 11-10. Question is, can they keep rolling? The Good: Mike Aviles. Mike Aviles good, Tony Peña, Jr. bad. In just 20 games, Aviles is hitting .333 with 9 doubles, 3 homers and 14 RBI. Meanwhile TJ, in 61 games, is hitting .154 with 4 doubles and and RBI, 36 Ks and 5 walks. They really need to send him down and bring Billy Butler back up. Jose Guillen has been on a tear in June. After a putrid month of April, Guillen is hitting .288 with 60 RBIs, which is among the leaders in the AL. It's truly been an amazing comeback, and Guillen has put his money where his mouth is after poor mouthing other players on the team during the 12 game losing streak. Only starting pitcher now with a losing record is Meche at 5-8. Greinke and Bannister have winning records, Hochevar is at 5-5. Soria continues to be lights out, chalking up 21 saves in 22 chances. He's a lock for the All-Star game. The Bad: Shake Shake Shake. Shake Shake Shake. Shake Yabuta. The $3 million Japanese phenom has been sent down to Omaha, after a 1-3 start and a 5.46 ERA. Alex Gordon has been up and down. He's doing much better than this time last year, but he's still not hitting up to expectations. He's checking in at .262, but he has 70 Ks and only 32 walks. Other Stuff: Royals have been drawing well, and tomorrow starts the second leg of the I-70 series, three games at Kauffman with the Redbirds. Albert is supposed to be back for this one, we'll see what happens.
June 15th: The Royals find themselves 10.5 games out of first place after a week that saw a lot of weirdness and activity. The Royals blew 7th inning 4 run leads, not once, but two nights in a row at home vs. Texas. Ryan Lefebvre pissed off the Ranger's psycho DH Milton Bradley, who tried to make it to the fourth floor press box to confront Lefebvre over comments he made during a play by play broadcast.Interleague play continued this week, with the Royals taking two of three from the NL West leading Arizona D'Backs. After losing a 1-0 extra inning heartbreaker Friday night, the Royals rebounded with big offense in Saturday and Sunday's game, winning 12-3 Saturday, and 8-3 today. Today's game featured a grand slam by David DeJesus. The Good: The Royals may have found a shortstop for the rest of the season, in Mike Aviles. This 27 year old career minor leaguer stepped in for the anemic hitting Tony Peña, Jr, and after one week is hitting .341 with two homers, five RBI and one stolen base. Aviles defense is somewhat suspect, but his offense has more than made up for it. In Saturday's game against Arizona, Aviles was one triple short of the cycle. Today Gil Meche got his first win in a month, pushing his disappointing overall record to 4-8 with a 5.12 ERA. Jose Guillen has his average up to .288, which is truly amazing considering how awful he was in April and May. DeJesus is now up to .304, Grudz to .305. Buck is at .253, but usually slides into Mendoza territory after the All Star Break. The Bad: Tony Peña, Jr. is down to .154 over 162 ABs. He is now only seeing time as a defensive replacement in the late innings. His future in the bigs is questionable to say the least. A journeyman minor leaguer has stepped in and made him look expendable in a week's time. Brett Tomko is no longer a Royal, being "designated for assignment." A 2-7 record and a 6.97 ERA will do that. Tomko gave up 11 gopher balls in 60 innings. Not good. Other Stuff: Aw-Hell B-Error-A was traded to the Dodgers for a low minor league shortstop. I think it's good for him to get out of the Royals system, and good for the Royals to be rid of him. One of Allard Baird's last big personnel errors. Royals-Cards (The Missouri Show Me Series) starts on Tuesday in St. Louis.
June 1st: It's been one of those speechless stretches that make it incredibly hard to be a Royals fan. This time, a 12-game losing streak, starting with being no-hit by Boston's Jon Lester, the pre-cursor to being swept three times in a row by Boston and Toronto on the road and by the Twinks at home. During the stretch, the Royals gave up two grand slams in one game, forgot how many outs were in an inning, lost DeJesus in the middle of a game to a bad case of hives, and blew a five run lead in the ninth for their 10th loss in a row. During the stretch the Royals went from being one game under .500 to12 under. They also fell to the cellar behind Detroit, who had a putrid month of April. The Good: The team finally won a game 4-2 tonight against Cleveland. Yip-ee. The Bad: Starting Shortstop Tony Peña, Jr. is hitting .157. That wouldn't be so bad if he had, say, 50 ABs. But he has 153 ABs. Grudz has been out with a bad back. Back in April, the Royals gave away 20,000 Billy Butler #16 jerseys to fans. Six weeks later, they demoted him to Omaha. Zack Greinke is the only Royals starter with a winning record. Brett Tomko was booted to the bullpen after building a 2-7 record with a 6.32 ERA. Summary: Same old crap in a brand new box. On the Royals web site, they recommend several players as "All-Star" candidates. Nobody deserves it, as you can see from their averages. One guy has already been demoted to Omaha. Sad, sad stuff.
Other Stuff: Buck O'Neil got some props today. Here's excepts from a story today from MLB.Com's Mark Dent: "The clouds floated away a few minutes before the ceremony began. Sun shined on Forest Hill Cemetery. "It's a beautiful day," said Bob Kendrick, director of marketing for the Negro Leagues Museum, "in recognition of a beautiful human being." His words couldn't have been truer. A Kansas City and Negro Leagues legend finally got a proper memorial on Saturday. About 500 feet away from he and his wife Ora's grave, the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum and SI Memorials dedicated a monument to Buck O'Neil. In the middle of it all, near the front of the cemetery stood the veiled marble structure dedicated to O'Neil. A who's who of Kansas City sat under a green tent next to it -- Mayor Mark Funkhouser, Emmanuel Cleaver II, Ollie Gates. Friends of O'Neil came, too. So did people who never met him. They all wanted to honor a great man. The veil was lifted, revealing O'Neil's monument. A young O'Neil, pictured from his playing days with the Monarchs in the 1940s, crouched down on the front. The back of marble stone displayed his statistics -- a league-leading .353 average in 1946 -- his position -- first base, outfield, manager -- his height, his weight. It was just like a big baseball card. "We didn't get to see him as a baseball player," Kendrick said. "So we wanted to show him that way." The monument wasn't complete without a nugget of wisdom from O'Neil. Kendrick told the story behind the quotation they engraved on the statue. Back in February 2006, everyone knew O'Neil would get elected into Baseball's Hall of Fame. It seemed like a done deal. About 300 of O'Neil's friends planned a celebration. Then the shock came. O'Neil hadn't made it. He gave this announcement to all of them; the special words he said are now written on the monument below his picture. "If I'm a Hall of Famer for you, that's all right with me. Just keep loving old Buck. Don't weep for Buck. No, man. Be happy, be thankful." The class he showed on that day didn't surprise any of his close friends. They knew O'Neil always found a reason to smile. Or laugh. Even if it wasn't for any good reason."
May 18th: The Royals started an 11-game roadie -and started inter-league play- this weekend by going to South Florida and taking 2 of 3 from the Fish. Royals are now 21-22, one game under .500 and only 1.5 off the lead in the AL Central. Chisox are only team in the division over .500, and that's just barely. The Good: "Emil" Guillen has finally crossed the Mendoza Line. In the KC Star a couple days ago, he admitted he came out of Spring Training 25 lbs overweight, and he's now just starting to get into baseball shape. Guillen feasted on Fish pitching, and has moved his average up to .239 and leads the team with RBIs with 26. Mark Grudzielanek leads the AL in batting average at .325. Zack Greinke is second in the AL in ERA with a 1.93. He has a 5-1 record. Joakin Soria gave up his first homer -and first runs- of the season last Friday night. The next day the club gave him a potential six year, $32 million contract, with first three years and $8.75 million guaranteed. The Bad: Last night there was an ugly collision in right center between David DeJesus and Joey Gathright, colliding hard at the wall. In the KC Star, the describe what happened: "The play occurred in the fourth inning with one out and a runner on first. The Royals led 2-0 when Mike Jacobs hammered a Brian Bannister offering into the gap in right-center. Gathright raced over from center. DeJesus closed from right. They both leaped, collided, and the ball ricocheted toward the infield. Jacobs had an RBI triple before Gathright could retrieve the ball. “My (left) shoulder came out,” Gathright said, “and then it went back in. It’s all right. We both jumped, and he hit me when my arm was up. After that, I felt it more than I saw it.” DeJesus was making just his second start in right field since 2004. “It was one of those balls you can’t really see right off the bat,” he said. “We both were going for it. You can’t really call it, because I didn’t see it. I was just running. We both jumped in the air and hit each other.” Both players appeared positioned to make the catch had the other not intervened. “We both had a bead on it,” Gathright agreed. “Things happen. We weren’t calling to each other because we couldn’t see it first. Then we both saw it, so we both went for it. Then the collision happened.”
May 4th: After a seven game losing swoon in mid-April, the Royals lost the early momentum built from a good start. Now into the second month of the season, the Royals are in their familiar last place. The only saving grace is, they're only two games off the lead, as the entire AL Central has been less than impressive, with all but one team (Minnesota) at or under .500. The Good: Billy Butler continues to hit, checking in at .299 and breaking through last night against C.C. Sabathia for a come from behind 4-2 win. Alex Gordon is hitting .291, but doesn't do well hitting third. Gordon's average hitting third is .176, at any other spot in the lineup he's hitting .347. That says maybe he's still not ready to be the go to guy. Manager Trey Hillman flip flopped Mark Teahen and Jose Guillen, Teahen now in right, and Guillen in left. Teahen seems more comfortable in right, and has made several nice plays there. Zack Greinke continues to pitch well, last start was a hard luck 2-0 loss to Texas. Greinke struck out nine and walked none, and lost. He still comes in with a 1.47 ERA and a 3-1 record. Joakim Soria has been great in save situations with seven saves and a 0.00 ERA. He's pitched in 12 games with zero earned runs. Can't ask for much more. At this point, Greinke, Soria and Butler should be legitimate all star candidates. The Bad: Jose Guillen had a terrible April for a fourth spot bat. Guillen is batting .167 with 27 Ks and only five walks. He does lead the team in plate appearances and RBIs, but he needs to step it up in May. Tony Peña, Jr. has been awful at the plate, hitting an anemic .157 with 19 Ks and two walks. There's been rumblings that he could be sent down, and Aw-Hell B-error-A brought up from Omaha. I certainly hope Junior can get it together at the plate, as his defense has been very good. The Royals said sayonara to Hideo Nomo and his 18.69 ERA. Nomo was a batting practice pitcher at best, and the other Japanese import Yabuta hasn't been much better with an 8.31 ERA. Yabuta has nine walks and eight strikeouts, not good at all for a middle reliever. John Bale is due to come off the DL soon, and hopefully can replace Brett Tomko as a starter. Tomko has been ineffective in a starting role with a 1-3 record and a 6.26 ERA. Looks like he'll be another in a long line of $3 million pitching busts. Misc Thoughts: Paul Spittorff and Ryan Lefebvre continue to do excellent work on the TV broadcasts. I find the radio broadcast hard to listen to, because I really dislike Bob Davis -mostly because he's the voice of KU basketball. Royals continue to do good promotions, giving away cool stuff, but they never give enough away. On weekends where they expect a 30,000 crowd, they'll only offer 20,000 promotional items. Sorry, I'm not going to stand in line four hours before first pitch to get a tee shirt. Stadium construction continues as the team is on the road, and when Kauffman Stadium is done, it will be a beautiful place.
April 11th: The Royals were shut out for the first time tonight by the Twins. Tonight we opened a very cold home stand vs. Minnesota. Temps down into the mid 30's during the game, fans, players and umps all very cold. After spotting a four run second, the Royals just couldn't get on track and end up losing 5-0. The team seems to be playing up to the level of competition. The Twinks were supposed to be right with the Royals for last in the AL Central, but so far, they are 3-1 against KC. The Good: The Royals entered the game with six guys in the lineup hitting over .300. Billy Butler has hit in every game so far this year. Tonight he got a hit late to stretch his streak to 10 games, but was thrown out trying to stretch a single into a double, running the team out of the inning. Why? Overall this year the middle relief and bullpen have been very good. Soria has four saves out of the Royals six wins. Yabuta has made two appearances, and has good stuff. Is it just me, or does he look like a chick? He reminds me of some chick, can't put my finger on it, but I'll figure it out eventually. For the starters , Zack Greinke is 2-0 with a 0.60 ERA, Brian Bannister is 2-0 with a 1.50 ERA. After ten games, the Royals are tied for first with the Chisox, not bad, considering how April looked on the spring training calendar. The Bad: Jose Guillen sucks. He just flat out sucks. Last night against the Yanks, bases loaded, two out, chance to get the team back in the game, whiffs on a ball two feet out of the strike zone. Tonight against the Twinks, bases loaded, chance to get the team back in the game, whiffs on a change up three feet out of the strike zone. The $11 million dollar man is batting a cool .146 with 8 Ks, no homers and only 5 RBIs. Hell, for $11 million we could have paid Sweeney for another year. At least he'd be on the DL by now and not hurting the ball club. Hillman needs this guy's defense in right field, but until he starts to make contact in clutch situations, move him down to the seven spot and let Butler hit cleanup. TP Jr. sat out tonight, mostly because he's hitting .037 in eight games, and hasn't contributed a thing on offense since opening day in Detroit. If he doesn't start to hit, he could lose his spot to Callaspo, who is a much better bat, or (God Forbid) they bring up Aw-Hell B-Error-A from Omaha. Joey Gathright is only hitting .200, and his lack of punch is starting to hurt the top of the order. He's not getting on enough, only walked once and K' ed 6 times. We need to get D. Jesus back in Centerfield asap. On the pitching side, Gil Meche is 0-2 with a 6.94. He needs to hold up his end of the rotation. John Bale is 0-2 with a 5.84 ERA. He could see his grip on the number five starter spot go to Leo Nunez if he doesn't have a couple effective starts soon. Nomo pitched against the Yanks last night and gave up two monster homers in the 9th. He looks old. I don't think he'll be on the roster by the All-Star Break. Misc Thoughts: Trey Hillman really has the look of a competent manager. He just has a way about him. He reminds me of Bruce Bochy, except his head's not as big. The new HDTV scoreboard looks awesome on TV, and the FSN KC television coverage of the Royals has been very good so far this year. Paul Splittorf and Ryan Lefebvre are very good together. I don't think enough nice things are said about Lefebvre. He's very entertaining, and kids around with Splitt to keep things fun. He's very good natured, and a good guy. Tomorrow night is Powder Blue Billy Butler Jersey Night, and I'll be there. Butler is hitting .400 and is fourth in the AL Batting race at .400. Mark Grudzielanek is second in the AL at .407.
March 31st: Today was opening day for the Royals vs. the AL Central pre-season favorite, the Detroit Tigers. Meche vs. Verlander. Royals prevail in 11 innings with a 5-4 win. Big first game homer for Alex Gordon, good pitching by everyone except new Royal Tomko - who gave up the game tying homer in the 9th- and a clutch hit by Tony Pena, Jr. for the go-ahead run in the 11th inning. Most importantly, a first major league game win as manager for Trey Hillman. Royals in first place. Perfect!
Want to re-live the searing pain of the last six Royals seasons? OK Sparky, you asked for it!
