Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Letter To Zach Greinke

If I were Dayton Moore I would send this, via certified mail to young Zachary.

Dear Zach –

I am writing to inform you that the times have changed and you will no longer be treated as a human being with a future, but rather as an Iron Mike Pitching machine at a run-down Putt-Putt golf course. Zach, when you signed that four-year deal in January of 2009, let’s face it, you and the Royals were both hedging a bet. You were looking for some solidarity after losing your mind and the Royals were basically buying a growth stock, at a reasonable price, they thought might turn into the next Google. As the fine gentlemen from Goldman Sachs have iterated over the past week, when two people hedge the same thing, someone looses.

Well Zach, out of necessity the Royals are going to have to go Goldman Sachs on you and basically make you wish you never signed that deal. Zachary, I don’t know if you have looked around or read the newspapers lately, but the Royals bullpen is the most pathetic collection people demonstrating overhand throwing that have come around in quite some time.

Zach, I had to call Bruce Chen up from Omaha to pitch out of the pen. I have received death threats from the Powder Blue Room for signing Bruce Chen originally, much less recalling him a year after the sport of baseball did everything in their power to pull his union card out of embarrassment. My 8 year old daughter has personally requested Bruce to come throw live to her traveling softball team so the squad can “build some confidence in a game time environment”.

I will finally get to my point. Zach, although I respect your future as a baseball player I regret to inform you that at the conclusion of the contract you will not so much as be able to shoot a game of pool. From this point forward we will be treating you like that kid who throws really hard for a 10 year-old in 10 year-old traveling baseball tournaments. This means you will be throwing every single chance in every single game in which it is possible. This will be easier than in those traveling youth baseball tournaments due to the fact that Major League Baseball does not have one of those pesky “maximum amount of innings pitched in so many games” rules.

As far as your duties as a starting pitcher, you will no longer come out of any game, for any reason. I mean this. I have forced Trey Hillman to adorn a shock collar I borrowed from my German shorthair hunting dog with a distance boost on the signal which I will use in spades should I so much as see the toe of his shoe on the top step the dugout.

I will not continue to reduce your manhood any further by making you give a baseball to Bruce Chen, Dusty Hughes, Josh Rupe and crew with thousands of people watching. I will monitor all pitch counting devices via Chinese internet monitoring equipment and prosecute any offenders found counting pitches within the 50 mile radius of Kansas City by making them spend everyday of their remaining lives sitting at the bar at McFadden’s listening to “Shot through the heart and your too brave” while drinking water.

Concerning your relieving duties for which you are eligible on any day in which you do not start, please consider the following; If I have to choose between watching Josh Rupe walk someone or wheeling you out on a Red Cross bed, I choose the later. Little league managers are rational. If Toby the Fireballer is on his 2,209th pitch of the “4th of July Blowout Baseball World Series of all World Series’ of all of Youth Baseball” Mr. Little League Manager simply says, “But if I put in that pathetic chump Gary’s kid in there, this child with a full beard will use his glorified airplane wing of a bat to hit the ball onto the next complex where the Chicago Traveling Firepants Sox are playing”.

You know what Mr. Little League Manager does? He decides that perhaps Toby needs to run pitches 2,210 through 2,213 up to the plate to get the heck out of the inning so that they might play the Chicago Traveling Firepants Sox in Sunday’s final. This is how it’s done. Don’t take Toby out unless you have someone better to put in. Toby will be fine, he’s young. Nothing that a 20 piece from McDonald’s and an Eastbay catalog can’t take of. You too Zach are young, especially when graded against the median age of the Royals bullpen.

Zach, we have no one better to put in the game. This has been demonstrated. I realize you might seek council and sue the organization for damages and lost income on your next contract. Chances are I will be scouting 17 year-olds in the Atlanta suburbs for the Braves by that point, so go ahead. In fact, we might let fans at The K vote with those things they used in America’s Funniest Home Viedos as to when you should come into the game on days in which you are not starting. Trey does not get a vote. I might summon Goldman Sach’s themselves to create an index which tallies the total amount of innings you will throw by the conclusion of your contract. You most surly will recoup some of your potential lost earnings by joining me in placing large bets going “long” on this index.

I understand this is not fair nor correct, but you signed the contract. Until I can get over my urge to sign middle aged relievers this is the way it must be. At least you will have the liberal media on your side, you know they will come to your rescue.

We will be upgrading the ice making facilities in your honor, it’s the least I can do,

Sorry again,

Dayton

Monday, April 26, 2010

no comment

So the Royals used their usual antics - bullpen failures, ill-timed offense, dropped pop-ups, Gil Meche bricks - to lose yet another series to their arch nemesis' the Twins. Instead of re-hashing a bunch of very forgettable moments from this past weekend lets take a look at things the Royals could do to totally redeem themselves...

1. Admit that Bruce Chen coming-up isn't the answer to the bullpen problems and just tell us the truth: he and Trey are really good poker buddies.

2. Tell us that this year's team was built to trade not to win; we have enough spare parts to rebuild a '73 Camaro. Dayton knew this year was a wash but he really wanted to have something to do when the Royals were out of the race by June. We might as well start talking about trade deadline possibilities there really isn't much else right now.

3. Confirm what we already know: Chris Getz is actually Dayton Moore and Trey Hilman's genetically engineered love child. I'm sure by now everyone has read this KC Star article letting us know that Getz is more important to the team than Alex Gordon.

4. Stop telling us that they see no problems with Meche's mechanics/arm/delivery angle/hat size/eye sight/chapped lips and let us know that yes after three terrible starts there might just be a problem with Gil.

5. End the Trey Hilman experiment sooner than later. Juan Cruz' release wasn't enough to let us know Dayton is sick of losing and under-performance. Since he can't fire himself then he should just put Trey out of his miseries and not make him suffer through the rest of the season. Frank White is the answer!

Friday, April 23, 2010

The Royals Should...

The semi-dramatic conclusion to the Royals road-trip and series was something of a bright spot for a lot of reasons and one tha SHOULD lead to good things...

1. Alex Gordon beaver-taps a bomb to center to win the ball game after a horrible game. Now, in a perfect world, this should lead to the resurgence of Alex Gordon and add to what has been a promising start to the season for the Royals offensively. At the same time allowing him to shake-off two early season errors and become a rock at third-base again.

2. Zack Grienke´s start was very much more Grienke-like. This should lead to all concerns that he´s not the same pitcher being diminished and put him on his way to being the same dominant starter that we saw last year.

3. The bullpen bent but didn´t break. While the duo of Rupe and Parrish blew the win for Zack it wasn´t that bad; a sac bunt and a seeing-eye single led to a run. The key being A RUN not four, five or six but a single run which only allowed the game to be tied and gave Alex the chance to become hero for a day. After the set-back Tejada came out and dominated, which should be a good sign and Soria, as it should be, breezed his way to a clean save.

4. Guillen hit another bomb. He should be on his way to solid season with the bat, while we expect some cooling down, a full season at DH with 25 HRs and 100 RBI is well within his sights.

5. The team was all of those words coaches like to use when describing their teams ability to stop the bleeding (Resilient, Gritty, Verterany, etc.) They won the final games of the series´ in Toronto and Minnesota after losing the first two and where a third loss would have stung. Thus the Royals did exactly what good teams should do when things don´t go quite right; salvage a game and move on.

The Royals come back to the lovely K tonight to square off against the Twins, now what they should do tonight is: Gil after showing positive signs in his last game, should have a good outing, after pounding Pavano in his last outing the offense should put up some runs tonight and they should kick-off a successful home-stand. One that should, could, maybe, please for the love of God lead to a decent season!!!

Monday, April 19, 2010

Twin City Blues

Why can't the Royals be the new Twins? How do they do it? We have a better offense and starting pitching this year, so how are they sooo good? The Royals headed up to take a look at the brand-spankin-new Target field this past weekend and but for Alberto Callaspo's power stroke were reminded of how NOT the Twins the Royals are. Here are the notes from this past weekend...

Slider no worky...

Roman Colon was the bullpen's first casualty/scapegoat and though you have to congratulate the Royals on stepping up and making a move you really wonder what was the thinking that made Colon the first to go and not Mendoza; who based on stats, years of service to the club and last name should logically have been the first to go. Josh Rupe has been good so far and appears to have been the right call-up, by the way here is Trey on just why Rupe was the Chosen One...

“He does a good job of monitoring the running game. He’s athletic. He holds runners well with a good pick move. He gets off the mound fast. Hopefully, his stuff will play out.”

Seriously, Trey mentions the all important set-up man pick-off move as the reason for Rupe's call-up and yes Trey HOPEFULLY the stuff will play out

He's Back...

Thanks to a little boo-boo to Chris Getz we get to see Alex Gordon take another crack at that break-out season everyone has been waiting to see. Putting Getz on the DL also allows to the Royals to avoid any further tough decisions about their 25 man roster i.e., getting rid of another middle reliever.

It couldn't last...

John Parrish took his hitless, scoreless and effectiveness streak into 7th inning of the game on Saturday in Minnesota and it ended right there. He gave up a run, two hits and took the loss in the latest bullpen failure. He's no longer blameless.

Gil & Grienke...

These two produced a pair of borderline scary starts. First Zach goes out on Friday and does his best wild thing impersonation by lasting only 5 innings mainly because of 5 walks and then gives a ranting explanation about why this happened that would make even the most loyal fan a little worried that there may be a chink in his armor. Gil follows this up on Saturday by giving up a 5-run second inning that almost made fans give-up, then he miraculously held it together to pitch 6 innings and give us some hope that maybe he just needed a couple of warm-up starts to get his groove back.

Power Surge...

The offense continues to be surprising as Callaspo and Ankiel both had two homer games and all four of the hrs came in important spots in the game; Callaspo carried the team to a sweep-avoiding win on Sunday and Ankiel did his best to give the Royals a chance on Saturday (it didn't work in the end but...).

Visiting old friends...

Now its time for the team to get out their passports and cross the border into Toronto to say hi to old teammate John Buck as the Royals battle the Blue Jays to see if they can't win a series and get to that all important .500 mark.

Thursday, April 15, 2010

The Good The Bad and The Ugly - off-day

Nine games in and believe it or not, its not all bad. The Royals stand at 4-5 with Grienke scheduled to have a shot at getting the Royals to .500 even after some crushing defeats...you know what we'll take it, right? Here's the Good, Bad and Ugly of it all.

STARTING PITCHERS

THE GOOD: Davies, Bannister, Hochevar and Grienke have been solid, no complaints we just want to see more of the same.

THE BAD: Out of the eight GBHD starts they have been rewarded with exactly two wins and its not a stretch to say that they could have eight wins; Hochever had the worst perfomance and actually got the win and the only other non-quality start (what a stat) was Grinke´s horrendous 6 2-3, 4ER game that easily could have been a win. No need to go in to detail of the why (see previous two posts) but an unrewarded starting rotation hurts.

THE UGLY: Gil Meche´s return. After starting the year on the DL only to return a few days later (not sure why) Gil was pounded by the Red Sox. He hadn´t pitched in a long time and it´s strange that he was rushed back so soon but the fact remains he hasn´t seemed like the Gil Meche of his first 2.5 years in KC in a long time. Thus, he has fans wondering if he might actually be done as even a decent starter and will spend the last 2.5 years as a Royal with more DL stints than wins and be $25 mil down the drain.

THE OFFENSE

THE GOOD: It´s all good! You would not have ever imagined you would be saying this about the Royals' offense BUT the fact remains that we have one of the top offenses in the league. We have the league's leading hitter and stolen base threat (Scotty Pods) at the top of the order to go along with one of the top power hitters in the middle (Jose Guillen!). Not to mention Ankiel has shown flashes of Awesomeness, Billy is still rolling from last year, Kendall has been the absolute shocker of the offense, Yuni has been acceptable, and DDJ has looked better than ever.

THE BAD: Other than Jose´s flashes-of-old power streak it has been based on A LOT of singles. However, that this is the only negative makes the BAD much less bad.

THE UGLY: No Royals fan has any hope of this continuing; Guillen on his way to 40hrs HAH! Scotty Pods 100 steals and a .350 hitter, lets check back in a few weeks. Ankiel 100 RBI, might be the most probable of all the long shots, but still I´m not buying it. Kendall AND Yuni both hitting above .260, I´ll give you all the odds you want. But its nice to dream.

THE BULLPEN

THE GOOD: It´s surprising that there is something to write about in this category but, hats off to John Parrish on not allowing either a hit or a run and being a bright spot in a giant pile of... Also, despite batters hitting over .330 against them, Farny and J Cruz both have ERAs under 2.50 (in a category so thin on GOODs this makes the cut but, they could have just as easily been lumped into the bad).

THE BAD: See THE UGLY, its soooo BAD that bad is too good of a word.

THE UGLY: Colon, Tejada, Dusty and Mendoza. The best of them has an ERA of 9.00, I could go on with bad stats but I started to feel nauseous. Here are my nicknames for the crew, and please feel free to add anything you´ve got in the comments.

Colon: "Charcol", the base of a good KC pen BBQ.

Tejada: "Lighter Fluid", highly flammable and overused but a must to get the fire started.

Dusty: "Mesquite", he's the wood chips that add the special smoky flavor to good BBQ.

Mendoza: "The Match", throw him on top of equal parts Colon, Tejada and Dusty and you've got your perfect KC bullpen BBQ, one that makes (insert favorite KC BBQ spot here) jealous.

Will Grinke start the Royals on a big streak up in Minnesota or will Grienke continue an improbable steak of bad luck amongst the starters? Will the Royals offense go flat and come back to earth or will we all have to congratulate Dayton Moore on his great offseason finds? Will the bullpen right the ship and go on to have a decent year or will the tires continue to come off and keep the Royals from even being respectable?

Friday, April 9, 2010

ohh Trey

This may be Tokyo Trey´s most confused and ranting quote ever (and that´s saying a lot), read big T's explanation for the latest Royals bullpen disater, the contradictions embedded in this are numerous and jaw-droppingly funny....

“We’ve got to give guys an opportunity to settle into roles,” manager Trey Hillman said. “Sometimes, it takes a few days. We don’t have guys with a long history of being effective in the seventh and eighth innings. We’re going to have to develop it.

“Hopefully, we can get them in the right situations and get to the backside.”

“It’s disappointing, but I’ve seen a couple of other games on TV. There have been some other bullpens blow up with a lot higher payroll than ours and with a lot more guys established in the roles that they’re in.”

First off T-money claims that we just need some time for the guys to "settle in" because of course if you give a bunch of unsucessful relievers time, eventually they will be good. Right, it happens all the time.

He then moves on to point out that our guys don´t exactly have a long track record of "effectiveness" in the 7th & 8th. Now either this is a blunt reference to the fact that we suck or as Trey points out we just need to "develop it". Again, there is some force that chess master Trey just hasn´t unlocked yet, he´ll be brushing up on his Jedi training and motivational speeches to get all of our guys to that happy place where pressure just rolls off their sleeve. It´s all in the HIPS, Happy.

He further fleshes-out his award-winning bullpen development theory with a reference to finding the "right situations" for the gang. I think his next move will be to blow everyone's mind by starting the game out with relievers and closing it with starters. They are obviously not cutting it in the 7th and 8th so why not try the 1st and 2nd? BINGO, Trey, problem solved!

Then he takes a sligt turn and really gets to the heart of the problem. It´s the economy stupid! First, Trey lets us know that he watches TV and keeps tabs on all of those Richie Rich teams with their big payrolls and mind you they too get shelled. First off, Trey my dear boy, niether the Yanks nor the BoSox have one let alone a pair of set-up men as expensive as our beloved duo of Kyle Farnsworth and Juan Cruz. Not to mention - Trey goes on to explain - those guys are all "established" in their roles. So apparently at nearly 20 combined years in the bigs J Cruz and Farny are still trying to get it into their heads that they should be ready to pith when the starter leaves the game; i.e., be a 'relief' pitcher. Bullpen 101 is also still lost on Colon and Tejada who after an entire year of this last year just need a quick refresher course. Professor Trey, what was that again? Runs in the 7th and 8th with your team leading are bad? You're learning my boys, your "development" is progressing and soon you will be "established."

Okay, granted bullpen work is hard and its highly magnified but this opening series was too much and Trey could have just said nothing but he chose his words like a drunken sailor. According to him either we just need time or he has picked bad situations for his relievers or we need to spend spend spend or we need even older relievers (come back Ron Mahay you were so established).

My apologies to the combo of Grienke, Hochevar and Bannister; you guys tried to make it a nice opening series at the K. Develop it Trey!

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Déjà F#@&

If there were anything else new to say about the Royals opening day laugher I'd probably be writing for something other than a not-yet-recognized Royals' blog. So with that disclaimer lets have a laugh and re-live the aches and pains of Monday's foreshadowing to a long season.

So we start the year off by somehow going through an amazing three third basemen - along with second base the one place you might actually say the Royals have under control - to end up with Willie Bloomquist in the starting line-up. If you were a Royals fan, one thing that would lead you to believe that we were in trouble, would be this, he obviously played too much last year and did so because of injuries and such. So to see him anchoring 3B and the six-hole in the line-up on opening day was cringe-worthy indeed but then to have him commit an error in the first inning thus giving up an unearned run for Grienke was flat-out hysterical.

Moving along, DDJ leads off the game for us with a hit and then promptly Tokio Trey, master of the head-scratchers, has one of our new acquisitions bunt in his first AB of the year. Predictably, following the sac bunt neither Butler nor Ankiel drove in the run and you're saying to yourself, a $2 million bunter is what we got this off-season...actually I thought it was because he gets on base and scores runs.

Then this is where it gets good (not sarcastic good but hopeful good): Grienke rights the ship and Yuniesky hits an out-of-nowhere bomb and suddenly you're like I might actually watch a few more innings. Then it seems as if they are doing things like a real baseball team: Grienke puts it on cruise-control and in the fifth a two-out rally that gives fans and coaches orgasms; our new pick-up singles and steals a base, our veteran leader does the same, previously mentioned new addition that gets on base coaxes a walk and our bright young star delivers a two-out, two-RBI single off opposing teams number one starter. This is baseball, this is why fans are so loyal, 4-1 lead with Grienke rolling, ball game over, Right?

Grinke follows by getting tapped around a bit and you're on pins and needles until he reminds us of his Wooderson-like cool and all is well, 4-2 heading to the 7th.

Then you would have been rightfully struck by surprise in the seventh inning when chess master Hilman elected not to send out Grienke. But on the other hand...its a long year and you too have been reading about this new un-hittable slider that Roman Colon has, so you say lets test our new and improved bullpen. Colon was well...still hittable. Okay Tejada, lets see that guy from last September...guess what he's still on vacation. J Cruz, bounce back year...not exactly. Dust settles and the Royals go to bat in the bottom of the seventh down 8-4 and are quickly reminded of how meager their offense is. As a side note, our $4.5 mil power reliever/starter had a nice inning of clean-up duty.

Was this as bad as it could be for an opening day? Pretty much. Do we still have hope for this year? Much, much less. Completely crushed? Not quite. I think that about five more games like this would do the trick.