From the title you know it's still very, very early in the baseball season, but this series just may offer us a glimpse at the coming power shift in the AL Central as the Royals and Indians are getting younger and more talented while the Sox, Tigers and Twins get older and take more trips to the DL. Unfortunately, the Royals couldn't quite pull off the sweep over the struggling Mariners, but taking the series 3-1 was a good indicator that there is still some gas in the tank of this early season stretch of good baseball. Now Cleveland comes to town even hotter than the Royals and will offer a slightly more challenging lineup than the one that just came to town featuring the fearsome Adam Kennedy DH-ing and hitting cleanup one night and the deadly Ryan Langerhans hitting in the 3-hole on the next night. I'll bet Kyle Davies is peeved he didn't get to pitch during that series and lower his ERA like the rest of the starting rotation. Seattle was a test to see if the Royals could take their turn kicking a team while they're down, but the Tribe will give us a chance to see how we fair against another up-and-coming team that might form the basis of the battle for the AL Central over the next few years. Here's what we saw and hope to continue seeing...
D-FENCE!
Eventually Alcides Escobar will have to get his OBP & SLG% above .300, but for now his amazing defensive exploits will do. He put on a stellar clinic of just what a shortstop with real range can do for a team and it's pitchers; every time he makes one of those ESPN Web Gems, that's exactly one less jam our pitchers have to get out of, and with a young bullpen and an unproven starting rotation that doesn't get many strikeouts this is a big, big help. All around there can't be too many complaints about the outfield; Gordon looks comfortable with a plus arm, the trimmed down Melky is tolerable in center and Francouer's arm might actually be just as impressive as Escobar's range (I'm thinking of the double play in Minnesota that almost ripped off Billy's arm). All in all they've been above average and that's about all we can expect until they have a CF with Escobar-like range to compliment whomever ends up at the corners over the next few years. As for the catcher position, does anyone miss Kendall's mad pitch blocking skills? This is one of those things that makes you rub your eyes a little bit and wonder if our defense really is good or is it just a mirage? It's been a long time since we could even pretend that our defense was major league caliber.
The battle rages on...
Who's on 3rd? With Aviles snapping out of an early season funk and Betemit continuing to prove that his bat is for real, the lineup card is getting tougher and tougher to fill out for Yost. Chris Getz has started to come back to earth a little bit and will eventually have to hit something other than seeing-eye singles because he has yet to prove that the value in his glove outweighs his inability to get the ball over the fence or even over an outfielders head and the time might be coming to try out Aviles at second again. At this point Wilson's bat has to be in the line-up and right now it's really more of a question mark as to who will finish the season at 2B because we know who's going to be at 3B. Kila is still getting his walks, but the homers are lagging behind and it would be nice for him get on a hot steak so as to make it a Aviles vs. Getz battle and not a revolving door of opposing pitcher match-ups. Still this has yet to become anything more than a case everyone playing well, i.e. a good thing.
Nit Picking Ned
It's hard to complain when you're playing well, but Ned's vision of how to manage a game is starting to get a little blurry. Today's bullpen management was a bit of head scratcher; can anyone answer the question of why he chose to use all of our best relievers (Jeffress, Collins and Crow) in yesterday's 7-0 blowout and today with the game tied and runners on we had to see the newly recalled Blake Wood? I don't think there is a great explanation for that and predictably Blake came in and showed exactly why he didn't make the team out of spring training. I'm starting to see way, way too many bunts as well, this is a classic sign of overmanagement and regardless of the situation, there are very few times in the game when a bunt is called for, let alone anytime someone leads-off with a single, please just let them swing the bats Yosty. Thankfully it appears that his full court press running game has died down a little bit, there is no reason that Billy Bulter needs to be attempting a stolen base and there is little reason that Wilson Betemit should have two more stolen bases than he has compiled in the last three years combined. I can just picture it now, Billy coming out of the game with a pulled hammy because Ned wanted surprise every one with his new found speed, the guy is a professional DH for a reason.
Right now things are still going in the right direction for the Royals, but Cleveland should provide us with a good early season litmus test as to the quality of the 2011 team.
No comments:
Post a Comment