The Worst game ever

We've all suffered through some pretty pathetic games as Royals fans, but I'm singling out today's loss to the Rangers as the worst one I've ever seen. There is so much to be frustrated about after that loss that I have no idea where to start. It had all of the makings of a good rebound game to head home with team heads high and in good spirits for a Memorial Day game on Monday. Instead it turned into a painful-to-watch meltdown that would understandably crush any positive team morale and could easily turn into a tailspin of losing baseball. For all of the pathetic losses that the Royals have endured over the two past week - in what we'll call the post Indians series season part of the season - they still could have came back from Texas in decent shape. The title of the last post was "Righting the Ship" which followed the 14-inning win on Friday, I'm now afraid that was premature; the ship has capsized and it's women-and-children-first time, so grab the nearest life vest if you're a Royals fan and hang on because I'd don't think the rescue vessel is coming anytime soon.

The Post Buster Posey Era Dilemma

Today's game ended on an RBI-single, with MIKE NAPOLI SCORING FROM FIRST!!!!! If you were forced to pick the least likely candidates to score from first on a single, Napoli would probably rank just behind Billy Butler as the least likely to do so. The truth is that after watching the replay 20 times, the actual call may not have been that bad, but this is the typical MLB play that never goes against the catcher: ball beats runner, runner out. That's just the way it is. What makes this play even more questionable is the timing; one of baseball's best young stars just lost the rest of his season because he was blocking the plate and got plowed at home trying to stop a run from scoring. This in turn ignited a serious debate about rule changes that should take place in baseball that prevent that type of play from happening. Everyone was in unanimous agreement that it had to change and that there were to be no more home plate collisions. Fast forward to Sunday, there is no doubt in my mind that every MLB team had been issued an urgent memo that there was to be no more blocking of home plate and subsequent collisions. I can't be sure that Pena was told this and that it was going through his mind during that play, but earlier in the year we have seen him block the plate to stop a run and on this particular play you could see him intentionally step away from the plate and attempt the swipe tag as opposed to the traditional plate blocking technique employed by catchers. Which begs the question, is there any way for this to be done safely? It almost seems logically/physically impossibe for a catcher not to 'block home plate' during a play-at-the-plate. Is he supposed to stay away and apply the tag meekly? If so, then we saw the result of this on Sunday with Brayan Pena and it cost the Royals  dearly. It could also be that Pena was scared to death of big Mike Napoli, but lets pretend that was not the determining factor. I'm going to be the baseball curmudgeon here and say that, I'm sorry Buster Posey got hurt, but baseball doesn't need some obscure rule which dictates how catchers are supposed to handle plays at home henceforth in a manner consistent with slow pitch softball. There was an easy solution to this problem; make Buster Posey play 1st Base, if this had happened to any number of veteran back-up catchers the problem would have never garnered so much attention. However it happened to young superstar Buster Bosey and now everyone is clamoring for the MLB to make changes, but the reality is that it is a rare exciting play in baseball and 9 out-of 10 times the only result is crowd cheering.  

The Fork is in

None of this play-at-the-plate discussion would have been necessary, if Joakim Soria wouldn't have blown his second consecutive save. He has looked so helpless in his last two save opportunities that I'm really not sure he deserves another chance to close the game. I actually hope he gets it and he can find some way to recover, but what once was one of the bright spots for the Royals has now turned into its biggest question mark. This question goes even further beyond the immediate concerns of the closer role for the rest of 2011, if this continues the Royals might well decline his option at the end of the season in hopes that he's still worth a draft pick or trade him now if he's still worth anything. If he continues like this, would you really want to pay him $6 mil next year? Especially when the best part of you team is every other relief pitcher not named Joakim Soria (or Vin Mazzaro). Let's assume the best here; he gets mostly back on-track, holds the closer job for the remainder of the season and finishes the year with a 4.50 ERA and 30-something saves, after what you've seen so far this year would you really want him back from a purely business decision-based standpoint? Everyone - including the PBR - talked about his trade value late last year and during the offseason, to which the Royals made it clear that he was not going to be traded despite the Yankees' best efforts. Now you've got damaged goods with little trade value, lots of second guessing and no real way-out but to let him keep pitching. What's a GM to do?

True Grit

Despite the day off work and the BBQ grills blazing, it's going to take a real effort to turn on tomorrow's game. The good old days of my Royals nausea are coming back again and it's going to take John Wayne + Jeff Bridges, with a dash of Jason Kendall, type Grit to get me through the rest of the year. Maybe I just need to take a Royals watching vacation and pretend I'm a Red Sox fan for a week. Is there any prescription strong enough for a Royals fan?