Royals Authority

Gift Wrap

By Craig Brown | April 30th, 2008

Seven runs in three innings from Brian Bannister is not how this was supposed to go down. Not against Kevin Millwood and the Texas Rangers.

Despite falling into the early hole, you got the feeling that the Royals bats would be heard from. I know, it sounds really strange to say something like that, but I’ve said before this Rangers pitching staff is awful.

It took longer than I thought - I figured that the Royals would be able to reach Texas starter Kevin Millwood by around the fifth. Instead, they waited until the seventh to break out.

On the other side, Bannister just didn’t have it. Three home runs allowed on Wednesday after allowing just a single home run in his first 32 innings. All three homers came on fastballs that looked to be grooved right over the heart of the plate. We’ve discussed this before… Bannister is very much a touch and feel pitcher. If he doesn’t have pinpoint control, it’s going to be a long night. He walked two and left way too many pitches out over the plate. It’s going to happen from time to time.

We just have to hope nights like this are a rare occurance.

A couple of quick hits as time is short this evening:

– David DeJesus batting third was interesting and I think it was a good idea. The guy is the hottest hitter on the team, so why not? He’s not the prototypical number three hitter, but there’s no one on this roster who is. Maybe Alex Gordon or Billy Butler someday, but they’re not there just yet. In a way it paid off as DeJesus went deep late in the game.

– So much for Guillen breaking out in Texas. He was 0-4 with a walk.

– I was kind of bummed Hillman stuck with Yosh Yabuta for three innings. Not to blame him for the loss (although he did allow the margin of victory) but I’m just not impressed.

So far, Hillman looks to be kind of stingy when going early to his bullpen. By stingy, I mean he wants to use as few relievers as possible. I wish he wouldn’t do that with pitchers like Yabuta, because it just feels like every outing from him is like a game of Russian Roulette - you might get one or two good innings, but a problem is lurking right around the corner.

And to give up a two run bomb after the Royals clawed back with five runs in the top half of the inning doesn’t make me happy. At that point, the Royals are down just three with two innings to go. As I’ve said, the Rangers pitching staff is horrible, so I was hoping that Hillman would change gears and manage as though he had a better than average chance to win. That would have meant bringing in a Ramon Ramirez or Leo Nunez from the bullpen.

Instead, we got more Yabuta and a bigger deficit.

– Again, Trey Hillman blew it in the ninth when he didn’t pinch hit for either Tony Pena or Joey Gathright. After John Buck hits a home run to cut the Ranger lead to two, you HAVE to pinch hit for Pena. I don’t care that at that point he was 2-4 with a double. He just cannot be allowed to have a bat in his hands in that situation.

And Gathright bunting back to the pitcher to end the game drives me insane.

Two slap hitters who can’t muscle the ball out of the infield are hitting back to back in the lineup with the game on the line in the ninth. I hope Ron Washington sends Hillman a thank you note for that gift.

– The Royals have now scored nine runs in back to back games and are 1-1 in those games. Sigh. This game felt winnable until Pena and Gathright hit in the ninth.

– Zack Greinke against Sidney Ponson on Thursday afternoon. Nine runs could happen again for the Royals.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 30th, 2008 at 8:03 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

14 Responses to “Gift Wrap”

Mark LaFlamme says:

April 30th, 2008 at 9:02 pm

This is the first game where I truly feel that the loss belongs squarely on Hillman. Like our wise host, I was aghast that he left Yabuta on the mound, especially when the Royals seemed poised for a stellar comeback. I wasn’t wondering if Yabuta would give up some runs, I was wondering how it would happen. And instead of Pena and Gathright in the ninth, why not Callaspo and Olivo?
If you have to lose to Texas, I suppose the way to do it is by making a 9-1 deficit suddenly interesting. That’s 18 runs in two days, so that’s something. Ton of runners left on, though.
JBOPP says:

April 30th, 2008 at 9:44 pm

did anybody catch splitt and ryan talking about how a homerun can kill a rally? friggin absurd.
Seth says:

May 1st, 2008 at 3:43 am

I didn’t see the Hamilton homerun, but Bradley’s I thought was on a good pitch. Down and away and he really dove out to get it. Maybe Bannister wasn’t pounding it inside enough to keep them from doing that.
Seth says:

May 1st, 2008 at 3:44 am

and I’m sick of listening to lefevre talk about the Quality Starts stat. Give it a rest already. Do you want to use Wins and Losses to evaluate a pitcher?
Eric says:

May 1st, 2008 at 3:56 am

Ugh… Yabuta strikes again. Like I said in an earlier post. I’m very frustrated with Hillman and how he’s handled the bullpen.
Especially when we are behind and might have a chance to comeback.
kcghost says:

May 1st, 2008 at 5:18 am

Some nights things just aren’t meant to be. Maybe Hillman stretched out Yabuta because of the amount of innings the bullpen threw the night before. Considering how many men had reached base in the first two innings against Yabuta it did seem risky to send him back out there for a third inning.

The more I watch Gordon the more I think he can’t hit a breaking ball down and in from a righthander and down and away from a lefthander. And Butler is just ice cold at the plate.
Chaim Mattis Keller says:

May 1st, 2008 at 7:24 am

Don’t forget today is a day game after the night game. That might have caused Trey to be more “stingy” with the bullpen than he would be in an ordinary game.
COroyal says:

May 1st, 2008 at 7:29 am

The message boards were alive re letting Pena hit in the 9th. It’s like he’s afraid to wreck his confidence by yanking him. I don’t get it. Nobody worries about Callaspo’s confidence by not playing him in the field. Or German’s the last couple of years. Or Butler wielding a machete at 1st trying to scoop errant throws.
Mark LaFlamme says:

May 1st, 2008 at 9:22 am

Bless you, Chaim. I would have forgotten today is a day game. Now I have to find a reason to go to work way late. Where there’s a will, and all that…
Ewing says:

May 1st, 2008 at 12:40 pm

Grienke v. Ponson as we’re heading into a series with Cleveland (and possibly CC Sabathia and Cliff Lee; not sure, I haven’t checked the pitching probables) and we lose. This is a very bad development. We needed this win today.

Texas had the worst record in the bigs going into the series. If you can’t figure it out by now, I am bummed.
JBOPP says:

May 1st, 2008 at 1:54 pm

We’re 12-14 through April. (12-15 today)

1. We’ve lost 3 of the last 4 series, splitting the two before that, and lost the series before that. That’s split-or-worse in every series except for 3 (@DET, NY, TOR).

2. We’ve won 3 of our last 6, but lost the 6 before that, putting us at 3 wins in our last 12 games.

3. We actually DID win 12 games in April, our best start since 2003 and two weeks ahead of last year.
Big Lee says:

May 1st, 2008 at 2:31 pm

Mike Aviles has an OPS of 1.100. And even though 24 games isn’t a huge sample-size, it’s worth noting. I know the defense will suffer, but it is time to flip-flop he and Pena until the latter learns to at least work counts. A previous poster thought we could outright Pena without exposing him to waivers. I’m not sure that even matters, but it needs to be said.

Pena may be a better SS in the long-haul, but he’s got to learn some offensive skills. If the Royals are throwing games in the 9th inning by not using Callaspo, then we shouldn’t be considered a major-league team.
steve y says:

May 1st, 2008 at 3:32 pm

Craig, the your joining the Cult of Brian may have been a jinx :). The Royals have serious hitting problems, and some minor managing problems on other issues. Trey seems able to adjust (stopped the bad base running), but needs to hunker down with Dayton and focus on the hitting. Yeah, pitching and defense come first and second, but when the hitting is such a distant third it can drag down the whole operation. Trey and Dayton need to man up and make some decisions to help the hitting, i.e. maybe get a good hitting coach, maybe help coach some hitters so they are not left to hopelessly founder without making adjustments and improving. I hate to say it, but one of the best things that happened to me today was to just now get home and get ready to tune in to the Royals game, which they already lost 2-1 with, it sounds like, a bunch of bad hitting. Sorry Zach, we are trying to get Trey and Datyon’s attention to get you some hitting help.
gbewing says:

May 1st, 2008 at 7:39 pm

No body hits Sydney Ponson -whaddya gonna do

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Craig Brown

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