Friday Splash

It's going to be another bizz-ay Friday, so I'm limited to some quick hits:

1) Even in the loss yesterday I was much more impressed with how the Royals continued to find a way to get back in the game (twice) by scrapping and clawing for runs. Bell probably made a mistake by allowing Nunez to get pummelled, but it was a lightning strike and the Royals do need to give Nunez a chance to try to get out of trouble of his own making.

2) Leo Nunez did the Royals in by throwing batting practice for 1 inning, which was unfortunately also the 6th inning. His woeful overall statistics (8.59 ERA, 1.50 WHIP) are the consequence of two unbelievably terrible outings:

2 Terribles: 2.1 IP, 11H, 11ER, 4BB, 1HR, 0K, 6.52 WHIP
All others: 12.1 IP, 6H, 3ER, 1BB, 8K, 0.56 WHIP

Can't ignore the terrible outings (one of which condemned the Royals to a loss, while the other was just piling on), but in some respects he hasn't been as uniformly bad as his 8.59 ERA would suggest. Whenever I've seen him pitch, he looks very good.

3) Jose Lima was probably as good as you could expect him to be yesterday, but it still isn't nearly enough to justify keeping him on this team when there are several youngsters (Snyder, Howell, Gobble) waiting in the wings. Those pitchers can be just as mediocre AND could actually grow from their experiences, while Lima just keeps shrinking.

4) The Royals are still completely silent about Bautista, who should be eligible to come off the DL by now. I hope his shoulder isn't worse than they originally thought.