Mama Said

The unkind streak is now at 8, and I'm particularly disturbed with the manner in which the Royals have lost their last two games against the Twins.

1) The Royals offense is still below average, but there's no reason they should be shut down by Joe Mays. Mays is NOT a good pitcher. He's a soft tossing, no-K journeyman and the kind of pitcher the Royals should pound. 8IP, 1 run is simply unacceptable. And the Royals once again wasted a pretty good performance from Greinke.

2) Last night, the bullpen imploded in a tight game situation. The offense had its way with Carlos Silva (a pitcher whose success is difficult to explain anyway), but Wood, Sisco and Nunez lost their nerve and the game with poor performances in the middle innings.

(Interlude: My eyes continue to tell me that Mike Wood is not a good pitcher. He always SEEMS to pitch poorly when there is something on the line.)

The J.P. Howell Jump from A Ball Experiment also needs to end soon, since its painfully obvious that he's not ready for major league hitters yet. Its one thing to breeze through high A ball (even in the desert) and demonstrate confidence on the mound, but let's give at least one of our promising young arms a chance to develop in AAA for while, eh?

-- I'd peg the chances of a third consecutive sweep at about 95%, given that the Royals are facing Radke and are throwing out Carrasco, whose 17K/18BB in 49IP belies his 3.49 ERA. Carrasco may be useful in some way for the Royals, but his "success" as a starter has been a mirage. Expect the unraveling to continue this afternoon.

-- A bit of good news: Denny Bautista is set to return from from the DL sometime in mid-July. I worry when the Royals don't say anything about their player's injuries, but in this case that worry appears (APPEARS) to be unfounded.

-- Jose Lima is on the verge of being DFA'd, so he wants to "round his performance up":

“If you look at my ERA,” he said, “all of the damage has come in one inning (each game). There’s always one inning where I give up three or four runs. Erase five or six bad innings this year, then I’d be in good shape.”

And Allard Baird agrees?

“The thing is he’s shown flashes,” general manager Allard Baird said. “At times, he’s thrown the ball very well. In San Francisco. Against the Cardinals. Against the Dodgers. But he’s shown the tendency to have one bad inning.”

Of course! By that logic, the Royals have probably played well in 90% of their innings this year, so just take away 60 or so innings of poor play and the Royals would be 51-25. They're JUST THAT CLOSE.

-- Thanks for David Pinto of Baseball Musings for the nice plug yesterday (solicited, I must admit). Every little bit helps.