This is Our Time... To Bunt?!

"Things the Royals do that make me mad", number one, bunt all the time.  Ned Yost has never been a manager who bunts a lot until this year.  There is one person who should bunt on this team, Chris Getz, other than that bunting should be very limited.  Multiple times this year the Royals have hit a leadoff double, only to attempt to bunt the runner to third.  If the Royals could actually bunt I would put up with it, but they are terrible at bunting.  Here is what bunting does.

1.  Lowers the confidence in your players.  When you decide to bunt, you are saying we don't trust you as a situational hitter.

2.  Concedes an out which greatly decreases your chances of a big inning.

3.  Can very easily get a player into a 0-2 count.  With today's players having the inability to lay down a good bunt, they often foul off two pitches trying to get the bunt perfectly down the line, leaving them in a pitchers count without confidence.

4.  Bunting the ball in play doesn't automatically get the runner over, and sometimes gets the lead runner out, leaving you worse off than if you struck out.

Bunting has it's place in the National League with pitchers, but the Royals need to build confidence and string together hits.

As for an overall take on the Royals I still love and them and they still drive me crazy.  They've won two games in a row, but it already feels like this season is over.  If they string together some wins in the next 3 to 4 weeks they could get back into the picture but the odds aren't in their favor.  The starting pitching is brutally awful right now (besides Chen).  The starters are going five innings almost ever start, which is a death sentence for the bullpen.  Another pet peeve of mine is seeing 0-2 and 1-2 pitches wasted all the time.  Giving up and 0-2 hit kind of sucks but getting outs early in the count, is key to lasting into the late innings.  Watching Hochevar pitch is so frustrating, he's 28 years old, and still hasn't learned to pitch.  I could rant all day long but I'll stop here, hope you enjoyed the post and thanks for reading.

This Sucks

The Royals Can't Be This Awful

Desperate times call for desperate measures, and a desperate measure for the Royals would be to spend money.  If this is "Our Time" then make it our time.  Go sign Edwin Jackson, go sign Mark Buehrle, do something that shows the fans and players that you are committed to winning. I wish it was easier for me not to care about the Royals.  I would love to find an "unfan" button in my heart, just like an "unfriend" button on Facebook.  But as long as they play in Kansas City I am almost certain I will be a fan.

Last year at this time the Royals were doing all the little things right, and you felt like they were going to win every close game.  This year they remind me of a high school baseball team.  They are throwing to the wrong bases, getting picked off, and swinging at everything.  I think the Royals should just forfeit the final game of the series and have a movie day.  First, watch Moneyball, to learn how to play the game, work the count, move runners over, play baseball the right way.  Next, you can never go wrong with Rocky, I'm not sure which one would be best, so I'll let Ned decide.  Hmmm... This is a tough call, but for the third movie I'd go with Tin Cup, it is not baseball related but a damn good movie, and pretty motivational.  The obvious choice to finish off is The Sandlot.  This movie is a classic and every time I watch this I have the urge to go play baseball.  After further thought, a movie day is probably not a realistic solution, Blu-ray discs are pretty expensive.

I am finding it really hard to find positives.  I was going to mention how good Duffy has been but peer pressure got the best of him.  What is awful about the Royals is that their best starts this year haven't given the bullpen any sort of break.  They struggle to make it through five innings, leaving their bullpen overworked and exposed.  But don't worry, there is hope, it just happens to reside in a different part of the city.

Representing Kansas City Right

Sporting KC did lose their first game on Saturday, but they are still up four games on the Royals.  I'm not going to go into much detail on Sporting right now because I have a soccer post I've been working on coming out in a few days where I go into further detail on their season and team.  Thanks for reading, hopefully next time I write the Royals will have won a game.

It's Not Too Late to Buy Into Sporting KC

Seriously...

I am past the point of mad at the Royals, I'm disappointed in them.  I realize it's only been 9 games, which is a very small sample size in the grand scheme of things, but it has been a shitty sample.  They were supposed to be better, and some thought they'd be good.  As much as I downplayed my expectations for the season I really thought they could make a run, or at least become relevant.  The Royals are that girl that you've had a crush on for years, but you can never find the courage to ask out.  When you finally do ask her, she says she doesn't feel the same way, and you're left broken hearted.  Not only did the Royals reject me, they had the audacity to offer me the 4th spot in the rotation, just a complete slap in the face.

After 6 games the Royals' starting pitching looked to be greatly improved.  3 games and 32 runs later my opinion has been changed. Starting pitching isn't everything as the San Francisco Giants learned last year, but you can't win without it.  I keep telling myself it's only 9 games, every team goes through a slump, lets just hope this is the Royals' slump.  It's hard to put the blame on one player, (unless you're Bill Buckner) but you can't blame the offense, they scored enough runs to win 1 if not 2 games this past series.  The source of the problem is starting pitching.  When the starting pitching is bad, the relief pitching is abused.  They had to send down Dyson to pick up another pitcher for the final game of the series.  And then used outfielder Mitch Maier to pitch a scoreless 9th inning.  Some of the blame has to go to the defense as well.  Some of their mistakes have cost them this year, the worst being Escobar's error against the A's.  Hopefully the Royals can turn it around, but Royals history paints us a different picture.

Sporting KC 6-0-0 

Sporting Kansas City is amazing.  Through six games they have allowed 1 goal, and are dominating the MLS.  I could go on and on about how much I have enjoyed watching, and following this team.  I'd love to write about Sporting KC this year but I'm not sure about everybody reading this.  Shoot me a text or leave a comment if you are interested in reading about Sporting KC on regular basis.

3-3 Should Feel Better

This was one of those games you would rather lose 8-1 than blow a lead in the 12th.  Ugh this is also one of those days where you ask yourself "why do I care so much?" And "why am I still a Royals fan?"  Nevertheless the Royals should feel good about their first two series.

The starting pitching was very good in the first six games.  The pitchers didn't pitch deep into games but they were effective and didn't allow many runs.  Duffy looked the best but... it was against three major league caliber players and six number nine hitters.  All six of the starts have been encouraging and it appears the Royals new pitching coach is a keeper.  With all of this said there are still 156 more games where the starting pitching has a chance to suck.

Chen:  11 innings 2 ER's
Hochever:  6.1 innings 2 ER's
Sanchez:  5 innings 2 ER's
Mendoza:  5.2 innings 1 ER
Duffy:  6 innings 0 ER's

There's not a whole lot to say about the lineup.  Through 6 games they rank about 10th offensive numbers.  Besides Frenchie and Butler the lineup is struggling but it's way too early to make any conclusions.

The Royals have a day off before they start a 10 game home-stand.  This is a very crucial 10 games, if they struggle it could be the start of a long season, If they can win 6 or 7 games there is still hope.  As for the Royals' new announcer Rex Hudler, I really don't like him.  He is in a very tough situation though.  He hasn't been a Royals fan and cannot relate to the fans, he doesn't know what we've been through.  I'm trying to cut him some slack though, the anger should be directed at the Royals ownership and not him.

I'm still trying to develop a schedule on how often I should write and how I should organize it.  I know this isn't much but at least I didn't wait another two months to post again.