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.